Please, if Tiago Splitter gets DNP-CDs behind a terrible non-Duncan big man rotation even though he was productive when allowed to play, then why would De Colo somehow get minutes behind a relatively stacked backcourt?
How well a player plays doesn't often factor in to the minutes they get, for Pop or any other coach for that matter. Whether it's Tiago or Hairston or Mahinmi, or "these playoffs aren't for George Hill", it's say one thing and do another. It could be Avery Bradley in Boston, where Doc refused to play him until the injuries forced him to. It could be Eric Bledsoe for the Clippers where Del Negro refused to play him while the Spurs were jamming a 24 point run down their throat even though Bledsoe was one of their best playoff performers. The Rockets cut Jeremy Lin not because Jonny Flynn outplayed him in camp, but because Flynn had his year guaranteed and Lin didn't. Reputation and respect matter just as much if not more than actual on court production.
I hope De Colo plays, I like watching his style of play a lot more than Danny Green's or Gary Neal's. Green probably is better for the team, but you get the point, I'm a De Colo fan and am glad he's a Spur.
The point is that after so many years of seeing performance have zero bearing on the minutes a player gets until it's almost too late to matter, why are Spurs fans still so surprised when it happens (like Hill or Splitter or their opposites, Bonner and Jefferson)? And that's if he plays well. He might not.
Usually the whole, "Spurs players aren't good until their second year in the system" is no more than a garbage excuse gobbled up by Spurs fans. But who knows, it could be true for once with De Colo in a significant way.
