Why Doc doesn't experiment with Lineup Changes?

[MBunge]

And Rondo wasn't disproportionately better than his minutes indicate at any point in his rookie year, another shocker. The guy shot below .400 from the field in 4 of his first 5 months in the league.

So, you're saying Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair were playing the point BETTER than Rondo was that year?  'Cause that was your argument, that Doc always focused on the rhythm of his "best" players.

For the most part of his rookies season, Rajon Rondo was not our best solution at PG.

You seem not to understand that a player's capability to contribute is not a constant over time.

The only two other options at the point were Delonte and Telfair, and Delonte played a lot at the 2.

DWest in 06-07 - 32.2 minutes, 12.2 pts, 42% shooting, 4.4 asts, PER of 14
Telfair in 06-07 - 20 minutes, 6.1 pts, 37% shooting, 2.8 asts, PER of 8.6
Rondo in 06-07 - 23.5 minutes, 6.4 pts, 41% shooting, 3.8 asts, PER of 13.1

Everyone with eyes could see that Rondo was, if not clearly the best PG on the roster already, had absolutely the most potential to develop into a great PG.  Despite that and despite the team clearly being lottery-bound from early in the season, Doc wouldn't even play him for half the game.  If Doc's main priority is the rhythm of his best players, he would have given Rondo more minutes.  Doc had other priorities in that case and they may have been good ones.  Perhaps he was worried about Rondo's bad habits and didn't want to let him think he had the PG spot locked up.  That doesn't change the fact that your assertion that Doc's priority is the rhythm of his best players is provably false.  The rhythem of his veteran players, perhaps, but not his best ones.

Mike

[MBunge]

Not this Indiana game -- the previous one

You mean the one where Pierce went 3-17 and had 5 turnovers?  The one where KG played 34 minutes and was -14?  The one where Bass played 25 minutes and was -10?  But it was Stiemsma's play in that game that DEMANDED Doc cut his minutes to almost nothing?

Because how Pierce played really affects Stiemsma's minutes, right?

And yes, both Bass and Garnett (and O'Neal too, for that matter) actually played better than Stiemsma in this game, who would have thought. Which is more of an indication of Stiemsma's performance, if anything.

Your argument was that Stiemsma's performance in the Indiana game was so horrible that it led to Doc cutting his minutes to almost nothing.  Yet you've offered no metric other than a couple of bad plays to justify that.  EVERYBODY plays poorly and if you only play them 7 minutes, that stretch of bad play may be all they get.  You don't have to look hard to find several minute stretches where everyone on this team has played like crap.  So, why is a supposedly bad performance against Indiana held against Stiemsma to such an extent that Doc played him just 1, 3 and 1 minute in 3 of the next 4 games?

Stiemsma is giving up a PER of 24(!) to opposing centers, head and shoulders above (or if you wish, below) everyone else on our team. How is that for a metric?

According to PER, Stiemsma is giving up 24.9 to opposing centers while scoring a 17.8 PER himself.  JO racks up an 8.4 PER while giving up a 15.8 PER to opposing centers.  So, Steamer's PER differential is actually better than JO's.

Mike

[Celtics18]

And Rondo wasn't disproportionately better than his minutes indicate at any point in his rookie year, another shocker. The guy shot below .400 from the field in 4 of his first 5 months in the league.

So, you're saying Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair were playing the point BETTER than Rondo was that year?  'Cause that was your argument, that Doc always focused on the rhythm of his "best" players.

For the most part of his rookies season, Rajon Rondo was not our best solution at PG.

You seem not to understand that a player's capability to contribute is not a constant over time.

The only two other options at the point were Delonte and Telfair, and Delonte played a lot at the 2.

DWest in 06-07 - 32.2 minutes, 12.2 pts, 42% shooting, 4.4 asts, PER of 14
Telfair in 06-07 - 20 minutes, 6.1 pts, 37% shooting, 2.8 asts, PER of 8.6
Rondo in 06-07 - 23.5 minutes, 6.4 pts, 41% shooting, 3.8 asts, PER of 13.1

Everyone with eyes could see that Rondo was, if not clearly the best PG on the roster already, had absolutely the most potential to develop into a great PG.  Despite that and despite the team clearly being lottery-bound from early in the season, Doc wouldn't even play him for half the game.  If Doc's main priority is the rhythm of his best players, he would have given Rondo more minutes.  Doc had other priorities in that case and they may have been good ones.  Perhaps he was worried about Rondo's bad habits and didn't want to let him think he had the PG spot locked up.  That doesn't change the fact that your assertion that Doc's priority is the rhythm of his best players is provably false.  The rhythem of his veteran players, perhaps, but not his best ones.

