2011-12 Spurs Preview - Part 2: The Rotation

[Bruno]

Would you really rather have one of Blair or Bonner start and defend the elite PF's of the league.. than have them come off the bench together against other reserves?

Yep, it would be less bad than having the Bonner/Blair frontcourt for 15mpg.

Spurs should get a defensive iden y back. I don't see how they can get it back if during long periods of the game they turn into an horrible defensive team because they have no presence at all in the paint. Having at least one of Duncan and Splitter on the court for the whole game is important to get some kind of defensive consistency.

[Bruno]

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

The best way to limit the Bonner and Blair frontcourt is to sign a center to play Bonner's minutes at that position. Short of that, the best way to limit the Bonner and Blair frontcourt is to only let them play spot minutes against backups. You do NOT ING PUT TY PLAYERS UP AGAINST THE OPPONENT'S BEST PLAYERS UNDER ANY ING CIR STANCES.

In theory, I guess everybody agree with that. But there is the reality.

Reality is Spurs have signed nobody this offseason and now good/decent centers are all gone.
Reality is that Duncan and Splitter aren't enough to only let Blair and Bonner play spot minutes.

After having been regularly destroyed by bigmen during the regular season, Memphis bigmen toyed with Spurs in the playoffs. To counter that, Spurs FO cut back in place an even weakest frontcourt for this year (Dice gone and not replaced). Whining and ing about that is legit, I've had my fair share of it lately.

However, Spurs need to do with what they have that is to say a broken frontcourt. Blair and Bonner are strictly backup PFs. Pop must now decide between two necessary evil: starting one or playing one at the center position.

[Obstructed_View]

At one point this coach thought it was a good idea not to play Nazr Mohammed and Rasho Nesterovic at the center position for a playoff run after the Spurs won 63 games with them. The biggest problem is that he likely doesn't think this front line he's created is broken. He's almost assuredly not aware of the years it's taken off Duncan's career. There are warm bodies out there that will do a better job at starting center than Matt Bonner. There are ten minutes of any game where you can put Blair and Bonner on the floor at the same time and do less damage than putting Bonner against an NBA starting center or power forward. The only thing Matt Bonner can do as a starting center is to statistically lower the average skill-level of starting NBA centers, which doesn't actually help the Spurs.

It constantly amazes me that otherwise knowledgable Spurs fans have just finally drunk the Koolaid of the coach's insanity because it's been part of our reality for five years.

Some realities of box-score management: Moving starters to your bench doesn't improve your bench. Moving bad players to the starting lineup just hides the damage the opposing starters do to the bad players. The plus minus stat has been a greater contributor to the Spurs' decline than knee tendonosis.

If the Spurs need a starting center, then suggest that the Spurs trade a draft pick for a center. If Matt Bonner can't play on the front line with Blair, then put in Leonard for ten of Bonner's fifteen minutes alongside him. The stupidest thing IN THE ENTIRE WORLD OF BASKETBALL is to say, "Hey this guy sucks, let's ing start him!"

[temujin]

Any rotation that has Jefferson playing more than garbage time minutes doesn't make sense to me.
That comes even before having to deal with a slow and unathletic 3 (Bonner) playing 4/5.
Or with an undesized 5 with no jumper (Blair).

[therealtruth]

At one point this coach thought it was a good idea not to play Nazr Mohammed and Rasho Nesterovic at the center position for a playoff run after the Spurs won 63 games with them. The biggest problem is that he likely doesn't think this front line he's created is broken. He's almost assuredly not aware of the years it's taken off Duncan's career. There are warm bodies out there that will do a better job at starting center than Matt Bonner. There are ten minutes of any game where you can put Blair and Bonner on the floor at the same time and do less damage than putting Bonner against an NBA starting center or power forward. The only thing Matt Bonner can do as a starting center is to statistically lower the average skill-level of starting NBA centers, which doesn't actually help the Spurs.

It constantly amazes me that otherwise knowledgable Spurs fans have just finally drunk the Koolaid of the coach's insanity because it's been part of our reality for five years.

Some realities of box-score management: Moving starters to your bench doesn't improve your bench. Moving bad players to the starting lineup just hides the damage the opposing starters do to the bad players. The plus minus stat has been a greater contributor to the Spurs' decline than knee tendonosis.

If the Spurs need a starting center, then suggest that the Spurs trade a draft pick for a center. If Matt Bonner can't play on the front line with Blair, then put in Leonard for ten of Bonner's fifteen minutes alongside him. The stupidest thing IN THE ENTIRE WORLD OF BASKETBALL is to say, "Hey this guy sucks, let's ing start him!"

I agree looking back now that move in '06 didn't make sense. When AJ did it with the Mavs the next year he rightfully got villified for it. I think Pop wanted Bowen on Dirk but he had nobody to put on Josh Howard. It would have made more sense for Duncan to have guarded Dirk and Bowen guard JH. Duncan couldn't have done any worse than he did against Stoudemire the year before when he averaged 37 against him. At least the rest of the team defense would have been better.

[Obstructed_View]

I agree looking back now that move in '06 didn't make sense. When AJ did it with the Mavs the next year he rightfully got villified for it. I think Pop wanted Bowen on Dirk but he had nobody to put on Josh Howard. It would have made more sense for Duncan to have guarded Dirk and Bowen guard JH. Duncan couldn't have done any worse than he did against Stoudemire the year before when he averaged 37 against him. At least the rest of the team defense would have been better.

Looking back now? The move didn't make sense at the time, go back and look at the posts on this forum. Pop started ing with the lineups in the Sacramento series, so there's no way for anyone to say that it was done because of matchups with Dallas. The Spurs crushed Sacramento by like 50 points in the first game of the playoffs and then played flat in game 2 and Pop decided to change the whole philosophy of the team in order to matchup with Bonzi Wells and Ron Artest, which allowed them to feast. Pop kept it up against Dallas running lineups that nobody had seen during the regular season.