Theo Ratliff by the Numbers
There are two things to know about Theo Ratliff. The first is that he’s not durable. He’s played a (near) full season of basketball only once this decade. In the most recent two seasons, he played 26 and and 46 games, respectively.
This first set of numbers should give fans a sense of how the Spurs might use Ratliff. My best guess–my hope, really–is that Gregg Popovich plays Ratliff just enough to acclimate him to the system and keep him in game shape, but not a minute more. This will strike most of our readers, those who follow the entire league, as obvious. But I want to sharpen the focus on Ratliff by throwing another number at you.
Theo Ratliff is a potential postseason game-changer....
http://www.48minutesof .com/2009/...ers/#more-5033
I think that's good strategy on Theo. I remember Ratliff once said Pop did not force him to be hard in practice. He's injure-prone but he won't have to play too much, 10mins is enough.Gregg Popovich plays Ratliff just enough to acclimate him to the system and keep him in game shape, but not a minute more.
What kind of injuries is he susceptible to?
again I don't get what is so difficult to understand about the rotation numbers. the 8-12 MPG player is the #5 player in the frontcourt rotation. and this #5 player also doesn't play every game, he will very likely get about 20-30 NDP-CDs over the season.. Theo Ratliff’s lack of durability gives Popovich just enough of an excuse to play Ian Mahinmi or Marcus Haislip in garbage time or in back-to-back scenarios wherein Ratliff would otherwise see 8-12 minutes of playing time.
how do you want to further reduce this workload by dividing it between 3 players AND then expect that this player can play a crucial role in the post season. that's just naive. even more considering that he doesn't have any experience with this team.
the solution is very simple: Ratliff either survives a season as a 5th man with the described workload, or he won't be a factor in the POs at all.
to think that it helps that this player plays only (let's guess) 30-40 games in the regular season and not more than about 10MPG to keep him healthy is absurd. what you get is a player, who neither has the chemistry with the team to provide the necessary impact, nor will he be in a shape that allows him to play PO intensity. not for 10 minutes and also not for a single minute.
That's about it. For Ratliff to be effective in the playoffs, he'' need to play about 50-55 games at 10-12 mpg. 600-700 minutes in the regular season is about what he will need and probably about all he can survive.
It's also why trading Bonner without getting a PF/C in return makes no sense. There are almost 8,000 RS PF/C minutes to be allocated. With the need to monitor TD and McDyess, Ratliff's situation, and the inexperience of Blair and Ian, Bonner will have to play at least 1200-1500 minutes this year
Well, it's far from sure.
2 years ago, PJ Brown was "effective" during the playoffs while he spend most of the year without a team and played only 200 minutes in the regular season.
Good read. It will certainly be interesting to see how Pop develops the rotation throughout the season, and especially as the season winds down.
Ratliff certainly can make a difference if he stays healthy. He has to have enough playing time to remain knowledgeable and comfortable in the system while maintaining his health. A balance I am sure Pop will find for him.
Well, everything about the Spurs PF/C rotation is far from sure.
As to PJ, he was one of the most durable bigs of his generation. He played for nearly 34000 minutes in 1089 games over 15 years, including over 6600 minutes in the three seasons preceding his year with the Celts. For him to come in, play the last 18 games of the season and then be a solid rotation player in the playoffs was one thing.
I'm not so sure Theo could pull it off. Over the same 15 years he played for nearly 20000 minutes and 751 games and less than 1100 minutes in his most recent three seasons. I think 10 mpg every other game or so over the course of the RS is more likely to have him ready when April rolls around. Just my opinion.
In any event, it will be quite interesting to see how Pop manages the minutes for the bigs as the season progresses. Like I said above, he has about 8000 minutes to allocate. Ensuring rest while winning a reasonable percentage of games will be tricky, especially when three of the players have virtually no NBA experience and one other can't be expected to play much more than 600 minutes.
Well, I don't see where is the difference between PJ Brown and Ratliff. The fact that Brown has played more minutes in his career and has been healthier is a quite meaningless factor. That's just my opinion.
In the playoffs, Ratliff will been asked to play hard defense against some dominant bigmen. It isn't something that need a lot of skills, chemistry with teammates or to be in perfect physical shape. It's something that needs a lot of experience and Ratliff will still have that experience even if he has barely played in the regular season.
If there are some minutes available in the regular season, I rather see Pop gives them to one of Haislip or Mahinmi. When you have lost 2 times in 4 years against Dirk, it's quite crazy to have Matt Bonner as your most mobile bigman.
I don't see how Ratliff playing 500-600 rather than 200-300 of the 8000 available minutes will have much impact on the development of Mahinmi or Haislip. We're talking about 300 out of 8000 minutes over a period of 82 games.
If the concern is to develop one of the less experienced mobile bigs so that they are able to contribute come April, I would rather take their minutes from Bonner's 1200-1800 minutes rather than from Ratliff's 500-600.
Again, the real problem is to allocate to the 8000 minutes.
If you figure a 10% reduction in minutes for TD and McDyess and 500 minutes of smallball you have:
TD: 2300
McDyess: 2000
SmallBall: 500
That leaves 3200 minutes for Bonner, Ratliff, Ian, Blair and Haislip. That's 40 minutes a game. Pop has plenty of minutes available to develop the players who give the Spurs the best possibilities come April whether he gives Theo 300 minutes or 600 minutes.
I understand the points you have made regarding Theo's potential role in the playoffs and the number of RS minutes he will need to reach to that potential. I think he needs a bit more than you do.
