Please help me understand

OrlandoSaban · Post #1 » by **OrlandoSaban** » Tue Oct 25, 2022 6:31 pm

Hello - Lifelong Magic Fan.. I love the NBA but have never played a second of basketball. I don't know the ins/outs of player contracts, salary caps, etc etc etc

Having said that, I really don't know the ins/outs of rotations, etc during a game

The question that I have for you Basketball coaches on here..

If Bench Player A is playing great basketball and scoring - Let's pretnd Bench Play A has 18 points in a game

Non Bench Player B is not playing well with 5 points

Why does the Non Bench Player B have 35 mins of Playing Time and Bench Player A have 14 minutes of Playing Time?

Am I making sense here? My question: Why do crap production players get more playing minutes than players who are producing results?

X_O_Z · Post #2 » by **X_O_Z** » Tue Oct 25, 2022 6:43 pm

Good Question.

Well since its still too early into the season, and strategies hasn't been inplanted yet 100 percent, my guess would be seniority and still giving them second/third chances and different looks with different line ups. Still, its just too early in the season. I would be more concern if this continues going into the second half of the season.

OrlandoSaban · Post #3 » by **OrlandoSaban** » Tue Oct 25, 2022 6:55 pm

Thank XOZ! So I am not the only one noticing some of these odd rotations. Thought I was kind of losing my mind lol

X_O_Z · Post #4 » by **X_O_Z** » Tue Oct 25, 2022 9:14 pm

OrlandoSaban wrote:Thank XOZ! So I am not the only one noticing some of these odd rotations. Thought I was kind of losing my mind lol

Hey no worries lol, you are not alone on this as a Magic fan. As a Magic fan since the 90s, I had to endure rebuilds and basketball being played very poorly. Where we stand now as a team, we are in a much better position than the years we had with VUC-Fournier company. from young potential all star players in Paolo and Franz to being in a great position cap wise to sign a major player. We gonna be fine, not to long from now we will have a regular rotation that will make sense.

DSN1423 · Post #5 » by **DSN1423** » Wed Oct 26, 2022 1:13 am

Easy answer is Coaches generally play the players they personally trust the most minutes, even if someone who is erratic in their consistency is scoring more in a particular game.

But it is a bit more complex than just that. Things also in consideration are;

- Points always dont indicate what has been asked from the athlete by the coach. Someone may be hot on offense but costing the team points on defense by missing assignments etc.. If they coached asked you to defend player A a certain way and you arent doing it but are scoring points, chances are you arent going to stay on the floor for too long.

- Basketball is a game of flow and rhythm. Meaning that players and coaches like to keep things to the script as much as possible. Players like to know their role and how many minutes they are likely to play or if they start or dont start etc. Playing fast and loose on those things means, teams are struggling and need to shake things up to try get wins and keep jobs or your team isnt very talented and there is a need to figure out what type of players you have and want to keep for the future (us right now!)

- Dont forget the importance of the GM, he hires the coach and can hold considerable power over who plays how much. The GM may have just gave someone a decent contract and he would look silly if the coach doesnt even play that player.

jonbob17 · Post #6 » by **jonbob17** » Wed Oct 26, 2022 1:44 am

I guess the easy answer is there is more to basketball than how many points a player scores, particularly on offense efficiency is probably more important than number of points, ie. scoring 20 while shooting 10 of 30 is not nearly as valuable as scoring 15 while shooting 5 of 5.

Preventing the other team from scoring is a pretty valuable skill too. Being able to dribble and pass are additional skills that are helpful that may or may not show up in the points/rebounds/assists.

Take Cole's game against the Celtics, Really nice line 14points 9 rebounds 6 assists, but at the same time Derrick White, the Celtics 5th starter who has averaged less than 6 points a game against non Magic teams this year, was able to go off with 27 points on 17 shots. Cole for example had 14 points on 13 shots which is pretty good night for Cole.

So did Cole contribute to winning basketball in that game. meh..it's probably close to a wash, but White's offensive explosion against Cole was probably not just a lucky night. White is good, just not usually a big role in that loaded line up.

MasterGMer · Post #7 » by **MasterGMer** » Wed Oct 26, 2022 1:54 am

It is not about how much you score to the coach, it is how much you contribute to win on the team. Lots of players do not score well 1 on 1 but still plays a ton, why? Because other things not on the box score. Like rebounding, like defense and like how they space the floor and so on.

Scoring is just part of the game. There are a lot of things you have to do to be on the floor

Magiclee · Post #8 » by **Magiclee** » Wed Oct 26, 2022 2:37 pm

Player B is a better player than player A. That's why he's the starter. All these guys are pros, so player A can have a hot night at any given time, but you play your better players more than your backups. A hot streak in in the middle of the 2nd quarter doesn't change that. If Bamba hits 3 threes you're still not going to leave him out there instead of putting Paolo back in no matter how bad Paolo is playing. Over the mean, Paolo is just better.

The-Stallion70 · Post #9 » by **The-Stallion70** » Wed Oct 26, 2022 5:07 pm

There are alot of potential reasons for this, I remember reading an article a while back that said Nick Collison was one one of the league leaders in Plus/Minus and Hollinger said that it was likely because he was always on the court with Kevin Durant.

It could also be because of defense, it could also be because of bad coaching.