Wednesday, March 18th, 2009...10:12 am
Some Thoughts on the Bench
A few days ago, Kevin Arnovitz emailed Tim and I asking what we thought of the Spurs bench. We had a lot to say about the issue (you can read Kevin’s personal thoughts here) but a main theme directed our comments: the Spurs bench is underrated. Yes, placing a microscope over any individual member of the bench reveals a limited player. But everyone on the bench understands their limitations and plays within their game. By mixing and matching the narrow abilities of each player, Popovich has always been able to field second units more effective than scouting reports suggest. But over the last two evenings I’ve begun to question whether this remains true.
Obviously when talking about the bench you have to preface every statement with two caveats: Manu, our most effective bench player (and most dynamic scorer overall), is injured and Drew Gooden (who may develop into our second most effective offensive presence off the bench) is still learning the system. So any remark about the Spurs’ bench runs the risk of being completely irrelevant in a couple of weeks. But against OKC and Minnesota a very straight forward statistical indicator caught my eye.
Every member of the Spurs bench posted a negative +/- against the Thunder. Trey Kerby was the first to point this out. With the exception of Ime Udoka, the same was true last night against the Timberwolves. +/- can be a deceptive metric, particularly if considered in the vacuum of a single game. But this is a disturbing trend, no matter how small the sample size may be. It’s not just that the bench may be underperforming but it is who the bench is underperforming against. Yes, I understand our second unit may struggle against some of the leagues deeper teams but shouldn’t they be able to easily dispatch of Rodney Carney or Chucky Atkins? In some ways, my eyes have seen a different story. We’ve all been impressed with Hill’s defense. Bowen remains effective during the limited minutes he’s seeing. Thomas has played above expectations (at least above my rather low expectations). And if Gooden get’s acclimated, his acquisition could prove to have been crucial.
I trust my eyes but most of the time my observations are reflected in the numbers as well. This time my humble gaze and the box score are experiencing some cognitive dissonance. Any thoughts?
Quick tangent: For the first time in the Pop/Duncan era, the second unit is stronger defensively than the starters. By pointing out that Pop has replaced 3 of the 5 starting positions with better offensive players, I’ve been describing the flip side of this coin all year. But I’ve never directly noted that, at 4 out of the 5 positions, the stronger defensive player comes off the bench (yes, I think you can make the argument that Hill, even as a rookie, is a better defender than Parker. Has Pop ever had Tony cover Kobe?). Duncan is the best defensive big man by far, but Parker, Bonner, Mason, and Finley are all surpassed defensively by their backup. Nearly every Spurs starting squad has been defined by its defensive intensity. Is this change a matter of talent (or lack thereof) or has Pop really tacked towards a more balanced strategic focus? Do you think our stoppers will see more minutes come the playoffs?
12 Comments
March 18th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Graydon,
I wanted to point something regarding your last paragraph. I believe the reason Pop set a more offensively oriented starting line up was to overcome the 3rd and 4th quarter drought the spurs suffered from last year.
One could argue that we have been seeing the same trend over the last few weeks, with the exception that last year we had Manu on both feet on the court and playing like a dark horse MVP candidate
What kinda concerns me is that both our sharpshooters (Mason and Bonner) have been having horrible nights…and if this trend follows, the team might lose the offensive edge.
Another thing off topic that amazed me is how the Spurs climbed back to the 5th spot in the league wide defensive rating. If you factor out the first games of the season, the position should be even better
March 18th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Martin,
I completely agree about overcoming the droughts. I’ve made that point several times. And for the most part it has been effective. But typically I frame it in terms of the increased offensive ability of our starters while neglecting to mention the way it changed the nature of our bench. I just wanted to highlight the flip side of the coin.
March 18th, 2009 at 10:34 am
I think that Udoka’s emergence is not an accident, nor is it due to increased production. This guy is pretty much a known quantity, and I believe that Pop spent most of the year trying to tune up the offense. Now that the playoffs are coming up, I expected the D to return as the center focus, with Pop and company comfortable that they also had more firepower to call on when needed.
The Gooden acquisition throws a bit of a wrench into this, as I figured the Spurs would stand pat and continue “tuning.” He brings a lot, but I’m not sure he’s going to be integrated easily. I almost wonder if he is partly the reason for the insanely disjointed offense these last two games.
March 18th, 2009 at 11:50 am
This was an even more interesting read after reading this from ESPN:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=PERDiem-090318
March 18th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Hm. It’s even more difficult to draw any sort of conclusion from last night’s game if you consider Tim Duncan didn’t play. That put Kurt, who’s by far the most consistent big man off the bench this year, as a starter – and it probably played havoc with the usual rotations.
Regarding Bonner and Mason, while it’s true their shots have been off their mark lately, Mason did catch on fire for a while in the 3rd last night, if I remember correctly. It’s Bonner who worries me, considering his low-key performances have coincided with Gooden’s first three games. (Maybe I’m reading too much into that.) We’ll see. I trust the law of averages to prove true once again.
(By the way, +/- seems so unfair sometimes. I thought last night Oberto played a heckuva game, and it turns out he has a team-worst -10.)
I for one consider any game we can win while shooting 24% from beyond the arc without Timmy or Manu a good one. Nice post, Graydon.
