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White has always looked good but you can't seriously see him ahead of Serge who has enormous potential. White might be a chip off season though since he isn't part of the core right now.

@Nax

You are one of the few people that has mentioned the obvious on this thread...White hasn't gotten much time because of injuries and his lack of development due to them. He was injured with the jaw thing for most of last season and didn't get much of a chance to develope with the rest of the team. As soon as he started getting some time this season he got injured again. I don't think this has anything to do with Brooks' opinion of him, it seems like he's given everyone their fair shot so far. The only time I questioned brooks for not giving him more time was against Houston. He was playing pretty well and I wouldve liked to have seen a little more of him. White has just had some bad injury breaks and hasn't had a chance to develope which has kept him from making much of an impact. He may never be a starter but I think he could be a decent to good role player for this team someday. He just needs some time to develope like everyone else has.

I feel like we've talked this subject to death.

But, I still say that I can see DJ getting minutes in a big lineup. Not that Brooks will play more than his 9, so this is rather trite, but nonetheless...

Westbrook / Durant / Green / White / Collison would be a good substitution pattern at the first deadball, when you felt like you needed to go big.

For White to play, he has to take minutes away from someone. You could play Ibaka or Collison at the 5 and still give Green his minutes.

We have a frustrating rotation at PF and C. Krstic, Green, Collison, Ibaka. I wouldn't take minutes from any of those guys to give to White, but I can't help but groan about it. That rotation is anemic to say the least.

If we happen to trade/lose Krstic in the offseason and acquire a strong defensive center, then I would definitely entertain stealing some minutes from Ibaka and seeing what White can do.

What a lot of this boils down to is bad luck. Last season, if DJ was healthy, he would have seen playing time and all of us including Scott Brooks would have seen how he plays in meaningful crunch time minutes. Then this season he was called back up and then got hurt in practice for one more set back. Bad luck IMO.

@Vince
its not just his 200 nba mins, its also his d league mins, in 10 games there he shoots 60% 84-138, in 392 mins. A lot of things dont translate from one league to the other, but fg% should be somewhat comparable, defense doesnt affect shot percentages by 20%, nor does playing against scrubs in the nba. As for not enough mins, rookies dont have any nba mins, how do you pick the best of those? you use what information you have available. in the nba he has a career 57.3% FG% in the d league he has 59.1% in college he shot 55.4%, he shot over 60% in high school, there is nothing to say he cant shoot 50%+ in the nba in heavy usage.

Yes set rotations are nice, but it doesnt encourage improvement, you get your mins even if you suck. He could have a role, called when we needs points and nobody else is scoring you play, or if somebody is in foul trouble, a 10 man rotation stills works, give other players a few extra mins off in back to backs.

Also good teams use more players and are deeper for injuries, we have 9 players with 400+ mins, boston has 12, denver has 10, lakers have 10, cavs have 11, suns have 10, dallas 10, spurs 10, orlando 11, hawks 10, utah 10, portland 12.

In fact we are the only playoff team in the league with less then 10 players having 400+ mins. So adding DJ white to the rotation wouldnt put us at a disadvantage.

@Tapdog72

@f5alcon

Agreed.

What were the circumstances when Brooks actually played White this season?

On Nov. 6 he came in late in the third, Houston already up big, and Landry light him up while he did nothing.

On Nov. 8, he came in late in the 4th with OKC having a huge lead. He was on Brandon Bass and White did a little and Bass probably did a bit more but he was in the game longer that period so I can't say for sure what he did to White.

On Nov. 18, the team way down, he played the whole 4th quarter and lit up Ryan Anderson with pts and rebs.

On Nov.22, the team way down, he played the whole 4th quarter and lit up Lamar Odom and some scrubs with pts and rebs.

On Nov.27, the team way down, he played the end of the 4th quarter and did a little and Warrick probably did more.

On Nov.29 against Houston he get a brief chance before the end of the 1st half and is hot against Andersen or Hayes but never gets back in and Houston pulls away in the 4th.

On Dec. 4 against Boston game already decided he gets some run at the end of the 4th and torches Shelden Williams or Scalabrine.

On Dec14 game pretty much decided for Denver he gets run in the 3rd and 4th against Martin and Anderson and doesn't do nothing.

