I know it would be impossible to prove this, but I wonder if Tom Thibodeau's hard regime strongly contributed to the downfall of his star players. Noah, Boozer, Gibson, Deng and most notably Rose all sustained some-what career ending injuries under Thibs, and while most had sustained injuries before Thibs arrived, perhaps his attrition style of coaching may have significantly shorted their careers making their injuries much, much worse. This ideology is contrary to what sports science is telling teams and given how well resting and restricting minutes has worked for Spurs, Heat, Warriors, Cavs, you would have to suspect the science is correct.
Under the coaches leadership, the team’s best players – initially Rose, Deng and Noah and later Butler – consistently shouldered an extreme load. When Thibs arrived, Deng was a six-year veteran who had averaged 34.2 minutes a game for his career. In the next three and a half years, before being traded to the Cavs, he was ramped up to 38.9 minutes a game, leading the league in the category in both 2011-12 and 2012-13. Rose and Noah also made appearances in the league’s top twenty in minutes per game under Thibs, and Butler was asked to play 38.7 minutes a game two years in a row (second in the league in 2013-14, far and away the league leader in 2014-15.) There’s no way that any other coach would have played the 2013-14 version of Butler, a player who showed promise but did not yet hit even 40 percent of his shots, anywhere near that many minutes. By comparison, in his first year under Fred Hoiberg, Butler played much better on a considerably worse team but played just 36.9 minutes.
Topic: Is Thibs a career-ender? (Read 1694 times)