I think Stevens is to blame for a lot of the inconsistency problems right now. Especially the bigs who are all clearly uncomfortable with their status. Not knowing when they will come into games. Or how long they will get to play. Or who will be alongside them.
Stevens has created this problem with his own inconsistent minute / substitution patterns.
It's no surprise that they are struggling for consistency when their own coach makes so many changes game-to-game.
I disagree with much of this. I mean, I'm with you with the theory of giving players consistency and a decent amount of games as you mention as well.
But I'm not going to put the blame here on Stevens. No one's minutes had been more inconsistent in the beginning of the season than Amir, Sullinger, and Lee and all three are actually performing well. Heck, Lee starting playing better when his minutes became even more inconsistent.
Jerebko is getting consistent minutes off the bench, that was always going to be his role anyways, and he's simply not performed well at all. That's not on Stevens.
Zeller's problem was on the defensive end, he simply wasn't getting it done... getting played with and showing little resistance, so this is not on Stevens. He's playing what he deserves to play up to this point, though a case could be made for him to start playing and Stevens benching Olynyk, but I'm not seeing it.
Then we have Olynyk, Steven's binky who often gets more minutes than he deserves to be playing since he got on the league. No one gets more chances to establish himself on Stevens' team than Olynyk does, and he just hasn't made the progress some have expected of him. Thankfully his defense seems improved, but his shot selection has been as terrible as it's always been and combine it with him shooting it poorly and turning the ball over, and there's simply no way to rescue it. But his role on this team has been the same from the get go this season, being decreased a bit lately as others in the team have widened the gap.
So no, I don't think Stevens is actually to blame here.
Rotations wise, I actually think Stevens is doing a very good job this year. It would be quite easy to keep giving minutes to all our bigs, but he cut one of them out of the rotation fairly early (because of defense as I mentioned) and others have stepped up enough keep him on the bench for the time being.
The only gripes I could see is with the insertion of Rozier and Hunter more often than maybe Stevens should, but I'm also a believer of giving young players minutes, but I think Stevens is giving them too much.
The other is with Jerebko, but he's active and brings energy, Stevens likes that... so I'll deal with it.
One thing though I do not like is how long Stevens takes to put back his starters in the game after they go to the bench, particularly with Sullinger and Amir.
But minutes wise, I think players are playing what they should be playing for the most part... maybe a bit more playing time for our starting bigs is warranted, but that's a small thing really. The struggling players need to step it up, all of their struggles are really on them. They've gotten more chances than they should be getting as it is, with the exception of Zeller, but he's simply been outplayed.