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Message: [QUOTE="bozophobe, post: 1236911, member: 2589"] You may be asking all the wrong questions, and maybe flirting with various straw man and red herring arguments. For starters, nobody is saying any bench player should 'get minutes over' any starter. One major idea is simply to get a few to several minutes rest for key starters so that they can endure longer, concentrate on free throws or other plays better, and maybe even reduce the chance for injury. Factory data since the Dickens years shows exhausted people are more likely to get hurt (not including freak mishaps here - nor blaming coaches), and more prone to general error. Also, the very definition of "sub" implies that, of course, a team's performance will be diminished while they were in. Nobody is suggesting they'll really gun the team into overdrive where the starters would fail. And opposing teams will likely sub out at some point, too - which will mean inferior players on the floor for them, as well. We're no longer in those recent years where few teams in the US could match those SU substitutions where a fresh pair including people like Kris Joseph, Scoop, Din or MCW would often instigate a huge run that would change the game. And even the 2002-2003 team set a then-record for comeback wins (around 17?) Obviously, this year's team doesn't have the same bench as that of those years. But even if it can't be proven that 3-5 extra minutes a game will vastly improve the development of young subs, the benefits to the starters seem to be heavy. And I'm no longer sold on the use of examples of past glories where SU starters prevailed even with 37-40-48 minutes. Many of those were grueling battles to the wire; some of which went into overtime. And if they had to play the next day (like in 2009)... [/QUOTE]

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