@Bwag said:
I don’t think your C5 concept is helpful.
With all due respect, what I think you mean is that the logic of it is sound and it gets in the way of what you wish would happen. Isn't that much more accurate?
The studs on our bench aren't playing consistently enough to warrant turning the 5 over to just them.
There are always three things to consider about a player's PT and most fans only give weight to one of the two things.
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Can the player give the coach what he asks for from the position the player plays? Note: this varies greatly from game to game. One game a 5 needs to be able to bang low. The next game a 5 needs to be able to chase and hedge. The next game a 5 needs to be able to run the floor. The next game a player needs to be able to score low against a zone. The next game he's got to be able to go set picks up high. And so on.
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Can he do so at a higher average level per minute played than other players can? Note: this is the angle that most board rats focus on almost singularly.
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Can he do so with the best trade off of average and variance in performance game in and game out, regardless of the kind of opponent that is faced at that position? Note: trade off between average productivity and variance in that productivity giving varying kinds of tasks varying game to game but needing to get accomplished regardless is particularly hard for board rats to focus in on, and write meaningfully about. I am quite aware of this trade off, because I have long used it in my evaluations in my work, but I too find it hard to write meaningfully about it, because so far statisticians are not grinding and publishing meaningful statistics about it yet. Its hard to talk about because the tasks a 5 are expected to do vary a great deal from game to game and influence how much Coach Self is expecting him to score and rebound. Some games Coach Self wants a lot of scoring and rebounding out of a player, because he isn't putting much load on him defensively. Other games its the reverse. Finding stats that indicate these varying loads being placed on a player and the way the alter his likely productivity in scoring and rebounding on a per minute played basis each game is very difficult.
Mostly board rats focus on the player's average production per minute played in points and rebounds and ignore work loads along with those activities. I am even a bit guilty of this in my talk about the Composite 5.
But implicit in my talk about the Composite 5 is that because he is a composite of several players with differing abilities, differing levels of experience, and differing strengths and weaknesses, is that Self is going to being playing each player to achieve things situationally that the other players might not be as good at achieving as the player selected.
KU has kicked ass against against UCLA and Vandy on good shooting nights, and hung in against MSU on a terrible shooting night, in no small part because KU's composite 5 has been able to counter almost everything MSU, UCLA and Vandy big men liked to do. Our Composite 5 got MSU's Costello, clearly the best big man we have faced, fouled up and nearly marginalized him from the game. But Costello is just a very fundamentally sound and experienced big man that we couldn't quite control down the second half. Costello would have had a field day against Diallo and Bragg alone, because they couldn't have made good reads on help with him, he would have pushed them off all spots, and he would have had THEM fouled up in not time, instead of him. The UCLA and Vandy big men we just never allowed to get in a comfort zones, because Self kept coming at them with fresh legs, posing different challenges, and trying to do different things on them.
Until we run into another fundamentally sound center like Costello, who is taller than Costello, and so limits us to having to go with our taller guys only, this Composite 5 of ours is going to be our team's greatest strength game in and game out, except maybe for Frank Mason.
Composite players have great vulnerabilities to a single great player that can do it all. Our composite 5 is MOST vulnerable to a really big, strong rebounding single 5 about 6-10. But, of course, so would be most single players that weren't as great as that single great rebounding player on the opposition.
But right now, we have the best of all possible worlds with this composite 5.
And I haven't even mentioned the best part of this Composite 5: Diallo and Bragg both are likely to improve a lot in the next two months and so the Composite 5 is likely to get a lot better.
