Minutes Comparison Toronto, GSW and Celtics

[otherdave]

So a little more than a quarter into the season, Toronto and GSW's stars are averaging lots of minutes compared to C's

through 12/10 games:

Toronto:
K Leonard     34.7
K Lowry        34.1

GSW:
K Durant       35.8
K Thompson  34.6
S Curry         33.5   (yes he has missed some games with injuries)

Boston's minutes leaders:
K Irving         31.7
J Tatum         31.0
A Horford      30.0
J. Brown       27.8
G Hayward    26.7
M Morris       26.7


Does anyone think all of these minutes played in regular season will come back to haunt Toronto and GSW deep into the playoffs in May/maybe June?

I know KC Jones had all those 1980's teams log alot of minutes and eventually Bird and McHale's bodies broke down.

Over the years Pop has been a master with minutes control by regularly going deep into his bench during the regular season.

I am very grateful that Boston has such a deep bench this year.  We may not have the best starting five, but I would put our top 10, 11 or 12 against any other team's.  I think our deep bench will pay big dividends come May and June!!!

[Chris22]

Protect Kyrie at all costs. Put him in a glass case until the playoffs.

[Moranis]

I don't consider 34-36 minutes to be all that many or any real concern.  I wouldn't mind seeing Boston's guys play more minutes so that an actual rotation can be figured out.

[slamtheking]

I don't consider 34-36 minutes to be all that many or any real concern.  I wouldn't mind seeing Boston's guys play more minutes so that an actual rotation can be figured out.

i agree with the bolded part.  if the opposition was logging 39+ minutes a game, then maybe it might bother them deep in the playoffs but at their current levels, I don't think it'll matter much.

[footey]

I don't consider 34-36 minutes to be all that many or any real concern.  I wouldn't mind seeing Boston's guys play more minutes so that an actual rotation can be figured out.

Looks like it already has. Like Smart and Morris starting.

[Big333223]

The minutes question is interesting. Guys used to play 38-40 mpg regularly. Now no one does.

But the game has also changed a lot. There's a lot more moving around on defense than there used to be so those minutes are harder.

I don't know what the optimal minutes distribution is but I don't think Toronto and Warrior fans should be worried about their guys.

[RodyTur10]

I would even like to see Horford's minutes to go down. Let him play around 25 minutes a night. We've seen that Theis and Williams can be relied on to play some extra minutes.

[nickagneta]

Boston is the deepest team in the league. That explains a lot. The other contenders simply don't have literally two 5 man groups that could be successful starting units in the league.

But, as Moranis pointed out, 34-36 minutes isn't a lot of minutes, or at least not so much that it would be concerning for under 32 year old stars.

[gift]

I don't consider 34-36 minutes to be all that many or any real concern.  I wouldn't mind seeing Boston's guys play more minutes so that an actual rotation can be figured out.

It's hard to draw a definite line between just right and maybe a little too much. That said, if I had to draw that line it would fall somewhere between 34 and 36. At closer to 34 I really have no concerns. At 36 I begin to have a little. So yeah, most of these guys are late-20's early-30's and there's not a real problem with their minutes. If it was late March and I see Kawhi is averaging like 36.1, though. I start to think he should see a decrease.

[celticsclay]

I think 34-36 is too high for big men or guys over 31 or 32. I think the optimal for them is about 30-32 minutes. (Coaches understand this and, outside of embiid and gasoline which is crazy), very few coaches play their traditional big men this very much. Lowe had a data intensive column on this last year speculating cousins minutes tied to his blowing out his Achilles.

[Donoghus]

I don't know if it'll really haunt any of those teams but I'm glad the Celtics are doing their part to minimize their regular season minutes. 

Season starts in mid-April.  Just stay healthy thru then. Priority #1.

[KGs Knee]

I think Durant's minutes might come down a bit over the season, so long as Curry stays healthy.

But otherwise, I think those players on TOR/GSW are all reasonable minutes totals. I wouldn't want Horford playing those kind of minutes, though. He's past the days of playing high regular season minutes, and probably needs to play 3-5 minutes less until the playoffs.

