Wow, from some of the responses I can tell there are some real basketball newbs with a serious lack of knowledge on this board. I question if many of you have ever watched a great player develop. This isn't even debatable among serious basketball fans. Do you think Phil Jackson would ever keep the injury prone Shaq in a game when the Lakers were 31 points up? Hell No. No coach with common sense would. If Greg Oden goes down because some scrub tries to prove himself in garbage time of a decided game it would be one of the most pointless and easily avoided franchise injuries ever. It would be indefensible, yet you all want to defend it.
Greg Oden is a starter. If you want to give him minutes, you give him minutes when starters get minutes. The players that need playing time in those situations are Bayless, Diagou, and Frye, players that can't otherwise get minutes. You do not, under any circumstances play your starters in a blowout. NBA Coaching 101.
What Nate did was amateur, hopefully he learns from his mistake.
For the newbs, not every NBA minute is the same. Oden and Batum need quality minutes, not garbage minutes. It's called garbage time for a reason, because the play resembles garbage, with the worst players playing and not showing a glimpse of team ball. There's nothing for players like Oden or Batum to learn from that, it's all sloppy. The chances of Oden getting injured in garbage time of a blowout are far greater than the chances of him learning anything that would help him develop into a champion.