We'll both watch while Pop decides.
It isn't only a minute story, there is also a roster spot limitation. The active roster will only have 5 PF/C.
If you want to try to develop a player to defend against Dirk-like players, he'll need to be active when Spurs face this kind of players.
Agree, there have been many times when situation players made a difference in playoffs series despite limited playing time in the regular season. PJ Brown, Alonzo Mourning, and 3 pt shtrs like Steve Kerr come to mind immediately.
I understand and I agree. It's a bit of a problem if you're trying to fit 7 players into 5 active slots, but less so if it's only 6.
Now that I have stated the obvious, I'll move on to speculation. It's my feeling that Pop will decide very early in the season between Ian and Haislip as the mobile big to develop. (If Ian's option is not picked up we'll know real soon) The loser in that decision will become a candidate for some sort of tax-reducing transaction.
With only 6 bigs and 5 active slots, the problem almost disappears. Ratliff will be idle for at least 30-40 games, Tim and McDyess will have scheduled days off, and I wouldn't be surprised if Blair sat for at least 10-15 games (he's never played more than 37 games in a season and the Spurs may deem it prudent to limit his exposure to back-to-back, 4 games in 5 nights, and 5 games in 7 nights situations). Having Ian in uniform, and I am assuming that Pop chooses Ian over Haislip, for 60+ games should be quite possible.
Like I said, we'll both find out when Pop decides.
We'll play the Mavs 2 times in the the first 3 weeks of the season. I want to see Mahinmi and Haislip against Dirk in those games to see how they do.
All of the above guesswork is unnecessary. IMO, Pop will divide minutes for the frontcourt reserves based on matchups, not a steady rotation. Bonner's minutes will be limited when we need to slow down scoring in the paint with Theo, and Bonner will come in when we need to spread the floor with perimiter shooting. As for Ian and Haislip, they will likely come in when he can do a better job than either of these two, or otherwise during garbage time.
If you want to break down minutes, your going to need to look at the matchups that we are going to see each game.
Not if it sacrifices the W. Besides, Dice should be able to do a great job against Dirk. That's the matchup I want to see. Suprised I haven't heard much anticipation when it comes to Dice as an answer to Dirk.
You don't find it a tad bit ironic that you characterize the guesswork of others as unnecessary and then proceed to give us your guesses?
Are you saying that to say that Pop will play the best possible matchup in a given situation is just guessing?
You don't find it a tad bit ironic that you characterize the guesswork of others as unnecessary and then proceed to give us your guesses.
I KNOW that Pop won't relegate playing time to the ratios stated above when the matchups require something different. Not guesswork, it comes from knowing that the beauty of this team is that we have an answer for most all of the opposition's mathups at any given time, so long as our team stays healthy. It also comes from watching Pop over the years.
It's not guesswork at all, really.
As long as he swats 1-3 shots away, he'll be fine
Ratliff, to me, is Kevin Willis 2.0. I think he's a lot more athletic than KWill, but I feel like they'll have similar roles. Ratliff is going to be asked to step in for certain matchups and do what he does best...play D. He might get a few more minutes than Willis, but I'd be surprised if he sees the floor in more than half the regular season games, even if he's uninjured.
wouldn't it be even more crazy, when the plan to solve the obvious problem of defending Dirk was based on either Ian or Haislip? even in a best case scenario for Ian's development, the next two seasons it seems totally exaggerated that he could be an effective Dirk defender. not even for some minutes. Dirk will eat him alive (he will have put 6 fouls on him before Ian even knows what team got the ball), to put a foul machine like Ian on a 90% FT shooter and crafty contact drawer like Dirk is about the worst defensive strategy the Spurs could choose. Dirk will let 3 point plays rain on the Spurs.
and to hope for a significant impact coming from Haislip's defense will lead to a big disappointment. there is a better chance that Bonner turns into a defensive force, than Haislip becoming a competent defender at all.
Spurs won't have a Dirk stopper. they will need to be good enough in other areas to compensate for this. Spurs also never had an Amare stopper.
we will see what Dice and a lighter Tim can do against Dirk and the best ace in the hole against him will be Richard Jefferson. if we need to hope for a crucial defensive impact from Ian or Haispil against Dirk, we will be really really in trouble.
Well depends on how you define 'the best possible matchup', because you can be sure that some players will get some burn in certain matchups during the season just to see how well they do. It's always been like that, trying to prepare for the playoffs, so if you expect that in a regular season game against LAL, for example, Pop would play all the safe matchups all the time, you'd be wrong - we'll see a lot of tweaking, we'll probably see Mahinmi guarding Bynum, even though 'the best possible matchup' at the time would be McDyess.
Thus, Mel's minutes estimation is spot on, as Pop will most deffinitely not play the best possible matchups in a given situation for 82 games.
Well, you do with what you have and Spurs don't have a sure thing able to do an even decent job on Dirk.
Duncan hasn't been able to defend him for years, I don't see how McDyess would do a better job and it would be way better if RJ was used to defend Josh Howard.
Haislip has been signed to defend players like Dirk and Ian, even if you think he is a scrub, has the mobility and length to defend him. It's possible and maybe even likely that both failed at defending Dirk or at being decent NBA players but I rather give a try to one of them in November/December than giving minutes to Raliff that early in the season.
It's a no risk, high reward situation.
Stephen Jackson will be great against the Dallas match up, he could play the 4 and defend Dirk!
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