[LarBrd33]

The league has changed a lot.  Remember back in the day when it wasn’t uncommon for players to average 43 minutes per night.  Iverson was able to pad his stats for most of his career getting crazy minutes like that.  The whole “playoff rondo” thing was influenced in large part by Rajon averaging 43 minutes in the playoffs. More minutes = more stats.   I was comparing Tatum to other elite prospects through history and saw LeBron James averaged 42 during his second season.

I know big picture it’s nice to keep our minutes down, but the fan part of me gets a little annoyed.  Like, Tatum averaging 31mpg... I kinda want to see him get 35 (and more touches) so he can average 20+ Points and make an allstar team.  I know if he was playing on a lesser team he’d probably be averaging close to 26 points right now.

[Monkhouse]

The league has changed a lot.  Remember back in the day when it wasn’t uncommon for players to average 43 minutes per night.  Iverson was able to pad his stats for most of his career getting crazy minutes like that.  The whole “playoff rondo” thing was influenced in large part by Rajon averaging 43 minutes in the playoffs. More minutes = more stats.   I was comparing Tatum to other elite prospects through history and saw LeBron James averaged 42 during his second season.

I know big picture it’s nice to keep our minutes down, but the fan part of me gets a little annoyed.  Like, Tatum averaging 31mpg... I kinda want to see him get 35 (and more touches) so he can average 20+ Points and make an allstar team.  I know if he was playing on a lesser team he’d probably be averaging close to 26 points right now.

Eh... Being an All-Star is slightly overrated award/accolade to receive, but I get your point.

[LarBrd33]

The league has changed a lot.  Remember back in the day when it wasn’t uncommon for players to average 43 minutes per night.  Iverson was able to pad his stats for most of his career getting crazy minutes like that.  The whole “playoff rondo” thing was influenced in large part by Rajon averaging 43 minutes in the playoffs. More minutes = more stats.   I was comparing Tatum to other elite prospects through history and saw LeBron James averaged 42 during his second season.

I know big picture it’s nice to keep our minutes down, but the fan part of me gets a little annoyed.  Like, Tatum averaging 31mpg... I kinda want to see him get 35 (and more touches) so he can average 20+ Points and make an allstar team.  I know if he was playing on a lesser team he’d probably be averaging close to 26 points right now.

Eh... Being an All-Star is slightly overrated award/accolade to receive, but I get your point.

Paul Pierce during his second season (a couple years older than Tatum), averaged 35.4 mpg and 15 shot attempts.  He ended up averaging 19.5 points.  Next couple seasons he was up to 38-40mpg with 18.5-19.5 shot attempts per game ... hence why he was able to get 25-26ppg. 

I'm just saying, from a pure fan standpoint, it's a bit annoying to see Tatum only getting 31mpg and only 13 shot attempts.  The kid is elite, but people still aren't giving him credit because he's "only" averaging 16ppg.  I mean... look at his stats this season:

16.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1 steal with .469/.419/844 shooting in 31mpg.

If you inflate his shot attempts from 13 to 19.5, he's averaging 25 points.

If you inflate Tatum's minutes to 40mpg (as Pierce did his 4th season),  he's easily dropping 20+. 

You're right that the accolades don't matter, but I just think it results in people underselling how great this kid actually, because they look at someone like Donovan Mitchell averaging more minutes and taking 18 shots per game compared to Tatum's 13 and they act like the bigger bulk numbers mean he's a better player.   Also just thinking 15-20 years from now when we look at Tatum's career, he's going to get a little robbed in the all-time books, because he didn't get the same type of freedom other young stars got in their early years.  I have every reason to believe Tatum is going to surpass Pierce in terms of skill and talent, but Pierce probably ends up having the more impressive numbers simply because he had more minutes and attempts.  FWIW, Tatum technically has a head start.  He's still a year younger than Paul was when Pierce entered the league after 3 seasons at Kansas.  So maybe Tatum's 3rd year stats will dwarf Paul's rookie stats.