Because just as I was saying throughout the Off-season, he's just not a very good player.
Bass' play last season was grossly overrated based on the fact that he did one single thing exceptionally well - hit 12-15 foot jumpers. Everything else from his post game, to his defense, to his ball movement to his rebunding were all mediocre at best.
This year he is the same player, only now he is hitting his midrange jumpers at around 45% rather than 50% like last season. Now that his jumpshot is merely 'above average' rather than 'elite' it making his other weaknesses stand out more.
Offensively, he is one of the worst inside scorers I have seen at the PF position. Anytime he gets the ball inside (either via a pass or an offensive rebound) he holds the ball and brings it down...the he waits a good 1-2 seconds so some help defenders can rush over...then he tries to go up to score. He either:
1. Gets blocked
2. Gets stripped
3. Misses the shot
4. Loses the ball by bouncing off his foot
5. Gets bailed out by a lucky foul
Yes he's been one of our better offensive rebounders (not that this is saying much) but it's useless if he's just going to do the above and give the posession right back anyway.
His defense is spotty and inconsistent (sometimes good, sometimes terrible), he's got poor hands and offensive awareness, he's a mediocre rebounder who is grabbing one or two extra this season from hustle alone, and he's an incredibly limited offensive player who is completely incapable of scoring 1-on-1 with any type of consistency.
As another mentioned previously he is a bench-calibre player who is starting purely out of necessity rather than because he's a legit starting talent. I won't go so far as to say he's a mediocre bench player (as suggested above). I'd say he is an above average bench player, but a below average starter.
To be brutally honest I think we played better when Sullinger was starting alongside KG and Bass was coming off the bench. I don't mine the Green-Bass-Wilcox combination with the second unit, while Sullingers rebounding and ability to bang inside complements very nicely with KG's game.
Also Sullinger (like KG) has exceptionally good hands, has high IQ and is a skilled passer. This works better with guys like KG, Pierce and Rondo who also have those same skills - we have some excellent ball movement when that group of guys is out there.
Last year unfortuantely Bass was just a product of the "decent player on a bad team" philisophy. I know it sounds wrong to call a team that came 1 win from the ECF a bad team, but lets be honest - based on the talent alone we were pretty poor...we overachieved because of heart and effort. With Green and Wilcox our for the season, our front court rotation consisted of:
* Brandon Bass
* Greg Steimsma
* Ryan Hollins
I think it's easy to see why Bass looked so impressive - he was essentially stood out from the crowd not because of his own ability, but because of the LACK of ability from the rest of the guys at his position.
