LacosteM wrote:And maybe you should quit acting so condescending towards others when trying to defend your flawed narrative. Practice makes perfect sure, but you're underrating the importance of playing time. Even if the rookies are in for just 10 mins, they're learning through a real in-game experiences and are constantly finding their game.
As for Bender, what he lacks in athleticism and stregnth, he compensates with lateral quickness and high bbiq. Either way he's spending more time defending the perimiter than protecting the rim, and he's doing a damn fine job doing so. And as for his offense he's at the stage where he's more perimiter oriented player and I don't see a problem with that. He did well on his c&s opportunities and has made couple of baskets from putbacks and cuts. He'll start doing more damage down low when he adds stregnth. In his limited time he showed he can impact the game. Just for his ability to play solid defense and hit c&s 3's he should have his spot in the rotation instead of declining Tucker.
What exactly makes my narrative more flawed than anyone elses? Why is the idea that hours of individual practice is more important than an extra ~400-800 minutes of game time that you get from playing 5-10 more minutes a game so crazy? Why are the statistics showing that PJ has a significantly more impact than Bender or Chriss on the court flawed? They're numbers that should even be biased toward the rookies due to their lower playing time, yet they still favor PJ substantially. Also, you say you just want 10 minutes a game, but that's exactly what Bender was averaging going into this game?
I agree about Bender, I just think that there's no point in rushing him into game time by playing him out of position. Once his body is ready, he'll be strong enough to handle playing the 4 while being more mobile than the guy he matches up with. Right now he's either at the 4, where he's mobile enough to stick with them on the perimeter and switch on to guards but not strong enough to contend with his man in the low post on defense, and offensively he can can cause problems on offense floating around the perimeter, but isn't strong enough with the ball to operate out of the high post and top of the key where his mobility, basketball iq, and playmaking skills would really benefit him, or we play him out of position at the 3, where he's an easier cover on offense because he's not a strong ball handler yet and isn't quick or athletic enough to get by his man, so he's forced to be a 1 dimensional catch and shoot player, and defensively where he does a good job sticking to them on the perimeter and contesting drives. But he still makes a lot of the small rookies mistakes that PJ doesn't make and doesn't play with the physicality that PJ does, so PJ is getting burn right now. Things can easily change, it's a long season, and Booker was getting almost the exact same minutes last year as Bender this year, and we all know where that ended up.
AtheJ415 wrote:Yeah. Practice is where the bulk of development occurs, but the idea that game-time PT isn't incredibly valuable is ridiculous imo. If Booker got no PT last year, I really wonder what the level of excitement, outlook to this team, and his own drive to work in the offseason would be like. I think from every angle, getting the PT and a small taste of stardom was a big deal to him.
Booker got no playing to start the year too. Through their first 12 games, Bender and Booker both have/had 3 Inactive/DNPs and roughly 9.1 minutes per game played, Booker only saw an uptick in minutes once we started getting hit by injuries last year. It's early in the season, you never know what could happen to make Bender get more playing time, especially with a team of old guys.