That is it this season so far.

considering how bad the offense of our second unit can be, and how good of a weapon a maynor-white pnp could be off the bench, i hope brooks has an excellent reason for not even giving him a chance in-game this year.

White so far hasn't complained, to his credit. I assume they are still encouraging.

There is a concept called 'statistically irrelevant'. Using White's numbers and extrapolating them (i.e. using his PER or %'s to show he's better than someone) isn't using the numbers properly..

That said, you can make some inferences based on his numbers in the NBA and the D-Leauge, mainly that he is an excellent mid range shooter and can rebound a little bit.

White's game is probably closest to Maceo Baston in that group.

Thomas was on limited minutes til his 3rd season.

f5alcon :@Brad

Well they are the only numbers available, so statistically he is better, just like i said, i never said he was actually better, i said statistically, and the numbers i used were percentages and minute adjusted, so that mins played doesnt matter, really the only argument is that DJ white plays against the other teams scrubs. But he shots a very high percentage and his efg% and TS% are not going to drop 20% if he played more mins, they will drop but he probably still shoots better then green does. I mean he shot 58% in the dleague, the basket isnt any shorter there, if he can shoot there he can shoot in the nba, it isnt like defenses are keying in on him in the nba. he would have to shoot 14% worse in the NBA to be equal to green in FG%.
I am not even asking for significant mins, maybe 5 mins every few games, when the offense stagnates

Your statistical arguments are completely and totally incorrect. "They are the only numbers available" doesn't mean that you can then use those numbers to draw conclusions. In a sample size of 200 minutes against questionable competition, those numbers are essentially meaningless. End of story. You can't assume that because it's a small sample, they still mean SOMETHING, but not as much as a large sample. That's not how statistical analysis works. There's nothing there to prove your claim that "statistically (White) is better." I'm not even sure what that means.

And asking for 5 minutes every 3rd game -- what's the point? You think White is coming in cold once a week and jump-starting our offense between timeouts? I'm amazed by the criticism of Brooks' rotations. Players LIKE stability and continuity. They like having roles. I would think that the fact that we are at least 10 games ahead of any one's projected pace would mute a bit of the criticism. And I would think that one look at coaches like Nelson and Westphal -- who jerk their players around, change lineups on a dime, and give Player A 32 minutes one night and 5 minutes the next -- would show what happens to effort and chemistry when you do that. This isn't NBA 2K10.

White is an individual and ultimately needs more minutes to clarify things but just for the heck of it I tried to find guys who played little but well early to see how they turned out. Looking for guys 6-8 to 6-10 who played under 500 minutes their first or second season during 2000 thru now and were PER16+, TS% 55+% I find very few comps. Maceo Baston, Steve Novak and Amir Johnson are probably the closest. Not encouraging unless you say he mainly hasn't played because of injury. Relax the criteria some and you could talk about Scott Padgett... and Etan Thomas.

@Tapdog72
Would be good for the league, better quality players, could learn the system of their pro team better, develop raw talent.

@Rhett
I've wondered what the NBA could look like with a one-to-one minor league system like baseball. It would only be one level instead of several, but it would be interesting to be able to 'stash' picks here instead of Europe.

I think he is in a situation like darko, spent a lot of time riding pine but when he actually played more he was passable.

@Brad
Well they are the only numbers available, so statistically he is better, just like i said, i never said he was actually better, i said statistically, and the numbers i used were percentages and minute adjusted, so that mins played doesnt matter, really the only argument is that DJ white plays against the other teams scrubs. But he shots a very high percentage and his efg% and TS% are not going to drop 20% if he played more mins, they will drop but he probably still shoots better then green does. I mean he shot 58% in the dleague, the basket isnt any shorter there, if he can shoot there he can shoot in the nba, it isnt like defenses are keying in on him in the nba. he would have to shoot 14% worse in the NBA to be equal to green in FG%.

I am not even asking for significant mins, maybe 5 mins every few games, when the offense stagnates

@f5alcon
White's numbers are based off of what 5mpg, completely irrelevant.

@justin
yeah brooks still has young coach issues, he has a mind set of i play 9 players at the most instead of we will win the game with whatever it takes. Like in the last loss to SA they outscored us 10-2 in the last 3 mins, we could have used dj whites scoring, we were not stopping them.

