RealGM

Something has been bugging me about our squad and I guess part of Gentry's strategy, and that's our lineups. I just don't really love the rotation strategy he's using, for 2 reasons: performance and matchups.

1) Performance (figures taken from http://www.82games.com )
First of all, Nash/JRich/Hill/Amar'e/Lopez is one of our poorest performing 5-man units. On the +/- scale they are -22, the 3rd worst of all except 2 ridiculous units that have Duds and Hill. They are bad with turnovers and not as good defensively as you'd hope with Lopez out there. They're alright with rebounds so it's definitely a fine lineup to have in at the right times...

Nash/Richardson/Hill/Amar'e/Frye is actually one of the most efficient 5-man rotations (+/- of +116). As much as I discredit Frye, he can have a big situational impact on the game because of how he spreads the floor and opens up another perimeter option. But you can't have this lineup out there too much either, because you are worse on D and rebounding and almost as bad with turnovers.

So those 2 common rotations each have benefits but also serious limitations. And those 2 units cover the vast majority of the minutes. So what lineups deserve more playing time?

Swap Duds in for Hill and Frye for Lopez (Nash/Rich/Duds/Amare/Frye) and you have a unit that should get more run. Frye and Duds are much greater perimeter threats and let's face it, Duds is a glue guy. Gentry really needs to think about starting the Dudster. That same lineup but with Barbs instead of Rich has done well too, albeit with fewer minutes. I guess that's largely dependent on what Barbs shows us once he returns.

Dragic is a part of a couple good units too, for his own reasons. You can probably guess, but our defense is markedly better anytime he is in. Which begs the question, should we possibly put Dragic in over Nash in some clutch situations?


2) Matchups

Gentry doesn't seem to pay way too much attention to having good matchups all the time. I'll give him credit for some substitutions to that effect but I really think that depending on what team you're playing, players' minutes should definitely vary.


I guess my conclusion is that I've always been a fan of the "fluid rotation". We should swap out some guys' spots and minutes in certain games for both the performance and the matchup reasons I mentioned. For example:

Big men: Start Frye against teams like the Lakers where you need to spread the floor to open up for the P n' R, etc early on. Start Collins against a team like the Spurs, where post defense and his set of intangibles and veteran awareness can be put to use. Start Lopez when you're playing against a soft or small frontcourt and you wanna get him the ball on the roll or pop and get his layups going.

PG: Start Dragic against teams like the Thunder, with athletic PG's who will drop 15 on Nash in the first quarter

SF: Start Duds almost always lol. nuff said there



Just my thoughts. Opinions on our rotation/Gentry's strategy?

I think Collins should be the Suns starting center, he played heavy minutes and started alot of games when he was with the Jazz. Lopez should be made the backup and be forced to earn that starting spot by improving his rebounding and overall game. Frye and Amundson can play spot up minutes at both the center and forward positions. Other than that not sure what changes could really be made...

Those +/- stats are deceiving. The difference between Frye and Lopez in the lineup seems glaring when you look at the +/- stats, but that's because we score a lot more with Frye in the lineup (+0.08 which is about 6.65 pts). In the per possession stats for defense, we give up 0.01 point more with Lopez in the lineup which would seem like Lopez has a negative effect on the game but it works in a favour.

Our game thrives on offense. Unlike other teams who uses defense to limit the opponents scoring we win our games just by trying to score as much as possible. It's not a half bad system when you consider how efficient we are. What you gotta understand is not which lineup is the best for the game, but which lineup is best for which specific part of the game. With Frye being a +0.06 per offensive production, he's good during the early to middle parts of the game when our offense is what keeps us ahead or keeps us in the game. But down the stretch is when we need to have Lopez in the game. Our biggest problems over the years has always been going cold and not having the defense to hold a lead and in the past that's basically a death sentence for us. This season we've had a number of key wins where we've won when we gotten a defensive stop down the stretch and executing on both ends of the court without making mistakes.

If you look at our stats with Lopez in the game, it's clear why Lopez should be in the game late even though we are a -22 in our +/- stats.

Our detailed 5-man stats:
With Frye:
EFG: .503
EFGA: .456
FTA: +42
Close: 30%
dClose: 31%
REB: 47%
T/O: -3%

With Lopez:
EFG: .509
EFGA: .466
FTA: -21
Close: 36%
dClose: 32%
REB: 52%
T/O: -7%

Shooting percentages down the stretch usually isn't as big of a deal as our own defense since our offense will be there most of the time. With Frye and Lopez our Effective Field Goal % is roughly the same with only a +0.006% change. Our opponents EFG (or EFGA) is +0.01%, which isn't significant but not negligible. Our FTA are down and that could be explained by Lopez packing the lanes and that gives Amare less space to take it to the rim. What is important is the Close and dClose stats which are the percentage of shots close to the rim (Close) and the percentage of shots close to the rim by the opponent (dClose). We are taking more shots closer to the rim with Lopez in the lineup which means we are getting more high% shots and that's important in the closing minutes of a game. The other important stats are the +5% in rebounding and the -4% in turnovers with Lopez in the game as compared with Frye in the lineup. Winning a close game is all about getting that key rebound and executing offensively. With Lopez in the game, we grab a bigger % of the rebounds and we turn it over less. These stats are probably not as meaningful over the course of the game and probably more in favor of Frye but we have to think in terms of late game situations. It's tough to rely on our defense when we just aren't very good, but what we can do in lieu of our crappy defense is to grab key rebounds and execute efficiently on offense.

Frye is a good bench player, and makes our offense more efficient, so I don't mind him playing big minutes in the 1st - 3rd quarter. But when we have to bunker down to protect a lead, especially with 5-6 minutes left in the 4th, we need Lopez in the game. Interestingly Nash-Richardson-Dudley-Stoudemire-Lopez and Nash-Barbosa-Dudley-Stoudemire-Frye is our better offensive and defensive lineup even though we don't play them as often. It could be an outlier since there's it's only a small sample space.