Quote:
Originally posted by: LRB
There was only a little over 2 minutes of garbage time when Scott threw in the towel and pulled his starters. I wouldn't have had much of a problem playing Benga there since Shawn had already fouled out and Damp had gotten plenty of minutes already. I wouldn't want to have played Benga any earlier though. Benga needs quality minutes, not garbage minutes to develop. Hopefully once the regular rotation has meshed, maybe sometime in late December, early January with luck, Benga can get some quality minutes. Until then the focus needs to be to get the regular rotation as many quality minutes as possible so that they can mesh. Yeah if Shawn or Damp or Dirk or Hendu goes down we will need to play Benga or at least Booth. But the that's only a maybe. We know we will be playing Damp, Shawn, Dirk, and Hendu and they need time to mesh together and with the rest of the team. That has to be top priority from now until the team meshes. Ideally we could give Benga this whole year to develop without having to call on him.
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I think my point has been muddled, so please allow me to restate more clearly. In the context of that game, where Dampier was getting rest and Bradley was in foul trouble, IMHO playing Mbenga against Magloire would have been enlightening. Bradley did not have to be exposed to fouling out since you had other options to go to at the 5 (namely Mbenga or even Booth).
I will grant you that in the big picture Bradley should get more PT than Mbenga, that is NOT what I was arguing. My original point pertains to what the Mavs did wrong in that specific game. I felt it was a great opportunity to get a look at Mbenga against a quality NBA center. Don't you agree?