Ok, so a guy is working, comes in and plays some decent minutes, shows a little improvement and does some good things and then you reward that by stiffing him at any cost on minutes ( and I'm not just talking about letting him play in the Lakers game, I understand why he didn't play in that game. I'm talking about the day to day marathon of the regular season). Perkins was a walking disaster for 3 years but you know, we had to keep playing him to get him "past" his deficiencies in practice and "on the floor". that's called player developement. Think Courtney Lee in Orlando hasn't stucnk it up plenty off an on all season. Or Oden in Portland, guy looks like an eigth grade player in some games. Much better in others.
And don't give this we're now a championship team and we can't develope players the same way. Just because you're competing for a title doesn't mean you don't still develope young players at the same time. You know, maybe giving O'Bryant 5-10 minuts early on, especially since we have no legit back up center, might result in "more" wins than less. Why? Maybe Perk and KG are 5-10 minutes more rested down the stretch of games.
And don't give me he can lose you the game in the second quarter either. On that vein, how many games then have KG, Pierce and Ray Allen lost in the 1st and second quarters over the last two years when they've come out and completely stunk it up in the first half. Answer...alot of games where they are just dialing it in, thinking they can show up and win. Then, like alot of games last year, the bench had to come and and bail their butts out. I guess we should've have benched them for it. So, much like it is predicted POB will lose us games in the second quarter, I Guess we can say the proof for that line of thinking lies with the documented evidence of the three hall of famers on our team and their horrid intermittent first and second quarter starts since they've been here...when they look like crap...like all players, nobody is stud every day, including KG, Pierce and Ray Allen.
While we're at it, because TAllen is such a disaster, why don't we just bench him, and POB, Ice both of them because they blow...then let's play Pierce, Ray Allen, Perk and KG all 48 minutes a night.
Look, if we had even Scott Pollard or PJ Brown on the bench I wouldn't engage in this argument, it would be pointless. You'd continue to develope him more in practice, shoot for next year. The fact is, we have no length after Perk and KG and as hard as Scal, Powe and baby work, they don't bring the length POB has. And it's not just he's tall..he also "is starting to do some nice things in spurts"
We don't have something better than POB behind Perk right now as far as height goes. We don't have anything better than TA right now ( read no Posey). We have no Posey, PJ or other...right now...(hopefully Ainge changes that in the next 21 days).
You use what you have.
I'd be alot, lot more worried about keeping KG, PP and Ray fresh and rested for the playoffs by stealing/finding minutes of rest for them during the season by using POB, TAllen and Pruitt and even Walker for that matter for small 3-5, 5-7 minute spurts of playing time, mixed in with the starters, than I would be about whether POB, TA, Pruitt or Walker are going to ruin our 2009 championship aspiration in 5 minutes time
And exhausted KG, PP and Ray will assure of of that failure.
You use what have, be optimistic and you might find the playres develope and contribute a bit more the more comfortable they get.
You cna usually tell immediately whetehr a player is "in it" when he gets on the court, or not. If he's not, you yank him and try again the next game.
Topic: Too bad we don't have a 7 footer on the bench to cover Gasol..! (Read 15302 times)