Mike

I've been a huge Rondo fan from the moment I saw him in a green jersey, but I don't buy that it was a slam dunk that he was the best point guard on that '06-'07 team from the start of the season.  He had to win that job from D. West and Telfair as a late first round rookie who had a lot of question marks coming in.  

I'm glad he earned the job, though.

[kozlodoev]

Based on the overall body of work that you've presented, I don't see what makes Rondo better than West at that stage of their respective careers. West was coming off of an extremely solid sophomore season and was clearly the more established NBA player.

As far as "everyone with eyes" is concerned, I vividly remember those people saying the same about Marcus Banks, a couple of years earlier, so hindsight is 20/20 I guess.

[MBunge]

Based on the overall body of work that you've presented, I don't see what makes Rondo better than West at that stage of their respective careers. West was coming off of an extremely solid sophomore season and was clearly the more established NBA player.

And Telfair?  His 20 minutes a game?

Mike

[European NBA fan]

And Rondo wasn't disproportionately better than his minutes indicate at any point in his rookie year, another shocker. The guy shot below .400 from the field in 4 of his first 5 months in the league.

So, you're saying Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair were playing the point BETTER than Rondo was that year?  'Cause that was your argument, that Doc always focused on the rhythm of his "best" players.

For the most part of his rookies season, Rajon Rondo was not our best solution at PG.

You seem not to understand that a player's capability to contribute is not a constant over time.

The only two other options at the point were Delonte and Telfair, and Delonte played a lot at the 2.

DWest in 06-07 - 32.2 minutes, 12.2 pts, 42% shooting, 4.4 asts, PER of 14
Telfair in 06-07 - 20 minutes, 6.1 pts, 37% shooting, 2.8 asts, PER of 8.6
Rondo in 06-07 - 23.5 minutes, 6.4 pts, 41% shooting, 3.8 asts, PER of 13.1

Everyone with eyes could see that Rondo was, if not clearly the best PG on the roster already, had absolutely the most potential to develop into a great PG.  Despite that and despite the team clearly being lottery-bound from early in the season, Doc wouldn't even play him for half the game.  If Doc's main priority is the rhythm of his best players, he would have given Rondo more minutes.  Doc had other priorities in that case and they may have been good ones.  Perhaps he was worried about Rondo's bad habits and didn't want to let him think he had the PG spot locked up.  That doesn't change the fact that your assertion that Doc's priority is the rhythm of his best players is provably false.  The rhythem of his veteran players, perhaps, but not his best ones.

Mike

You are writing with hindsight. People - other than Rondo and possibly Ainge - actually believed that Telfair was the best point guard.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2010/news/story?page=Rondo-Chapter5
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2010/news/story?page=Rondo-Chapter6

[MBunge]

And Rondo wasn't disproportionately better than his minutes indicate at any point in his rookie year, another shocker. The guy shot below .400 from the field in 4 of his first 5 months in the league.

So, you're saying Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair were playing the point BETTER than Rondo was that year?  'Cause that was your argument, that Doc always focused on the rhythm of his "best" players.

For the most part of his rookies season, Rajon Rondo was not our best solution at PG.

You seem not to understand that a player's capability to contribute is not a constant over time.

The only two other options at the point were Delonte and Telfair, and Delonte played a lot at the 2.

DWest in 06-07 - 32.2 minutes, 12.2 pts, 42% shooting, 4.4 asts, PER of 14
Telfair in 06-07 - 20 minutes, 6.1 pts, 37% shooting, 2.8 asts, PER of 8.6
Rondo in 06-07 - 23.5 minutes, 6.4 pts, 41% shooting, 3.8 asts, PER of 13.1

Everyone with eyes could see that Rondo was, if not clearly the best PG on the roster already, had absolutely the most potential to develop into a great PG.  Despite that and despite the team clearly being lottery-bound from early in the season, Doc wouldn't even play him for half the game.  If Doc's main priority is the rhythm of his best players, he would have given Rondo more minutes.  Doc had other priorities in that case and they may have been good ones.  Perhaps he was worried about Rondo's bad habits and didn't want to let him think he had the PG spot locked up.  That doesn't change the fact that your assertion that Doc's priority is the rhythm of his best players is provably false.  The rhythem of his veteran players, perhaps, but not his best ones.

Mike

You are writing with hindsight. People - other than Rondo and possibly Ainge - actually believed that Telfair was the best point guard.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2010/news/story?page=Rondo-Chapter5
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2010/news/story?page=Rondo-Chapter6

There may have been some question before the season.  Once it got underway, I don't think there were too many who kept thinking that Telfair was better.  What I do remember is that Doc not playing Rondo more was one of the bigger issues discussed during that awful year.

