Is it necessarily BETTER to play ten guys?

[UrinalCake]

There's been a lot of talk amongst the other threads about the insane amount of depth we'll have next year. A majority of fans seem to think that we need to play our bench a lot; they remark that Coach K rarely goes more than 7 or 8 deep once the conference season starts, and there seems to be an underlying sentiment that Coach K SHOULD play more of the bench. It almost extends to the point of people suggesting that we would win more games of Coach K weren't so stubborn in his refusal to play the bench more minutes. So my question in response to this is: WHY? Why is it better to play a lot of guys? To take things to a theoretical extreme, imagine you had ten players who were perfect clones of each other. Would you be better off playing all ten of them 20 minutes each? Or should you play five of them the full 40 minutes? Or would the perfect mix be to play five of them 35 minutes each and two more 12-13 minutes? In reality of course, your team is not made up of clones and so as a coach you have to make some decisions on how to allocate playing time. Here are some of my thoughts on the issue, and I'd love to hear more:

REASONS TO PLAY A LOT OF GUYS:
- You get to throw a lot of different styles of play out at your opponent
- You can do things like full-court press without worrying about fatigue
- Everyone feels more involved, so everyone tries harder
- Don't have to worry about foul trouble
- Less susceptible to one player having a "cold" night
- Players don't wear down over the course of the season (I don't buy into this argument at all. These guys practice four hours a day. If you're worried about long-term fatigue, you'd be better off shortening one practice per week by 30 minutes rather than reducing a guy's minutes from 35 to 30 to save ten minutes of playing time in a week).
- Less likely that players will transfer (yikes!)

REASONS TO PLAY A SHORTER BENCH:
- Your best players get the most minutes
- Players can stay in a rhythm and develop a feel for each other when there is a predictable, "regular" lineup with only a few subs coming in to let the starters rest
- The team has more of an "identity" as defined by the starters
- By playing the starters a lot of minutes during the season, they get used to it and are more comfortable playing a lot of minutes in the postseason

I don't have any hard evidence that Duke is more or less successful when playing more guys. Obviously this isn't an equal comparison, as the years they play more guys are also the years they have more talent. Across college basketball in general, I don't really feel like teams that win championships tend to play nine or ten guys. So why the insistence that we need to play ten guys? Is it just difficult to accept the notion of a really talented player sitting on the bench? I'm curious what others think.

[gep]

If you have 10 really good guys... what about "platooning" them. 5 each until the next 4-minute media timeout. Then each set of 5 players are a "team". In my high school, they did something like that. But the 5 starters were obviously better then the 2nd 5, but the coach did that anyway. Kinda like Zoubs in his senior year... saying that he could go "all out" for his time in the game, since he knew he'd get subbed out with a very capable player. Oh well...

In fact, didn't Larry Bird, as coach of Indiana, do that to some degree? I recall something like starting a certain set of 5, but closed the game with another set of 5... or something like that.

[Jarhead]

If you have 10 really good guys... what about "platooning" them. 5 each until the next 4-minute media timeout. Then each set of 5 players are a "team". In my high school, they did something like that. But the 5 starters were obviously better then the 2nd 5, but the coach did that anyway. Kinda like Zoubs in his senior year... saying that he could go "all out" for his time in the game, since he knew he'd get subbed out with a very capable player. Oh well...

In fact, didn't Larry Bird, as coach of Indiana, do that to some degree? I recall something like starting a certain set of 5, but closed the game with another set of 5... or something like that.

Sorta' like ice hockey, eh?

[-jk]

If you have 10 really good guys... what about "platooning" them. 5 each until the next 4-minute media timeout. Then each set of 5 players are a "team". In my high school, they did something like that. But the 5 starters were obviously better then the 2nd 5, but the coach did that anyway. Kinda like Zoubs in his senior year... saying that he could go "all out" for his time in the game, since he knew he'd get subbed out with a very capable player. Oh well...

In fact, didn't Larry Bird, as coach of Indiana, do that to some degree? I recall something like starting a certain set of 5, but closed the game with another set of 5... or something like that.

I suppose it works (Foster and Deano did this some as I recall), but it breaks down if someone gets in foul trouble or hurt.

-jk

[UrinalCake]

Wouldn't it be hard for a jump shooter to get into any sort of rhythm when he's spending half of the game on the bench?

[75Crazie]

The kind of defense that K's teams generally play can lead to foul trouble. We saw definite evidence of that this year. So why would you NOT try to have 10 experienced guys available to play, in the case of a tightly-called game?

[Kedsy]

The kind of defense that K's teams generally play can lead to foul trouble. We saw definite evidence of that this year. So why would you NOT try to have 10 experienced guys available to play, in the case of a tightly-called game?

Well, first of all, Coach K has been deploying that defense for 30+ years, and I don't think Duke gets into foul trouble any more than anybody else. So I'm not sure your premise is accurate.

