Basketball is a sport where ''riding the pine'' has a different meaning. Of all the major sports in America, basketball is the one where having quality players on your bench is the most important. The games are 48 minutes long, require tremendous endurance and as good as your starters might be, you can't expect them to play 48 minutes every game for a complete season.
When your stars get in their late twenties, early thirties (i.e Dwyane Wade), it's asking for injuries to do so. You need to strategize using your bench players in order to limit your stars and starters' limits, in order to have them healthy through a grueling year. The Grand Dooda of coaching Gregg Popovich has mastered bench strategizing for several years now, as Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker all turned the wrong side of 30 in San Antonio. So how does a perfect, strategical basketball bench look like? Let's see.
Sixth Man
First, you need a sixth man. What does a sixth man do, exactly? He is your main offensive threat coming off the bench as soon as you sit one of your starting offensive threats down, whether it's to rest or because they get in foul trouble. The sixth man is also versatile. His physique makes it hard for him to excel in one position, but he can be very good in several. Sixth man extraordinaire Jamal Crawford is not powerful enough and too one-dimensional to start at shooting guard, but his skinny, wiry frame and his preternatural handles make him a very competent point guard, his sick shooting stroke makes him a good offensive threat at shooting guard and his reflexes and anticipation enable him to play small forward in a pinch, although it's not ideal because he's too frail. Jamal Crawford, Jarrett Jack and other sixth man extraordinaire often play up to 30 minutes a night.
The 3-and-D guy
Every NBA franchise has at least one 3-and-D guy, although it's ideal to have 2 or 3. During the last playoffs, the Miami Heat had 4: Ray Allen, Mike Miller, Norris Cole and Shane Fucking Battier. It was an integral part of why they won the title. The 3-and-D guy is normally an aging wing player, although he can be a guard. He camps on the perimeter as a latent 3 points threat and he is the first to retreat on defense if the ball is turned over. Their job is to ''stretch the floor'' which is to bring the defense out of the paint to allow skilled guards to cut in. If the defense doesn't cover them, they'll shoot the lights out of you, like the Heat's elderly league of extraordinary gentlemen during the last playoffs. It's kind of a lofty end-of-career gig, that's why so many aging veterans finish their career as the token 3-and-D guy.
The stay-at-home big
It's trendy for bigs (power forwards and centers) to become multidimensional. It's not enough to have a post game, to be a fierce rebounder or to be able to shoot an 18 foot jumper. You need to do all that if you want to start. But if you do one of these things well, you can still help. An efficient-stay-at-home big will always be able to help. Take Sacramento power forward Reggie Evans, for example. He's a hanky-jerky twitchy guy who plays will a lot of energy and gets rebounds. Lots of rebounds. His game is to camp on the low block and maul whoever gets in the way of his rebound. Despite averaging only 3 points a game, Reggie Evans is a wanted commodity, because he maximizes the number of posessions for his team, therefore he maximizes their chance of scoring.
The no stats all-star
Not every team has a no stats all-star and I don't believe every GM recognizes they are useful, but I do. No stats all-stars are overly cerebral players who are very happy to play in the NBA. They play hard defense, they hustle, they always move off the ball, they offer screen that might not get picked up just to fuck with the defenders' minds and they foul when the team has a foul to give. They accept their limited role and always take one for the team. A good way of telling if your no stats all-star is good is to evaluate how your star players do while he's on the court. Your stars get the space they need to operate and to destroy the opposition, which they often do. Deron Williams looks like Oscar Robertson when Jason Collins is on the court because Jason Collins' only purpose is create a comfortably playing environment for Deron Williams.
The Ideal Bench Warmer
There are 15 roster spots on an NBA team, but it's not always 15 guys who dress up every night. Some players are bound to play garbage time (minutes when nothing is at stake, the game is already won or already lost). Some of these roster spots are occupied by useless players because some owners prefer to know what they are getting rather than take a chance. The ideal bench warmer is a high energy, positive guy like the über-expressive Kent Bazemore was for the Golden State Warriors. Turned out Bazemore was more than a bench warmer because he now starts for the Los Angeles Lakers and has shown than he can play, but if your bench warmer is going to play six minutes every two nights, his personality is more important than his game, so pick him accordingly.
No comments:
Post a Comment