What can depth do for you, Part Two: Flip Saunders' "eight-man rotation"

by Mike Prada on Aug 5, 2009 8:00 AM EDT in Coaching

We should all be well aware that when Flip Saunders says he likes an eight-man rotation, he doesn't really mean he'll only play eight guys. Every coach will always create scrap minutes for the rest of the roster to deal with foul trouble and the like, and Flip's no exception. Injuries also happen, and no team, particularly this one, should take health for granted.

But even with all those disclaimers, it's safe to say that we'll see less tinkering from Flip Saunders than we saw from Eddie Jordan. If Eddie Jordan is the guy who loves multi-tooled players that can be ready to do their thing no matter their minutes, Flip ties players down to specific roles and minute allotments to preserve consistency with the team. Let's be clear: Flip's approach is a good thing. Sure, roles may become inflexible, but consistent rotations breed consistent play.

The interesting part about this is that the Wizards' depth has been highly-touted. Michael Lee called this team the deepest Wizards club of the decade. An eight-man rotation means only two of Nick Young, JaVale McGee, Andray Blatche, DeShawn Stevenson, Fabricio Oberto, Dominic McGuire and Javaris Crittenton will play regular minutes this year.

So I ask this question again. What good is depth if only eight guys will soak up most of the minutes anyway?

Clearly, there are some indirect positives of having a strong 9-12 on your roster. Preventing and accounting for injuries in the top eight, competition in practice, etc. That stuff matters. But it matters less than having a really strong top eight. Compared to the teams we're trying to chase, we just don't have the horses at the top.

Even if Gilbert Arenas comes back healthy, the Arenas-Caron Butler-Antawn Jamison trio doesn't compare to Paul Pierce-Kevin Garnett-Ray Allen-Rajon Rondo, Dwight Howard-Vince Carter-Rashard Lewis-Jameer Nelson or even LeBron himself. Brendan Haywood is underrated as hell, but he's not Dwight Howard, is about as good as Kendrick Perkins and can't beat Cleveland's Ilgauskas-Shaq-Varejao threesome by himself. Mike Miller and Randy Foye are good complimentary guys, but they can't make up for the big gaps in starpower here. Hell, you can legimitately argue that they aren't as good as guys like Mickael Pietrus, Rasheed Wallace, Jamario Moon, Delonte West, Anthony Parker, etc.

The positive way to look at reconciling the depth vs. tight rotation dichotomy is to suggest that a tight, balanced eight-man rotation can maximize everyone's strengths. You could look at Flip's Detroit teams, who got by on several good players playing together without dwarfing each other's minutes, as evidence here. But that same case study falls short in a sense because, for all their depth, they ran into teams with more starpower and better players than what Flip and the intangible whole-is-better-than-sum factor could make up.

Maximizing the top-level talent on this team must be the priority. It doesn't pay to have our 9-12 guys be so strong in order to have overall roster depth when that 9-12 group could be used to upgrade the top eight. And in this case, it can be. Take a promising youngster who might not crack our tight rotation here (Nick Young, Crittenton, one of Blatche/McGee maybe), combine him with expiring contracts (Mike James, even Foye or Miller), and you can find yourself someone to upgrade the top eight. (You could have taken a similar package and gotten something better than Foye/Miller, but I digress). The longer you wait to decide who to package, the more those 9-12 guys don't play, and the lower their trade value. It doesn't pay to wait.

Point here is, at a certain point, excessive depth is unnecessary. The 9-12 guys don't matter, and they especially don't matter on a Flip Saunders-coached team. Excessive depth needs to be used to upgrade your top-level talent, or it needs to be used as insurance in case you need to dip into your top eight to upgrade your top eight. That depth needs to be parlayed into top-level talent as soon as possible, because the longer that depth sits on the bench, the lower its trade value sinks.

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What do you suggest?

I think everyone wants to make trades to improve their team. That is essentially a GMs job, make moves to improve your team. The theory is great, take part of your 9-12 roster and turn it into a top 8 guy. But the devil is in the details, what is the trade that actually makes us better? What is the trade that makes our top 3 or 4 better than the magic, celtics, and Lebron?

I guess the point I am making, is sure, lets trade and get better, but with a specific idea or series of ideas, this is just a theory and a cheap way to bash Ernie. Don’t mean to be harsh, but just sayin, “I would do trade and improve the team” without saying for who, really isnt saying anything at all.

Maybe i am wrong, just my first cup of coffee reaction

by Blatche4MVP on Aug 5, 2009 8:30 AM EDT reply actions

I've/We've spent so many posts on specifics

And none on big-picture stuff. Sometimes, a step back is needed.