But the real question is whether failing to play regular minutes renders a player not "available to play." All evidence points to the fact that Coach K doesn't think so. He thinks guys who have talent, practice every day, and know the system can be ready to step in during an emergency whether they've previously played big minutes in games or not.

Against Creighton, when Ryan got into foul trouble, Amile played spectacularly, especially on defense against McDermott. After the game, he spoke about how much his defense had improved by practicing, especially after Ryan returned and he could spend more practice time defending wings. He never once mentioned his previous game experience.

[SoCalDukeFan]

First of all you never have 10 players who are perfect clones of each other. So lets look at reality.

To win the ACC Championship or the NC you have to play some really really good teams. To do so you need to have your best players playing most of the time, hence the short bench.

K also likes to have players in roles. Harder to do with multiple combinations etc. Hockey style substitution is hard to manage. I have seen it and it rarely seems to last. Must be a reason for that.

About 50 years ago I read a book by Red Auerbach on basketball. He said a team should have an 8 man rotation - 2 centers, 3 forwards, 3 guards. Anything more than that was too hard to coach. A few things have changed, few true centers for example, but basic idea remains.

K does adopt when the circumstances warrant. Maybe he will see that a deeper rotation is better next year. I tend to doubt it though.

Dick

[CDu]

The short answer: no, it's not necessarily better to play 10 players rather than 6 or 7. Nor is it necessarily better to play 6 or 7 players rather than 10. It all depends on style of play the abilities of the players playing that style of play.

Is the team loaded with players with poor shooting skills but tremendous athleticism? Then it probably makes sense to press and run as much as possible. As such, it probably makes sense to use a deeper bench to keep fresher legs on the court.

Is there a huge dropoff from your starters to your bench players? If so, it probably doesn't make sense to play a deep bench, because you're taking away minutes from your best players in favor of substantially weaker players.

Are you a team that has several highly-skilled players who need to get/stay in rhythm? If so, it probably makes sense to go with a shorter bench so that your skilled players can more easily get in and stay in rhythm.

It really just depends on what the strengths/weaknesses of the team are. Thankfully we have a coach who is pretty good at changing his system each year to fit the players that he has.

[gus]

- Less susceptible to one player having a "cold" night

I don't think playing more players would make a team less susceptible to having a "cold" night, particularly because (Kedsy look away) shooting "slumps" and "hot hands" don't really exist -- it's the "clustering illusion": people adding significance to the perfectly natural clustering that exists in random events.

[rsvman]

I agree with CDu and Kedsy. I would say it is not intrinsically superior to have a 10-man rotation.

If you check out Inside Carolina, one of the biggest complaints they have about Coach Roy is that he tends to play too many guys and that he subs too frequently. It's almost like crazy backwards DBR in that respect.

As far as the two 5s and subbing them in waves is concerned, in the modern era I can only remember one team that did that for an entire season and was pretty successful with that strategy. The team was from Tulane University, but I can't for the life of me remember the year (maybe early 90s?). They did make the NCAA tournament and had a respectable showing. Aside from that, when I've seen coaches use whole-team substitution is has generally been in a penal fashion.

[azzefkram]

I think game time is different than practice (cue Iverson sound bite) time and both are equally important when developing players. What irks me is watching starters play 35+ minutes in blow outs. I think it helps guys develop to play meaningful minutes during games. Sticking the 7-10 guys on the floor with a walk-on for the last 45 seconds helps no one.

Unlike the OP, I think fatigue is a factor over the course of a season. If playing the starters 30mpg as opposed to 35mpg, makes them fresher for the tournaments, I'm all for it.

[UrinalCake]

I don't think playing more players would make a team less susceptible to having a "cold" night, particularly because (Kedsy look away) shooting "slumps" and "hot hands" don't really exist -- it's the "clustering illusion": people adding significance to the perfectly natural clustering that exists in random events.

Anyone who believes a player can't get hot has never seen Andre Dawkins play. Players can absolutely get hot or conversely have off shooting nights. I understand statistical clustering but players are not robots and shooting is not a "random event."

With that said, I don't believe that a player should stop shooting when he's having a "cold" night. Maybe he should work harder at driving and drawing a foul or doing something different to get something to drop, but if he's wide open he should shoot it. Scheyer's performance in the 2010 ACC title game was a perfect example of this - he was like 0-9 from three heading into the final minute and then nailed the shot that sealed the win. So a shooter who's feeling good should keep shooting. A shooter who's not feeling good should... keep shooting 8-)

[TruBlu]

I don't think playing more players would make a team less susceptible to having a "cold" night, particularly because (Kedsy look away) shooting "slumps" and "hot hands" don't really exist -- it's the "clustering illusion": people adding significance to the perfectly natural clustering that exists in random events.

OK, but if a player is in a bad shooting "cluster", put in a player who is not in one.


p.s. Speaking of "cluster" somehow reminds me of our pale blue friends down the road, and their Academic Fraud.

[gus]

Anyone who believes a player can't get hot has never seen Andre Dawkins play. Players can absolutely get hot or conversely have off shooting nights. I understand statistical clustering but players are not robots and shooting is not a "random event."

