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Message: [QUOTE="CardiacCuse, post: 5405731, member: 6979"] one thing about the rotation that bugged me last year was the impression that the 1st half was kinda like...give everyone a couple of looks...spread the opportunities and minutes around evenly ...perhaps to be "fair"///as the pre-decided game plan every game. then in the 2nd half...whatever happened in the 1st was largely thrown out the window...and the rotation was smaller. red didnt seem to sub players out a la carlos if they were ineffective...bc they were so necessary as dribblers or whatever cockamie reason then on the other hand sometimes a player like cuffe would be very hot...in the 1st but get yanked quickly then never get back in, despite the team struggling to score. there's a couple of layers to this - 1 play the hot hand and dont play the cold hand...i dont think red has a very good handle on this, generally. furthermore, feature the hot player or the one scoring easily until the other team stops them! for instance, lampkin might score 2 quick and easy buckets and not shoot another shot for 20 minutes! it makes no sense...its not only rotations...but also volume matching performance...which goes back to spreading it around and being "fair" another layer is the depth of the squad - red said in preseason how deep they were and that they had 12 guys who can contribute...this should be a good thing...but it is also a double edged sword...managing depth and giving all of the guys is tricky. a carpenter with 10 tools isnt necessarily better than a carpenter with the right 3 tools. in other words, i think managing a deep roster is something red hasnt quite figured out. JB just cut it down to 7 or 8 ...perhaps to make it easy on himself. it just simplifies everything. (it was also much easier to keep good guys on the bench before the portal...transferring was much less appealing than it is now) ...but otoh one of the best ever JB teams had 11 guys or so...with waiters off the bench. smaller rotations arent inherently better...but they do make it easier to play the combinations for the coach and the team...it just becomes obvious who should be in and out...when you have a 7 man rotation. with a 10 or 12 man team of active players...it is much more complex...and i dont think red figured out who to play this last year and when...it also took him a long time in his first year with this as well. ive also noticed this when playing fsu when leonard hamilton would seem to make some poor decisions on who to play because he had 12 guys that were in his rotation...its going to be tricky if you have that many playable guys. that said, generally i do definitely want as deep a roster as possible - if it were up to me I would fill all 15 scholarships - but I think that would certainly come with the downside of playing the wrong players at the wrong times and counteracting the supposed advantage of having that depth. im not quite sure what kind of logic red uses to make his rotations and subs...but i hope he changes it for next year. but one change i hope he doesnt make is leaving good players on the bench simply to keep the rotation easier to manage. I want every player who is a plus out there to be out there in some form or other. and even more than that, i want the volume of shots to match performance. if the other team cannot stop JJ...i want him to shoot or drive every time until they stop him...and i dont want him to defer to share the ball to be nice or fair to the rest of the team. and that goes for every player. there was a game last year when lucas taylor had like 10 quick points in the 1st half on some absolutely incredible shots...and barely did anything the rest of the game...bc he wasnt really getting the ball or minutes...i really really want that to stop. if i was coaching that game ...taylor wouldve shot 20 shots...or at least he woulda kept getting the ball until he stopped scoring. [/QUOTE]

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