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Aug 5, 2009 9:35 AM EDT up reply actions

I'm

actually holding out hope that, once training camp and the season roll around Flip comes to his senses and utilizes the unusual depth this team has. (Unusual for us, that is) I don’t like the notion of predetermining what you are going to do as a coach based on teams you’ve coached in the past. Good coaches adapt to their players, or at least meet in the middle. The perfect example of this is Pat Riley. The identity of his Lakers was WAY different than the identity of his Knicks and Heat teams, and he took all of them to the finals. Saying you’re goingto use an 8 man rotation regardless of the personnel is just hand-cuffing yourself. It’s like saying “we don’t want our small forward shooting threes, so Mike Miller will be a slasher for us.” His strength is shooting the 3, why have him if you’re not going to utilize it. And I don’t know where this notion comes in that you haveto have an 8 man rotation to win. Some of the best teams in history were also deep. Forget about Flips Pistons teams, look at Chuck Daly’s Pistons teams. They played 10 guys regularly. Even the Bulls went 9 or 10 deep. Sure, those last few guys weren’t playing a lot of minutes, but they had defined roles, and knew they were going to get called on most games. Even if for a few minutes.

As Mike alluded to, we can’t compete with the top teams 5 vs. 5, or even 8 vs. 8. What we CAN do is keep our top guys fresh while our backups come in and run the other teams’ backups off the court. As I (and plenty of other guys) have said before, the great thing about having such quality depth is keeping our big guns from wearing down towards the end of the season. I wasn’t a big proponent of the Foye/Miller trade, but one thing I did like about it is it seemed to give us the option of going 10 deep. I don’t want to see Arenas, Butler, and Jamison among the league leaders in minutes this year. The 1st two because of their injury history, and Jamison because of his age and miles.

by CJHutch on Aug 5, 2009 8:50 AM EDT reply actions

depth

Flip should look at what Doc Rivers did last year in terms of how he seamlessly mixed in his youngsters with the vets, while not wearing the vets out. Our vets are nowhere as old as Garnett/Pierce/Allen, but they are more injury prone, so early on this has to be taken into consideration at least until February. In Feb, I fully expect that rotation to be tightened, and then hopefully a member of the bench will have raised his trade value, and maybe we can get another “star”. All of this feels pointless to discuss, because someone can, and always does get hurt..I just hope I’m wrong this year

twitter.com/rashad20

by rashad20 on Aug 5, 2009 8:55 AM EDT reply actions

I agree with most of what Mike argues. The Wizards are a very good team, but probably not Boston-Orlando good. They have so many players with talent that their smartest move likely is to upgrade their top-8 if that’s the approach Flip wants to take.

The one area I’d argue differently than Mike is around when to make a trade. I’d rather see this team as it stands now play 20-30 games to really see the strengths and weaknesses before making an upgrade. By then we’ll know firmly who belongs in the top-8 (does Blatche or McGee have breakout seasons; who’s more valuable to the team – Foye or Miller; etc.). It’s also near this point that other teams will become more eager to make a move. These benefits outweigh whatever loss in trade value some of these players might face if they’re not cracking Flip’s rotation.

by Johnnie Futbol on Aug 5, 2009 9:06 AM EDT reply actions

Thanks for the well thought out analysis (as usual).

I don’t think a player’s trade value goes down if he doesn’t crack the 8 man rotation for 30-40 games. These aren’t bloggers from Golden State that Eddie is dealing with, it’s other pro GMs who have been following most of these players since they were in high school or certainly college and follow their pro careers very very closely. I don’t think a GM is going to not like Nick Young for example because he’s not getting a ton of minutes this year. They know what they’re looking at.

I also don’t think our big 3 compares so poorly to an aging Boston or one man show Cleveland. And who knows how things will go in Orlando without Turk, who in my opinion was the glue of that team. Plus I think Miller is a damn good player too, comparable to other team’s #4-5 guys.

by MR on Aug 5, 2009 10:11 AM EDT reply actions

However

the more those 9-12 guys don’t play, and the lower their trade value.

This statement is absolutely true… however, the longer Ernie waits (closer to the trade deadline), the more valuable those expiring contracts become…

I can see a scenario where a team like Toronto, if they’re looking like they’re out of the Playoff race – trading Bosh, for instance…
I could see Phoenix, if they’re out of the Playoffs, trading Stoudemire.
I could see Houston trading Battier
I could see Atlanta trading Joe Johnson or Josh Smith – again, if they’re out of the race…..

But this early in the season, no one is going to give up a top player for “potential” and expiring contracts.

Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......

by Rook6980 on Aug 5, 2009 10:28 AM EDT reply actions

the longer Ernie waits (closer to the trade deadline), the more valuable those expiring contracts become…

Only one 9-12 guy (James) will be expiring.

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Aug 5, 2009 11:19 AM EDT up reply actions

Miller's is also expiring....

And I don’t care if he is considered one of the top 8…. If by trading him the Wizards could get a Chris Bosh, Stoudemire, or other elite level player… That would be considered an upgrade of the “top 8” just as well as taking 9-12 players and trading them….

Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......

by Rook6980 on Aug 5, 2009 9:59 PM EDT up reply actions

if we could

somehow ended up with Josh Smith or even Joe Johnson WITHOUT losing our top 3, we’d be EC favorites. I know the contracts aren’t really feasible, and the whole thing is more or less a pipe dream, but Rook started it, so don’t jump on me. At least not first.

by CJHutch on Aug 5, 2009 11:24 AM EDT up reply actions

sorry for

sounding illiterate. Meant to erase ‘could.’

by CJHutch on Aug 5, 2009 11:27 AM EDT up reply actions

Most nights, our 1-6 guys should be able to build solid leads.

Against middle of the road teams, the 7-9 guys just need to play consistently enough not to blow the game. I see DeShawn, McGuire, and Oberto getting most of the minutes.

Against the bottom of the barrel, we can afford to throw the youngsters out there. Even if they screw up, our 1-6 should be good enough to rally back to secure the win.

Against the elite teams, our 1-6 may not be able to build a lead. On those nights, we may need to roll the dice with the youngsters to give ourselves a chance to win. The consistency of DeShawn/McGuire/Oberto is good when we’re the better team, but when we’re the underdog, we want to randomize things. Nick Young, that means you. And Andre and Javale.

This way we can win the games we’re supposed to win, give ourselves a chance to steal some games we’re supposed to lose, and also find court time to develop the youngsters.

by yop32 on Aug 5, 2009 11:50 AM EDT reply actions

By that reasoning

We should make a big trade. Nick Young, Blatche, and Javale are serious prospects (particularly NY and Epic Vale). If we don’t expect them to see minutes this year, I have to believe that two of them plus Mike James’s contract could fetch us a serious upgrade to the front court.

I’d rather see Young and Blatche get minutes as the 7 and 8 guys, with Javale at #9 and fighting to get into the rotation. That means seeing little of DeShawn/McGuire/Oberto, but we pretty much know all of their ceilings already. If the Wizards are going to make it into the late rounds of the playoffs this year, they need a healthy 1-6 (knock on wood/sacrifice a chicken) AND the emergence of one of our young guys. Otherwise we just don’t have the talent.

by sierradave on Aug 5, 2009 12:22 PM EDT up reply actions

I suppose I view our "depth" differently

I agree that this is the deepest team that we’ve had here in recent history. But my reasoning for that is NOT because our 9-12 guys are some of the best 9-12 guys in the league. I generally think that Taser, Oberto, Stevenson et al would and should be 9-12 guys on most contenders’ rosters.

What makes this team the deepest is the quality of the 5-8 guys. Foye, Miller, Blatche, and McGee/Young is the best group at those slots that we’ve ever had. Look at the 5-8 positions in terms of minutes per game the last few years, with career PER (For the purposes of the exercise, I’ve excluded Haywood and included the #4 guy on the list. Eddie was never kind to Haywood, as has been pointed out):

- 04/05 – Arvis Hayes (10.9), Jared Jeffries (9.8), Kwame Brown (12.5), Etan Thomas (14.9).

- 05/06 – Antonio Daniels (14.6), Jeffries (9.8), Hayes (10.9), Chucky Atkins (13.2). Thomas was next on the list as Atkins only played 28 games for us.

- 06/07 – Stevenson (10.8), Daniels (14.6), Hayes (10.9), Thomas (14.9)

- 07/08 – Stevenson (10.8), Daniels (14.6), Roger Mason (11.7), Andray Blatche (14.5)

Projected 09/10 – Foye (13.6), Miller (15.4), Blatche (14.5), McGee (17.0) or Young (12.5)

Clearly this is not a perfect science, but I think it helps show that we simply have more talent at the 5-8 slots based on NBA performance thus far, with potential for improvement (perhaps significant) for three of them. Combine in the excellent post here a few weeks ago about how Randy Foye could REALLY break out, and I think we have the most dynamic group of 5-8 guys we’ve had here in recent memory, particularly offensively. Defensively, I think we all realize these players have a ways to go, but I’d counter that we can hope for improvement on that end simply by changing our schemes (it’s not like the guys in past years made us above average defensively anyways).

I think the fact that we’ve had success giving significant minutes to guys like Stevenson and McGuire only help the depth argument. They don’t hurt you.

As for your suggestion about upgrading the top 8, I don’t disagree, but I’m not sure what Miller + Taser/Stevenson etc. gets you in terms of an upgrade. Perhaps Miller + Young could bring a decent return, but we’d need a target who is a clear upgrade, makes about $10M, and is expiring (since we need to resign Haywood).

by mfish on Aug 5, 2009 2:53 PM EDT reply actions

To the last point

I’m hoping the team ponies up the cash and will pay for a long-term deal. The idea would be that you have to replace Miller’s salary slot anyway to even stay the course, so what difference does it make if they take on long term money.

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Aug 5, 2009 3:00 PM EDT up reply actions