Mike D'Toni is retard 4 NOT giving J Hill mins

[gts]

those 12 mins can make a lot of difference if given to J Hill.....

I have no clue why he is on the team let alone starting @PF

Hill had major surgery last year on his hip last winter, he's been injured the previous 3 seasons, Kaman been banged up for the last couple seasons. Pau has had the tendinitis in the knees that hampered him all last year. Face the facts the Lakers big men are not exactly iron men...None of those guys can be ridden to hard to early or they'll break down so you find someone else who can fill up some time on the floor

Sacre can't he's just raw, Kelly was been banged up through all of preseason plus he's a rookie so you fill in the gaps with what you have. It isn't optimum but there's not a team in the league that is perfect at every spot in the rotation

It's been 4 games, Lakers are .500
Coaches are still trying to find the right combo to use after bringing in 9 new bodies this summer
Kobe's out and not even practicing and everyone said they'd go 1-10 to start the season... Can't see where anyone can be surprised if they're not storming the league at this point

[BlazerRed]

Damn, D'antoni is giving Shawne Williams mad minutes. Only explanation I can think of is Shawne is supplying D'antoni with that purple drank, Shawne loves that stuff and he musta got D'antoni hooked too.

Grape juice?

[ZenMaster]

Hill had major surgery last year on his hip last winter, he's been injured the previous 3 seasons, Kaman been banged up for the last couple seasons. Pau has had the tendinitis in the knees that hampered him all last year. Face the facts the Lakers big men are not exactly iron men...None of those guys can be ridden to hard to early or they'll break down so you find someone else who can fill up some time on the floor

Sacre can't he's just raw, Kelly was been banged up through all of preseason plus he's a rookie so you fill in the gaps with what you have. It isn't optimum but there's not a team in the league that is perfect at every spot in the rotation

It's been 4 games, Lakers are .500
Coaches are still trying to find the right combo to use after bringing in 9 new bodies this summer
Kobe's out and not even practicing and everyone said they'd go 1-10 to start the season... Can't see where anyone can be surprised if they're not storming the league at this point

You can unfortunately never instill common sense into other people in these types of threads.

I've skimmed the thread and haven't seen one guy ask the question: why isn't Hill playing more even though he plays almost the entire 12 minutes in the 4th quarter of the games so far?

That's what's happening and people should go backwards from that in order to get answers deeper than "D'Antoni is an idiot, play Hill more".

A big Laker fan myself I have given the matter some thought, I believe the answer lies in a combination of SOME of these factors:

-The obvious one like you mention: health. Hill had hip surgery and there's even a possibility he has a minutes restriction, or an advice from the med staff to play him extended minutes as much as possible because comming in cold multiple times could be some sort of hindrance.
Or perhaps they're still testing out how his legs are responding after the hip surgery: is he putting pressure on other parts of the legs than before(?) Does he need to strengthen other specific parts of the legs because of this(?) Play him too much before we find out and you might regret it.
It's pure speculation but possible and wouldn't necessarily be public.

-Maybe it's a motivational tool, D'Antoni has coached Hill for quite a while now, perhaps he feels that Hill is a guy who gives more when motivated to prove it in less time. Keep in mind the best attribtue Hill has over opponents is that he plays harder.

-Maybe it's part of the team strategy, and D'Antoni believes that having the opponent Hill will be matching up with in the 4th quarter will be more tired by having to cover the a shooter a bigger area on defense. Hill then gets in a better position to affect the game by energy and hustle on the boards. Combine that with the added effect of giving Gasol the spacing needed to make him perform best by having the extra shooter in the corners, I know that's why Shawne Williams mostly plays when Pau is on the floor.

Like I said, I think the answer is some sort of combination of the points above. My main point though is that there has to be some sort of answer, because D'Antoni plays Hill when it matters at the end of games and he plays him a lot at that point, so it can't be that he doesn't trust him or that he doesn't bring enough. Playing in the last 5 is much more important than the first 5.

[gts]

You can unfortunately never instill common sense into other people in these types of threads.

I've skimmed the thread and haven't seen one guy ask the question: why isn't Hill playing more even though he plays almost the entire 12 minutes in the 4th quarter of the games so far?

That's what's happening and people should go backwards from that in order to get answers deeper than "D'Antoni is an idiot, play Hill more".

Speak of the devil here we go fresh off the press 30 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles Lakers backup big man Jordan Hill has a bone bruise in his right knee, according to the team.

Hill missed practice Monday in order to undergo an MRI on the joint, which revealed the injury.

The 26-year-old Hill missed the team flight to Dallas for the first leg of the Lakers' three-game road trip against the Mavericks, Houston Rockets and New Orleans Pelicans this week, but will fly commercial to meet the team in Dallas on Monday night.

Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said that Hill has earned a bigger spot in L.A.'s deep 11-man rotation based on his early play, but prefers to not ride him too much.

"Jordan is kind of a spurt guy," D'Antoni said after practice Monday. "The longer the minutes, the [more tired] he gets, the less productive. So he spurts out there and he gives us some energy and he doing a great job. There's no doubt we're trying to find him a few more minutes here and there, but we're trying to be strategic about how his minutes are going to impact the game and they have so far."

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/s...ise-right-knee

[ZenMaster]

Speak of the devil here we go fresh off the press 30 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles Lakers backup big man Jordan Hill has a bone bruise in his right knee, according to the team.

Hill missed practice Monday in order to undergo an MRI on the joint, which revealed the injury.

The 26-year-old Hill missed the team flight to Dallas for the first leg of the Lakers' three-game road trip against the Mavericks, Houston Rockets and New Orleans Pelicans this week, but will fly commercial to meet the team in Dallas on Monday night.

Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said that Hill has earned a bigger spot in L.A.'s deep 11-man rotation based on his early play, but prefers to not ride him too much.

"Jordan is kind of a spurt guy," D'Antoni said after practice Monday. "The longer the minutes, the [more tired] he gets, the less productive. So he spurts out there and he gives us some energy and he doing a great job. There's no doubt we're trying to find him a few more minutes here and there, but we're trying to be strategic about how his minutes are going to impact the game and they have so far."

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/s...ise-right-knee

Answer given by D'Antoni himself and not a single comment comes from it, people probably don't even read it.