March 18th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Juan,
John Hollinger is a moron…his point is that our since our bench does well, then, an increased number of our starters minutes will weaken the team…
I just don’t buy it…his logic is “since cleveland’s bench is terrible, the cavaliers will be better in the play offs due to an increased number of minutes from LeBron…”
March 18th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I’m not worried about the bench right now. I thought the bench played very well against Houston. I was getting really excited watching the bench in that game and thinking “Once Manu is back and Gooden is more acclimated, our bench will be awesome.” I think a 2 game sample with Tim missing one of the games is too small to get worried. (Of course I based my excitement on 1 game…)
March 18th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I believe Pop builds his bench to compliment his starters. With the exception of Ginobli, Pop starts with his best offensive lineup on the floor. He then substitutes defensively as different opponents heat up. If Matt Bonner keeps his guy in check and rebounds, he stays in the game longer. If he can’t score he usually caps out at 15 minutes. But if he is getting scorched, he gets pulled immediately.
The +/- of the bench is severely compromised though if at least 2 of the big 3 are not scoring. San Antonio more than other teams is dependant on assists. Outside of the big 3, we don’t have players that create there own shots or open the floor. Mason could develope into that type of player if he starts finishing better around the basket. I think Pop has given Mason a mandate to get to the basket.
The lions share of assists come from the Big 3. This is why San Antonio bench becomes so much less efficient with Ginobli out. Add to that Timmy’s poor play since resting his injured leg and you are left with Tony as the only player creating shots on the floor. When he goes to the bench or is somehow contained by the defense, our offence has no where else to go and we start taking horrible shots.
You get San Antonio’s Big 3 healthy and the bench’s weaknesses will disappear. Then they will be a championship caliber team. That is why Pop is so protective of the health of the Big 3. Without even one of them, San Antonio will not get past the Lakers (See last year’s Western Conference Finals.)
March 18th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Martin,
I’m sorry. I forgot to explain that I also think that article is plain wrong. It takes a team weakness and turns it into a strenght and viceversa by redefining them.
As for Hollinger, I think he is both underrated and overrated (if that is possible). Overrated because people give him too much credit when he actually WRITES so badly that he always ends up screwing up a good idea. And underrrated because people get caught up on his writing/stats that they miss the point of what made Hollinger write about it in the first place. Ok, I might have wrote a little too much like him…
I believe he was right when saying Cleveland will improve in the playoffs by getting its starters more minutes, but that in no way means a team like San Antonio will play worse because they depend so much on their bench.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
The +/- stat comparison belie how Pop depends on thebench only for specific tasks. Most of our bench guys, when fans evaluate them as being successful on the court, have very specific roles to fill, being game changers is not one of them.
Tim summed it up when he mentioned his low expectations for KThomas. Just rebound and hit a couple open midrange jumpers. Others are asked to shut down a particular player for a segment of the game. Minimize turnovers.
If Udoka hits one three, it’s like Christmas.
We have a strong three guys, and everyone else can be considered “the bench.” As
long as the bench players fill their roles, it’s not about +/- scores but doing the little things to compliment the big three.
March 19th, 2009 at 4:40 am
I liked that, ChillFAN. By the way, anyone else winces every time you read “Ginobli”?
March 20th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Lakers fan here. Yes, teh enemy.
Even as a stats kind of guy, I find plus-minus stats to be very dangerous. They’re easy to find, relatively speaking, and seem to indisputably account for all facets of the game because they focus on the bottom line: Did the team outperform its opponents with this player on the floor? You don’t have to worry about the relative importance of offensive rebounding versus three-point shooting because that’s all been accounted for in the final tally. It’s an ingenious short-circuiting of game analysis.
And so it’s very easy to be seduced by the truth of the plus-minus. What were the matchups? Did the opponents play man against the starters and zone against the subs? How were the players subbed in–one at a time, or en masse? All these things get finessed by the plus-minus because all it cares about is who scored more points. The strength of the plus-minus is also its weakness.
And I disagree with Hollinger on this point. (In general I think he evinces an overconfidence in statistics, but that’s just by the way.) In the playoffs, I don’t think you can really take that much from the plus-minus differential between starters and the bench because over a seven-game series, matchups become incredibly more important. Lineups are tailored for the situation. At that point, how much do you care about how a random collection of subs did against a random stream of teams over an 82-game regular season?
As far as the coaching staff is concerned, they should be interested in this information only insofar as it guides how they coach against their opponents for the next four to seven games. And honestly, I just can’t see that it makes much difference. The plus-minus is what it is; the good coaches will put out the players that match up best with what their opponents have out there, accounting for the fact that fatigue decreases performance (so you do need to put some subs out there). Everything else is for the fans to worry about.
I’ve always had the highest level of respect for Pops and his ability to arrange matchups. Obviously, as a Laker fan, I’m partial to Phil, but even there I give him the edge only on season and player management. It’s a very slight edge–Pops obviously showed an eye for season management earlier in Denver. But I think in setting up matchups, Pops is really admirable, which is why the Spurs are always hell in the playoffs.
And frankly, I don’t think he’ll be thinking about his subs’ plus-minus.
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