Posted by fishmike:

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by Bonn1997:

I gotta agree with Rich here. I don't get why people keep emphasizing that Lee, Frye, Nate were rookies. Your year in the league shouldn't be what determines your playing time. What you can do on the court should be. You don't give rookies (or anyone) free minutes but they earned much more time than the veterans and much more time than they were actually given.

Thats a completely idealistic statement that I'm sure everyone can agree on, in the idealistic sense, but it ignores the political realities of things like payroll, ego, and the expectations of the guys paying the bills. And even with all that Frye and Nate got the 4th and 5th most minutes on the team, and thats with Frye missing major minutes to injury.

Back to politics, it's no different now. So far this year Fyre is 5th in total minutes (down a notch) and Nate is 7th. If frye continues to struggle he might drop even lower. So these guys roles are dropping in a relative sense, and that's with less veteran competition this year.

The outcome of these guys careers really wont be determined by how consistent their rookie minutes were. Look at Balkman. Whatever one may think of him, does he seem the type who's career will be determined by amount or consistency of minutes this year? I don't think so, he doesn't seem that fragile. His career seems more dependent on developing a midrange shot, and that's usually handled in practice and the off-season. But his head seems like it will always be in it, unlike some others.

IMO people want to attribute things that are particular to a given player to something that happened last year, when those same occurrences had no recognizable affect on other players.

It's like eating at a restaurant and seeing a friend have an allergic reaction to something, but no one knows what. Someone arbitrarily declares it's a reaction to nuts, and then declares that no restaurant should ever be allowed to cook with nuts.

A) we don't really know it was the nuts.
B) even if it was the nuts we shouldn't generalize the issue and apply it to everyone. not everyone will be allergic to nuts.
C) the choice to serve nuts or not may be political, like if the restaurant is known for nuts and is even called "The Nut House"

And yet, will all of that, in an idealistic world we can say, restaurants should not serve people food they are allergic to. Easy to say, harder to do, and it might all be irrelevant to the reaction in question.

Anyway, I think the attitudes of the veterans who surround these guys will have a far greater impact on their heads and ultimate development, and that's where the political realities creep back in. Isiah has brought all of them here. Lets hope he can do a better job of managing egos and attitudes this year than last, while also keeping an eye on minutes for these guys.

which is exactly what Isiah is dealing with now. Explain why you best frontcourt defender, rebounder and FG% leader cant break 25 minutes a game. Politics, payroll, ego, investment... its not as simple like in college where a stud like Noah can get benched on a whim. Nate has been the best of Crawford/Francis/Marbury yet he's still 4th in that rotation.



[Edited by - fishmike on 11-24-2006 12:19 PM]

I agree with you. Lee should be getting more min. And Curry's playing C rather than Frye at C with Lee at PF because Isiah has to "justify" the Curry trade. Maybe he doesn't realize that doing so may cost him his job. However, I do find it a little less frustrating that one of the two the players playing ahead of Lee (Frye) is a young player who's part of the team's future, rather than last year when Malik and Antonio Davis were starters. That doesn't make it justifiable though.


[Edited by - Bonn1997 on 11-24-2006 12:42 PM]