Thursday, June 19, 2014

Projected Minutes Distribution, 2014-2015 MBB Team

I've read a lot of opinions lately that expect Sherron Dorsey-Walker to have a bigger impact this year, and Giorgios average 10 minutes/game.  I don't see how either of those happens.  There are at least 7 players, if not 8 or 9 that should earn minutes ahead of either of them.  Especially considering generally Fred keeps it to a rotation of 6 or 7 players, minutes are going to be scarce.

Rotations tighten up at the end of the season.  And I think it's a good place to start to see who will be playing big minutes next year.  In the postseason, Monte averaged 32 minutes, Hogue 34, Niang 31 (not counting the final two games), Naz 24 minutes, and Thomas 10.  That's 131 minutes/game there.  The two players lost from last year's team combined for 71 mpg.  So I believe, there's only about 70 minutes left to hand out for the upcoming season.  BDJ will start, and should be penciled in for about 30 minutes a game.  Nader and McKay will likely be the 5th starter/6th man in some fashion and should easily share a combined 40 minutes. 

That's it.  That's your 200 total player-minutes per game.  There aren't another 20 minutes for SDW to make an impact and certainly not 10 minutes for the Greek.  You could argue Hogue only sees 25-30, but those extra minutes would go to Nader/McKay.  And maybe Naz sees a reduction, but those would go to BDJ first (Kane averaged 35 mpg last year) and I think Custer second as a backup point guard. 

With Nader and McKay and Thomas out to start the season, against an easy non-conference schedule, everyone should see minutes.  Come the end of the season, I think it'll be Morris, BDJ, Niang, Hogue, Nader, McKay and Naz seeing nearly all the minutes.  And I'm OK with that.  It's still a deeper, and better, team than they had last year.