With that said, I don't believe that a player should stop shooting when he's having a "cold" night. Maybe he should work harder at driving and drawing a foul or doing something different to get something to drop, but if he's wide open he should shoot it. Scheyer's performance in the 2010 ACC title game was a perfect example of this - he was like 0-9 from three heading into the final minute and then nailed the shot that sealed the win. So a shooter who's feeling good should keep shooting. A shooter who's not feeling good should... keep shooting 8-)

I totally agree with your second paragraph.

As for Andre being "hot" and "cold", I actually did an analysis of his shooting here last year by looking at every single three point shot he'd attempted that season in direct response to this charge. Whether he made or missed a shot (or a series of shots) had absolutely no predictive value on whether he'd make his next one. I don't really have the time to dig through old posts for it, but it's in the archive here somewhere.

His three point shooting is a classic example of the clustering illusion, probably exacerbated by his inconsistency on defense (which would lead to him sitting on the bench).

[75Crazie]

But the real question is whether failing to play regular minutes renders a player not "available to play." All evidence points to the fact that Coach K doesn't think so. He thinks guys who have talent, practice every day, and know the system can be ready to step in during an emergency whether they've previously played big minutes in games or not.

I guess another way to say this is that Coach K does not think that game-time experience counts for much. I guess I'd like to hear him say that, because I would be pretty surprised myself to hear this.

[CDu]

I guess another way to say this is that Coach K does not think that game-time experience counts for much. I guess I'd like to hear him say that, because I would be pretty surprised myself to hear this.

I don't think that's accurate, though. I think a more accurate statement would be the following:
1. Coach K believes that game-time experience is earned through practice;
2. Coach K believes in using game time to give his best unit as much time together as possible; and
3. Coach K believes that any gains from increased game-time experience for marginal players does not offset the loss from reduced game-time experience for his best group.

In other words, Coach K would rather use game time to maximize cohesion among his best group rather than trying to give development time to the marginal guys. The idea being that he believes it is more likely that key games will be decided by the best group rather than by the marginal guys.

[lotusland]

Well, first of all, Coach K has been deploying that defense for 30+ years, and I don't think Duke gets into foul trouble any more than anybody else. So I'm not sure your premise is accurate.

But the real question is whether failing to play regular minutes renders a player not "available to play." All evidence points to the fact that Coach K doesn't think so. He thinks guys who have talent, practice every day, and know the system can be ready to step in during an emergency whether they've previously played big minutes in games or not.

Against Creighton, when Ryan got into foul trouble, Amile played spectacularly, especially on defense against McDermott. After the game, he spoke about how much his defense had improved by practicing, especially after Ryan returned and he could spend more practice time defending wings. He never once mentioned his previous game experience.

All true but, when it comes to the bigs, I like having 3 or 4 interchangable players that can play 4 and 5 so we don't have to have someone in foul trouble playing matador D at the rim just to remain in the game. In 2010 we had 5 bigs and we could defend all out for 40 minutes. On the other hand we only only had one guard/wing on the bench but that never seemed to affect how we played defense. That's why I think it is more important to add depth down low than on the perimeter. This year we should have had MP3 as a rotation player but his injury kept him from being effective even after he returned. Next year we only have one center so if we're not anxious everytime MP3 picks up his third foul it will be because he's not that effective anyway, not because we have someone else to come in for him. I like Amile and think he will be a very good 4 for Duke but I would not have been any more comfortable with him on the bench when Shelden fouled out against Okafor. You need some size to defend or block out great post players. I think next year we can speed up the game to mask the deficiency somewhat but it's a deficiency none the less. My hope is that we pick up a 5th-year big who's better than or at least comparable to Marshall. If not I think Parker is probably a better center than Amile. Jabari may be equal to Singler as a freshman center although Duke wasn't great with Singler at 5 either. However we definitely will have much more talent over-all next year than Singler's freshman year.

[azzefkram]

I don't think that's accurate, though. I think a more accurate statement would be the following:
1. Coach K believes that game-time experience is earned through practice;
2. Coach K believes in using game time to give his best unit as much time together as possible; and
3. Coach K believes that any gains from increased game-time experience for marginal players does not offset the loss from reduced game-time experience for his best group.

In other words, Coach K would rather use game time to maximize cohesion among his best group rather than trying to give development time to the marginal guys. The idea being that he believes it is more likely that key games will be decided by the best group rather than by the marginal guys.

That seems plausible (especially 1 and 2), but I wonder about 3. I'd imagine the benefit would be pretty minimal going from 30 to 35 mpg whereas 0 to 10 would seem to offer more bang for the buck. Also, I am assuming if Duke went to the effort to recruit the players I don't know if they'd be marginal player (I could be getting caught up in semantics here).

[BD80]

... My hope is that we pick up a 5th-year big who's better than or at least comparable to Marshall. ...

Classic. The list of such players ain't too long. I would suggest such a list exists only in your wild imaginings.