I think DJ is a great option off of the bench if green and ibaka get into early foul trouble.. Another big bodied rebounder never hurts.

I agree. Maybe he's not progressing at all in practice or the D-League defensively. He didn't have much of an offseason or training camp coming back from the surgery, getting back into game shape.

I just hope he's being given a fair chance. He's productive wherever he goes, and Brooks has shown he can get disinterested players to buy into a defensive scheme. White was a hustle guy in college, I can't see why he wouldn't at least play good team defense if given the opportunity.

This just really boils down for me as Brooks' refusal to adjust the lineup or rotations at all. It was a recent game, when Jeff Green got into foul trouble, instead of altering the rotations he just slid Kevin Durant to PF and played everyone else more minutes..

@kev
yeah his defense is bad, but sometimes we need points more then the risk of him giving up a score. Like playing empty net in hockey.

justin :Bass might start on our team if Brooks got him to commit to defense, kev.
I know there’s a reality and White is unlikely to become as good a player as a Bass or Landry, but his skillset is good enough to warrant NBA minutes, IMO. Even garbage minutes. Maybe it’s incorrect, but I get the impression that Brooks doesn’t like White and won’t even consider giving him action.
The last time White got meaningful NBA minutes was against Houston. We were winning by four points when he came in with 3 minutes left in a half and were getting dominated on the boards. He immediately had a tip in, popped a midrange jumper, drew a loose ball foul (boxing out great) and hit the free throws, then hit another jumper at the buzzer. 12-4 run to end the half..
This guy is going to be a player on some team in the NBA, probably not a star or maybe not even a starter, but he could be a cheap rotation player at least and we wouldn’t even know.

good post - but that's a big "if" . . .

that's why guys like Bass and White aren't playing, they won't commit to defense . . .

White (in limited chances) is HORRIBLE at defensing the pick and roll, and that's even more glowing by the fact that our guards have issues with it as well . . .

At first glance I thought it read Thunder Turnpike. Might as well be with all of the back and forth for Thunder players. OKC is smart for having Tulsa as it's sole feeder. The Thunder-66ers model is setting a precedent and I like what I'm seeing so far. Plus, it's an intriguing team economic model that I'm curious to see if/when any other teams figure out the advantages the set-up brings to the franchise. Weaver/Mullens/White are in an impossible situation. Rare NBA minutes and skewed stats due to the level of talent they're playing against. Clearly they each are developing and with some players it just takes a bit more patience and practice.

@justin
yeah i agree on it being something personal with him and brooks.

I would actually like for White to get some more time so I can grade him properly - on my scoring system he's the worst defender on the team based on score per minute, I'd like to see if he an improve on that . . .

Bass might start on our team if Brooks got him to commit to defense, kev.

I know there's a reality and White is unlikely to become as good a player as a Bass or Landry, but his skillset is good enough to warrant NBA minutes, IMO. Even garbage minutes. Maybe it's incorrect, but I get the impression that Brooks doesn't like White and won't even consider giving him action.

The last time White got meaningful NBA minutes was against Houston. We were winning by four points when he came in with 3 minutes left in a half and were getting dominated on the boards. He immediately had a tip in, popped a midrange jumper, drew a loose ball foul (boxing out great) and hit the free throws, then hit another jumper at the buzzer. 12-4 run to end the half..

This guy is going to be a player on some team in the NBA, probably not a star or maybe not even a starter, but he could be a cheap rotation player at least and we wouldn't even know.

@kev
yeah i know that stats dont compare, because of other factors, but i said statistically better and looking at pure numbers he is.

Vega :White doesn’t get minutes because Collison and Chewie are the better options at this point. Simple as that.

the voice of reason . . .

White doesn't get minutes because Collison and Chewie are the better options at this point. Simple as that.

hilarious to compare those stats when White basically barely played - it's too small a sample . . . also, a lot of White's minutes were in garbage time as well . . .

Bass is a bit player with Orlando, he is barely playing behind Ryan Anderson (or was anyway until last week) - Landry is a legitimate post player in the league - no comparison . . .

my point was that you're looking at his peak and not his reality . . .

