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[Lewenberg] Asked about his rotation, Rajakovic says his preference is to use a deep bench – 10 guys and “on certain nights more”. “I believe that 82 games is a long season and we’ve gotta be smart with the load we’re putting on players for a long run.”



[Lewenberg] Asked about his rotation, Rajakovic says his preference is to use a deep bench – 10 guys and “on certain nights more”. “I believe that 82 games is a long season and we’ve gotta be smart with the load we’re putting on players for a long run.”

by CazOnReddit

26 Comments

  1. laidbackemergency

    The exact opposite of Nurses philosophy

  2. SiakamsWager

    That was refreshing to hear. No more grinding the starters into dust

  3. Cheechers23

    So if I had to guess:

    Scottie/Gary/OG/Pascal/Poeltl starting 5

    Schroder/Gradey/Otto/Boucher/Precious/Koloko as the main 6 off the bench, which ones play depends on matchups, health, etc.

    McDaniels also there for when there are injuries. Can swap Gary and Schroder if you believe Schroder will start

  4. EarthWarping

    Yeah an 11 man bench is reasonable.

    Probably means one of Gradey/OPJ are the odd man out on some nights.

  7. macandcheese_19

    Finally we’ll see the rest of our team on the floor lol

  11. Equivalent_Fox_1546

    Good, we shouldn’t have Siakam playing 40 minutes a night that was complete madness. Good luck Embiid.

  12. lillithfair98

    I feel like this one line got this man hired for the job

  14. MrkGrn

    Would have been nice if the front office actually addressed the bench at all then…..

  16. AssyrianRhapsody

    I think Josh misheard this quote. Darko said “I like using 5 guys off the bench, certain nights four” not more. A rotation bigger than ten would be pretty unusual.

  17. BurzyGuerrero

    He can go 10 deep and it pretty much only leaves Malachi Flynn/Thad Young out.

    Sticking to 10 makes it hard to get Koloko on the floor once he’s healthy although the center rotation is different from the forward rotation.

    Flynn/Young/Dowtin/Nowell and anybody under this are probably going to have to earn their spot in the rotation and it’s gonna be a tough rotation to crack.

  20. Aware_Ad_7575

    Fucken hallelujah! As much as I loved Nick, it was so frustrating to see him run his top guys into the ground night after night.

  21. Alone-in-a-crowd-1

    I think he is overly optimistic speaking about a long run.

  22. Initial_Stretch_3674

    Yeaaaaa BOY.

    Malachi is BACK on the MENU do you think we can sign Mr. 99 too.

  23. Barnicus53

    People taking shots at Nick Nurse for not using the bench when his options were Thad and Will Barton, lol.

  24. At2332

    Well we know there won’t be an 83rd game. So do what you gotta do, but there is no long run with this group.

  25. o_hoh

    music to my ears. It was downright bizarre to me how little Nurse was playing the bench. Way too much stress on our starters, terrible for team culture, and just totally counterintuitive to what built the raptors into a championship team. There was not one top 10 draft pick on that 2019 team. They were all bench players at one point in their careers.

    it was like Nurse was trying to cheat the regular season by playing a playoff rotation for 82 games. Just weird decision making from a coach who seemed to pride himself when he was hired on developing guys like Siakam and Fred from the end of the bench into feature players.

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