That's it Stan..

[magickingdom]

Yea Stan, go ahead and wear out the starters and don't develop the new guys.
That should be great come the end of the season. But yea, win at any cost and do it now.
I remember Brian Hill never playing the bench. Then during the finals, He had no other options.
And it ended up biting him in the butt.
I know that we want to win now, but as the coach for the long run, He needs to find a balance.

[eyriq]

He did the same thing last year, and in his two years in Miami he played his star(s) 37 minutes a game too.

Last year Rivers kept his stars under 34 min a game, but I think age also played into that. Same with Pop in most of the Spurs championship runs, but early on he rode Duncun like a horse. Sloan does the same with Williams.

What I wonder is if coaches will play their players more if they are younger and not as used to winning, so as to build up the culture.

Obviously playing your guys more minutes is like driving with the petal to the medal, you go faster and experience the rush, but you use up more gas and have to fill up sooner. Maybe that's part of breaking in the engine so to speak.

imo, Stan is just trying to ingrain a culture of winning, and once he does, which is very rare indeed, then I'd assume he'd let up.

[MagicMadness]

I can sort of understand why he has a limited rotation, considering our bench is relatively raw and inexperienced.

However, there are times when we are winning by 15-30 points (Thunder game, for example) where SVG could easily take out the starters and get guys like Redick and Gortat in there. I know his excuse is that the other team could come back, but still, if the other team starts gaining momentum, just immediately put the starters back in. Seems pretty simple.

If SVG feels he can't utilize certain players like Redick or Cook, then Otis needs to shop them. The general concensus is that an 8-man rotation will become worn down over the course of the season.

[magicfanatic23]

Our bench sucks and he has no other options. Leave him alone about it.

[AdamTheGreek]

Lee already is playing.
JJ got his shot.
Gortat will get put back into the rotation slowly.
We're now operating on a 9-man rotation.

[magicman123]

the bench has an impact on that, we dont have enough players to rely on right now, but hedo and nelson are the 2 starters that are avg more min then last season..

[EasternMagic]

Yea Stan, go ahead and wear out the starters and don't develop the new guys.
That should be great come the end of the season. But yea, win at any cost and do it now.
I remember Brian Hill never playing the bench. Then during the finals, He had no other options.
And it ended up biting him in the butt.
I know that we want to win now, but as the coach for the long run, He needs to find a balance.

somebody call the wamublance

[LBPTarHeel27]

My hope is that he is just trying to get us off to a good start and establish the winning attitude in all of the players and he will bring the the bench more frequently as we hit games 15-20.

[Bensational]

i'm all for winning games and getting the team to consistently win games, but making starters log such heavy minutes in blow-outs is ridiculous. MagicMadness stated it perfectly.

the bench may be thin, but it isn't gonna learn to integrate any better by getting no PT. so that means when this team has a really bad game, or bad slump, and guys like Shard and Hedo can't hit shots, Dwight gets in foul trouble, or, heaven forbid, someone gets injured, whoever we expect to step up from the nether-regions of the Orlando Magic bench, will be doing so completely ice cold.

there's a much better balance that can be found. right now SVG is sitting on the extreme right of the conservative side. let's bring it back to the middle.

also, Otis needs to do his job and make some moves so his coach actually DOES feel confident in playing the bench.

[craig01]

SVG might be in a catch 22 with the bench.

Play them now, and maybe they get better and maybe they don't. Lose some games now because of it.

Or, don't play them hardly at all, win as much as can be expected, but gamble on the rotation players contributing every time out WHEN IT MATTERS (i.e., playoffs). That's a big gamble.

I know what I'd do.........

[Potterman]

Meh...we don't know how it is going to work out. Lee seems to be getting more and more minutes as time go's on. As long as Lee gets consistent play I will stay shut up.

[Catledge]

Sure, we'd like to have a deeper bench, but it's not like Stan is driving the starters like mules. Hedo leads this team with 37.8mpg, which is only 18th in the league. Among the guys who play more minutes are Pierce, Iverson, Bosh, David West, Duncan, Amare, Jamison, and Caron Butler. Most of those guys will end up playing heavy playoff minutes.

I just don't think it's that big of a deal.

[Optimus_Steel]

Sure, we'd like to have a deeper bench, but it's not like Stan is driving the starters like mules. Hedo leads this team with 37.8mpg, which is only 18th in the league. Among the guys who play more minutes are Pierce, Iverson, Bosh, David West, Duncan, Amare, Jamison, and Caron Butler. Most of those guys will end up playing heavy playoff minutes.

I just don't think it's that big of a deal.

Agree. Good starters are gonna play a ton of minutes. Bogans has been getting alot of minutes. Battie is playing his normal amount. Lee seems to be playing more and he looks like he belongs.

[Diehardmagicfan]

People are blowing this way out of proportion. Plus J.J. showed what he had and that was not much. Brian Cook is not that good. Courtney Lee is playing more and more. keith bogans is playing a lot of minutes. Unfortunatley Anthony Johnson is playing minutes. So it is not as boad as you guys are all making it out to be.