Repost: Let 'em Foul Out

Its a pet peeve of mine that coaches limit a guy’s minutes due to foul trouble, only for them to end up with 4 fouls and having played fewer minutes than the coach would have liked. A rec for you.

If Greg gets his fifth foul half way through the 4th, leave him in there! Whats the point of putting him on the bench?

And still agree with you today

that proves moneyball is stupid.
game set match

I’ve often pondered points 1 and 2.

is a point I’ve made previously.

Not that I want that to it be a regular practice, and I understand the traditional “Protection” measures to keep key match-ups and lineups available for later in the game, but it is “use it or lose it” so you don’t get any bonus points on a loss for having a couple of leftover fouls after the game. Got made at Nate a few times last year for that; first Greg wastes a few fouls, then Nate wastes a few fouls. ugh.

But, why does he NEED to foul out. Greg needs to learn the sorrow of having to sit and watch, not because Nate pulled him, but because he couldn’t control his own twitchs, grabs or shoves; because Greg took himself out of the game he can’t blame anybody except that guy in the mirror. Even better if they lose a close game. It needs to burn.

Nate does protect him too much and just needs to let him run, its not like he can’t turn to Joel. He needs to learn. Sometimes he does need a little protection from a jerk calling several fouls in a row, but Nate could give him a quick minute break, tell him what he needs to change, and send him right back in. That’s how he’ll learn and take it to heart.

Looked for and could not find how many foul-outs Greg actually had last year… I’m thinking it wasn’t very many.

I wouldn’t be surprised if refs were more inclined to call fouls on players with a reputation for fouling out. Perception is reality, in this case. The history confirms the suspicion: “Was that a foul that Oden committed? I’m not sure, but since he’s fouled out of a dozen games so far this season, it seems pretty likely.” Tweeeeeeeeet!

other players will attack someone in foul trouble. Coaches pull a guy with 2 early fouls so he doesn’t end up with a 3rd in the first quarter.

I would like to add that I’m in favor of protecting a player in the first half, but less inclined to do the same in the 2nd half. I think in the 2nd half you just play the normal rotation even if guys have some foul trouble.

Finally, it also depends on the player, his style and how important he is to the team. We want to save Roy for the 4th quarter so you take him out of the game. Centers need to be free to defend the paint without worrying about getting called for a foul. It’s much easier to score on a big man when he’s worried about picking up a 3rd foul in the 2nd quarter. On the flip side, a guy like Batum can stay in the game with foul trouble. We’ve got backups for him, we don’t rely on him to score in crunch time and it’s not going to hurt team/fan morale if he’s on the bench.

Makes the point elsewhere that last year Greg was using his hands because he did not have conditioning fully back and was a step slow. Now the report is just a half-step slow, on occasions, during a dominating performance on D. Maybe fouls will be less of an issue if this growth continues.

“Two weeks ago, Greg participated in a USA Basketball Mini-Camp event, held in Las Vegas. Playing against the best young talent in the NBA, Greg more than held his own. There were several occasions where he still looked a half step slow, but as a whole, he stayed out of foul trouble (the practices and scrimmage were officiated), and rebounded and defended very well.

Although it was Kevin Durant who would grab most of the headlines, the coaches and staff were generally very complimentary about Greg’s performance.

Descriptive words such as “very good”, “balanced” and “quickness” were used freely to describe his play. Jerry Colangelo reported that he’s “got a future in the NBA and maybe a future with us (meaning the USA Olympic squad)” but added that he still had work to do.

Coach Jay Triano had nothing but praise for Greg, saying, “Oden was the surprise of the practice. He shut down everything inside.”

Tweets from the sessions included the following:"

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/228516-the-case-of-the-misunderstood-manchild

Funny… but I do remember this post from back then. I think it’s an original idea, and a good challenge to the norm of coaching. As a coach at the JV level, I won’t take a player out early… unless I think he is really putting on a hack fest and is playing out of control and, thus, hurting the team. It seems that whenever I give the warning to a player that he’s got 2 or 3 fouls in the first half, he re-focuses his play and avoids further foul trouble. I’ve never automatically benched a player that reaches a certain amount of fouls early in the game. It stunts our flow in the game, and takes them out of the crucial parts of the end of the first half.

My approach to foul trouble developed from a year as an assistant coach for the varsity team. We were in the league championship tournament and our two best players were in early foul trouble. We had previously beaten this team by 25 points, and they somehow played very close with us from the start. Our go-to players picked up 2 early fouls each, and we had them on the bench as soon as that happened. While they sat, the other team built a sizable lead, and we could never recover. Both players lost their cool and eventually fouled out. The time they spent early in the game on the bench was the point in the game we were beaten. I realized later on that we reacted too quickly and didn’t put enough value on the middle portion of such a crucial game. We were caught up in the idea that you have to save your best players for the end of the game. You certainly need to exercise a moderate level of conservative methods… but at some point you just need to go for it, put forth some trust, and allow your best players to play. I have often found that they change their approach to the game and settle in when you put the pressure on them to play with more control.

Certainly, the JV game is hardly comparable to the NBA with it’s time length and intensity… but it’s still the game of basketball, and the forward, progressive approaches to the game are what separates the contenders from the pretenders. This topic is relevant to the Blazers because of the foul trouble they had with Oden last year, where he was being pulled very early in the game and could never mentally adapt to its flow. Since Portland has adequate insurance in Joel Przybilla, why act with such haste? I’d allow him to use up to 4 fouls in the first half, provided he is playing well and is in the flow of the game. Joel can play a solid 20-25 minutes… and more, if necessary. Loosen the reigns on Oden and let him play. He should be averaging no less than 30 mpg this year. If he can’t end the game because he’s fouled out, so what? Show some trust in Oden… allow him to grow up this year.

Again and again, GO would get two quick ones, sit forever, then get back in the game only to immediately pick up #3. He’d never get a rhythm or become effective, and he’d end the game with a foul or two to burn. How dumb is that? Especially when you have arguably the best back-up center in the league in Joel. As I said in my post, the 8 fouls those two possess are like money in the bank—money that you lose if you don’t spend it. Why hoard it? That seems pathological to me.

Sure, once in a blue moon you’d lose a game down the stretch because both your centers have fouled out. But as things stand, the Blazers lose games in the 2nd & 3rd quarters because they’ve let the refs’ quick whistles totally waste the asset of Greg Oden. As you suggest, in this case “playing by the book” allows a coach to cover his behind, but it doesn’t win more games. On the contrary.

Do you need to pace your centers so as to keep them in the game against a top opposing center? If you’re up against Shaw / Howard / Duncan / Yao — or even Nene the Blazer killer — you really don’t want to leave yourself without a big man to cover them every minute, especially at the end.

If you’re playing a mid-level team that’s good at center but not going to challenge you for 48 minutes like, say, Miami / Atlanta / Milwaukee / NJ, then maybe you want to go for it and use up all your Gregzilla minutes.

Wow, I don’t think anybody has made a persuasive argument for pulling a player with two quick fouls. I am beginning to buy into the idea that coaches don’t want to deviate from the norm. But Nate seems secure enough in his position that he’d buck the trend if he believed it would help win a game. Wouldn’t he?