Mike

[kozlodoev]

Based on the overall body of work that you've presented, I don't see what makes Rondo better than West at that stage of their respective careers. West was coming off of an extremely solid sophomore season and was clearly the more established NBA player.

And Telfair?  His 20 minutes a game?

Mike

I am unsure what this question is supposed to mean.

He wasn't getting 20 minutes per game in and out over the course of the whole season. He played a lot and played more or less ok over the first month (certainly better than Rondo). Then proceeded to suck and was relegated to a 10 mpg duty. His minutes went back up towards the end of the season when we were in "mop-up" mode.

[kozlodoev]

According to PER, Stiemsma is giving up 24.9 to opposing centers while scoring a 17.8 PER himself.  JO racks up an 8.4 PER while giving up a 15.8 PER to opposing centers.  So, Steamer's PER differential is actually better than JO's.

His PER is actually up to 10.5 after accounting for the last 2 games where he averaged 10+ rpg. So I guess we can revisit this discussion after 82games updates.

[MBunge]

Based on the overall body of work that you've presented, I don't see what makes Rondo better than West at that stage of their respective careers. West was coming off of an extremely solid sophomore season and was clearly the more established NBA player.

And Telfair?  His 20 minutes a game?

Mike

I am unsure what this question is supposed to mean.

He wasn't getting 20 minutes per game in and out over the course of the whole season. He played a lot and played more or less ok over the first month (certainly better than Rondo). Then proceeded to suck and was relegated to a 10 mpg duty.

Telfair continued to get 20 to 30+ minutes a game through the middle of January.  That's two-and-half months into the season.  If Telfair "proceeded to suck" after the first month, why was he still playing so many minutes for another month-and-a-half?

I realize Doc is the pope of your religion, but you might want to think about converting with the way this season is going.

Mike

[MBunge]

According to PER, Stiemsma is giving up 24.9 to opposing centers while scoring a 17.8 PER himself.  JO racks up an 8.4 PER while giving up a 15.8 PER to opposing centers.  So, Steamer's PER differential is actually better than JO's.

His PER is actually up to 10.5 after accounting for the last 2 games where he averaged 10+ rpg. So I guess we can revisit this discussion after 82games updates.

Providing Stiemsma gets to play more than 1 to 4 minutes a game.  It's kind of hard for any stat, PER included, to be worth anything with such a skewed sample.

Mike

[ballin]

Sorry koz, but players don't have their minutes cut because of a single bad game. So, assuming for the sake of the argument that Stiemsma really stunk it up the other Indiana game, that alone doesn't get him sent to the bench, as your theory goes.

Doc has sent him to the bench because 1) that's what Doc does with rookies 2) Doc didn't like what he saw in practice.

Just about about everyone other than you says it's because of reason #1. And if it's because of reason #2, then nobody here would actually know that that is the reason.

Your theory that one bad game got Stiemsma stuck to the bench seems at odds with reality. And lastly, even if that were the case, well then that's just another reason to criticize Doc.

[Chris]

Sorry koz, but players don't have their minutes cut because of a single bad game. So, assuming for the sake of the argument that Stiemsma really stunk it up the other Indiana game, that alone doesn't get him sent to the bench, as your theory goes.

They do if they won their minutes based on 1 (or 2) game(s), like Steimsma did.  He performed well for 1 game, earned some more minutes.  He failed to continue to succeed in those chances, so his minutes got cut back.  He is still well above where he would have been before those first couple games.

Of course, we are talking semantics here.  First, I don't think he was ever "sent to the bench"...because I don't think he was ever really off it.  He was forced into action because of injury, and Doc rode the hot hand when he was hot, and then put him back where he belonged when he cooled down, and the injured player returned (and the opponent got better/adjusted).

[kozlodoev]

Doc has sent him to the bench because 1) that's what Doc does with rookies 2) Doc didn't like what he saw in practice.

There is also the remote possibility that Garnett, O'Neal, and Bass are better players 

Also, something we haven't discussed is that the return of Pietrus made it possible for us to go small-ball with him at the 4.

[MBunge]

and then put him back where he belonged when he cooled down, and the injured player returned (and the opponent got better/adjusted).

Well, that's closer to the truth.  Stiemsma did not "cool down" because he wasn't give a chance to.  Again, his minutes this season are...

20
16
12
21
12
7
3
1
9
1

That 21 minute game was his best of the season and there's no freakin' way you can say he "cooled down" in one game after that to have his minutes so severely slashed.  But Doc certainly did put Stiemsma back where he thought he "belonged", which is kind of the whole problem.

Mike