Minutes

[Bayliss]

One thing I really hope Avery does next year is start managing minutes, especially Dirk's minutes. Ron on another message board talks about that a lot but I was just doing some looking on NBA.com and some things kind of jumped out at me.

For Dirk's 7 year career he has played 19,000 minutes.
For Duncan's 8 year career he has played 22,000 minutes.
For Garnett's 10 year career he has played 30,000 minutes

Larry Bird played 35,000 minutes for his career. McHale played 30,000 minutes. Magic played 30,000 minutes. Jordan played 40,000 minutes.

Part of the reason why Garnett may not last much longer is because at 29 years of age he has already played the equivalent of a 31-32 year old.

Dirk will be 27 at the beginning of next year..... he needs to be around 36 minutes a game.

[mavsman]

While I do agree with your statement that Dirk's minutes should be considerably below 40, I don't agree with the rest. World records are broken in almost every discipline almost every year. Soccer players still have to play 90 mins a game yet the intensity and the speed of the game have doubled since the late 70s/early 80s. Athletes are just that much better trained than 20 years ago, so I don't think you can compare Garnett or Dirk to McHale or Magic in that aspect.

[ddh33]

I do think Dirk's minutes need to be monitored and cut back a little bit. I think Van Horn was important in that regard.

I must say that I do admire how Pop refuses to play his guys big minutes. Just tonight, they start falling behind by as many as ten. Pop still sits Manu and Duncan at the same time.

[dirno2000]

I like how Pop didn't trade for a washed up point guard and instead gave Beno Udrih consistent playing time. As a result, he feels comfortable playing the kid in the playoffs and Beno's not scared to shoot in the 4th quarter.

Avery managed Dirks minutes pretty closely last season so I'd expect that to continue...especially if we don't trade Van Horn.

[chumdawg]

Seriously, I think you are comparing apples to oranges. Especially in the case of Garnett. How many minutes did Bird play in college? Magic?

College notwithstanding, I think that athletes are simply far better conditioned these days. Honestly, I don't see this being an isue.

[Razor]

Man, it is amazing how every one of those players had such a perfectly rounded number. You would think one of them would have been at X0,007 minutes!!

I wonder if Dirk should just sit all off season so he doesn't add any minutes to his perfect total. Does that include his minutes he played in Germany? How about pick up games?

[Bayliss]

If you believe that players can play only a certain number of minutes for their career and then they start to decline.... then you would want the Mavs to be "lenient" on minutes.

Michael Finley is a prime example of how someone that plays huge minutes early in their career can affect the latter stages of their career.

[Usually Lurkin]

I agree that you need to take college minutes into account.
You should also account for international play. I would think x number of minutes packed into a single year of NBA and international play is harder on the body than the same x number of minutes spread out over 1.5 - 2 years of NBA play.

[imran2315]

I agree

[jayC]

Yet John Stockton played close to 40 minutes a night. He was still an effective player into his 40's. These guys play basketball all the time. Dirk plays for the German National team every other year.

Finley is a guy that only made two all-star appearences. I don't see how you can compare perennially two of the best in the NBA to Finley. Finley is like Rafeal Palmero a good player/role player that puts up numbers but was never a top five player at his position.

[Phil Helmuth]

off-topic/ Palmeiro was defeinitely a top 5 player at his posistion and most likely will be elected to the hall-of-fame./off-topic