Mullens isnt even playing, so saying that he's getting more time than DJ isnt really saying anything - besides that, Mullens is a 5, and DJ is a 4 . . .

we usually agree 99% of the time, but on this we don't . . . no big deal . . .

@Brad
Green:
eFG%4.494 TS%.525 ORb% 4.9 drb% 13.6 trb% 9.4 per36: PPG 14.1 RPG 5.9 APG 1.4 SPG 1.1 BPG 0.8

White:
efg% .680 TS% .710 orb% 8.2 drb% 15.2 trb% 11.8 per36: PPG 19.0 RPG 7.5 APG 2.0 SPG 1.5 BPG 1.0

So out of 10 categories white is better then green in all 10.

@kev

Same exact thing happened with Brandon Bass for NOH and now look at him.. Carl Landry on any other team but Houston with Morey would have had the same thing happen as well (and actually did, we traded him for nothing).

These types of forwards are overlooked a lot. There's no reason for hyperbole (your 'next jordan' comment). White is at least as good a shooter as Landry, he's just as tough from what I saw of him in college, he just doesn't have the BBIQ and skill level. He's much more likely to develop those if he's given the time of day, but Brooks seems more intent on trotting Mullens (who's awful even in garbage minutes) out there instead.

justin :He’s big, probably can hit 50%+ of his mid range shots, long arms to finish inside.. probably a decent FT shooter. Tough guy in college..
His defense is not impressive yet but I can’t see why he can’t become a Carl Landry type as a peak, or a Brandon Bass type. He’s probably a better mid range shooter than everyone on our team save Durant and Krstic.

at his peak? come on, why even mention that at this time? It was like when people kept saying so and so is the "next jordan" . . . all I know is right now he can't get on the court, and that's usually due to a lack of talent (on offense) or hustle (on defense) . . . if he had any dreams of being Carl Landry he (probably) wouldnt be glued to the bench . . .

It wouldn't take much to be a better PF than Jeff Green.. Ibaka might be a better PF next year than Jeff Green if he can get smarter on either end and his mid range game continues to develop.

He's big, probably can hit 50%+ of his mid range shots, long arms to finish inside.. probably a decent FT shooter. Tough guy in college..

His defense is not impressive yet but I can't see why he can't become a Carl Landry type as a peak, or a Brandon Bass type. He's probably a better mid range shooter than everyone on our team save Durant and Krstic.

DJ White MIGHT be worse defending in the post than Green, and he's DEFINITELY worse at defending any perimeter match ups (Which in today's NBA is almost a must for 4's).

I don't know much about the Pistons so I will pass on them - there is no way he would start for a healthy GS team - he might start now because they are basically pulling guys off the street due to all the injuries . . .

you are right, we have no idea how he would do with any kind of decent numbers - D league numbers (in my opinion) are irrelevant = I think you CAN learn by watching someone's play in the dleague (intanglibles like hustle) - but I'm not looking at anyone's Dleague numbers and translating them to the NBA . . .

@f5alcon
Please show me how he is statistically better then Jeff Green. I'd love to see it.

DJ White is very blah. Was not impressed with him at all when I watched him in the Vegas summer league.

@kev
he can score, he has in the d league and the nba games he has played in, yeah his numbers would be worse against nba starters, and ok maybe not dominate, but he could start today for some teams, pistons, golden state. Statistically he is better then jeff green. Really we dont have any real numbers that are significant except for his d league numbers, and he is 5th most efficient in the d league, and has 7 double doubles in 10 games.

Maybe not dominate but White is talented enough to go somewhere and produce. Brooks' refusal to keep him active and play him in blowouts even is pretty strange.

f5alcon :@justinhis d league numbers are ridiculous, if dont play him he is gonna go somewhere that will and will dominate

come on falcon, you're better than that . . .

justin :DJ White should get playing time.

people have been saying that for months - but he (basically) never gets in . . .

Brooks has his rotation set in stone - White probably plays only in blowouts . . .

@justin
his d league numbers are ridiculous, if dont play him he is gonna go somewhere that will and will dominate

It'd be nice to see him play. He's a big body and hopefully could get some rebounds.

Kyle Weaver's supposedly looking healthy.