Mo's Rotation

[bebopdeluxe]

I don't know if I necessarily agree with the statement that "well...Mo got his extension, so now he'll play whoever he wants to play..."

I do agree that - with the playoffs on the horizon - the rotation might start to get shortened a bit (which is the most logical explanation that I can come up with for Smith getting less minutes). If the Sixers were, say, 30-44 (instead of 37-37), we might be seeing less of Evans and more of Smith. I think that the biggest contributors of Smith getting less minutes are Thad and Carney...Carney playing better and Thad (being Thad) getting moved to the 4. And it's not like Smith is the only one who has seen his minutes squeezed - for all of the complaining about Willie Green, my sense is that his minutes have fallen off over the past few eeeks as well...

("yeah...but they haven't fallen to zero yet...")

And - to be fair to Willie - before this recent shooting slump, he was enjoying the best extended period of shooting and overall play of his career (certainly since before the knee injury)...so I'm not going to bury Mo and the coaching staff for giving Willie the chance to play out of it. The nice thing is that it has been a realtively short leash, and we have had other options (like Carney) to go to.