Tick, tock, tick,
tock, . . . and your answer (in question form of course) is?
Well consider that
there are 16 players under contract. And that the most probable
positions assignments are:
PG Smart, Thomas,
Rozier
SG Bradley, Young,
Hunter
SF Crowder, Turner,
Jerebko, Jones
PF Sullinger, Lee,
Mickey
C Zeller, Johnson,
Olynyk
And that with Brad
and Danny's penchant for multi-tooled players, you could consider the
possible position assignments as:
PG Smart, Thomas,
Rozier, Turner
SG Bradley, Young,
Hunter, Turner, Crowder, Smart, Rozier
SF Crowder, Turner,
Jerebko, Jones, Young
PF Sullinger, Lee,
Mickey, Jerebko, Jones, Olynyk, Johnson
C Zeller, Johnson,
Olynyk, Lee
Got your final
jeopardy answer/question yet? And the right answer is “What are
the number of combinations possible for Stevens to try in camp, the
number of at-likely-positions combinations, and the number of
at-possible-positions combinations?”
Now I will admit
that I did not account for the overlap factor in that last number
(i.e. Turner cannot play PG, SG, and SF at the same time). Hey I
spent enough time poring over math sites refreshing my freshman
Elementary Analysis course, which was pert near a half century ago.
If someone more obsessive, and math nerd inclined, than I wants to
correct that last figure, I welcome the input. I've just peaked out
at summoning up the n! / ((n-r)! (r!)) for the first one and the
“rule of productive” for the second two.
To get to the point,
and there probably should be one, Brad Stevens has his work cut out
for him if he expects to explore the various combinations available
from the evenly distributed talent Danny has provided him this year.
Just taking the smallest number (342) of possible combinations with
most-likely positions, and given the total amount of (totally made
up) 2-hr practices (20), the resulting (OMG, more math, Yikes!)
utilization of 400 hours (24,000 minutes) to try out all the
combinations, yields just 70 minutes for each of the combinations.
If you are just masochistically curious, the minutes-per-combination
for the larger numbers are 5.5 (4368) and 6.1 (3920); yeah probably
not enough time for much polishing. Just in passing I would like to
point out the relatively minuscule difference between the “all
possible” and “possible position assignments) number of
combinations.
Alas, with a third
of the team new on the scene, there will probably some needed time to
put in an offense and defense. And then there is at least a hat-tip
to warm ups, conditioning, positioning, defensive and offensive
fundamentals, individual instruction; not to mention identifying and
correction individual flaws, honing individual strengths, adding new
individual skills, and introducing new players and roles. And
somewhere in there will be putting in (and perhaps even practicing)
some type of game plan for seven pre-season games.
I think it is safe
to say that time limits will force Brad Stevens to exclude some
combinations, although considering his exhaustive preparations, I
think he has already drawn up lists for definitely try, don't bother,
and maybe. It is more than a little bit intimidating to contemplate
that the most obsessive of we bloggers make a hardly-worth-noticing
effort compared to the coaching staff. Makes our pontificating about
some thought we actually had, kind of pathetic and ridiculous—but
then, what's there for the little grey cells to do in the off season?
Only 38 days to
camp.
[Discuss on CG Forums!]
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