Many posters here have been criticizing Mike Brown for his lineup "rotations", especially the resting of LeBron for the first few minutes of the 4th quarter.  Mike Brown is quite simply doing what just about every other coach in the NBA is doing.  The "great" coaches (Phil Jackson, Gregg Popovich) all play their stars less than 40 minutes per game (regular season), as does Mike Brown

While it might be OK to play a star for more than 40 minutes per game occasionally, most coaches (wisely, IMO) opt to save them for the playoffs.  There are few, if any, "must win" games in the regular season.  While getting as high a seed as possible is good, a coach must balance that goal with having his players as rested as possible for the playoffs.

I have no problem with MB's "rotations" and resting his players for the playoffs.

The list below shows the minutes per game (regular season) for some of the better players in the NBA.

Notice that there are ZERO players that average 40+ minutes per game.

Minutes per game for "stars/superstars":

Name/08-09/09-10

Ray Allen/36.4/34.8

Carmelo Anthony/34.3/35.7

Chauncey Billups/35.3/32.8

Chris Bosh/38.0/35.9

Kobe Bryant/36.1/38.1

Andrew Bynum/28.9/39.3

Vince Carter/36.8/28.0

Tim Duncan/33.6/31.8

Derek Fisher/29.8/27.1

Kevin Garnett/31.1/29.7

Pau Gasol/37.0/INJ

Manu Ginobili/26.8/23.5

Danny Granger/36.2/35.9

Rip Hamilton/34.0/36.3

Dwight Howard/35.7/30.7

Lebron James/37.7/37.9

Al Jefferson/36.7/30.3

Richard Jefferson/35.8/33.4

Joe Johnson/39.5/37.9

Jason Kidd/35.6/35.9

Rashard Lewis/36.2/33.8

Steve Nash/33.6/33.1

Jameer Nelson/31.2/29.6

Dirk Nowitzki/37.7/38.5

Lamar Odom/29.7/35.1

Tony Parker/34.1/26.5

Chris Paul/38.5/34.0

Paul Pierce/37.5/34.5

Brandon Roy/37.2/36.7

Amare Stoudamire/36.8/34.8

Hedo Turkoglu/36.6/31.9

Dwyane Wade/38.6/38.6

David West/39.2/34.7

Deron Williams/36.8/39.7

IMO, there are no "better" than MB coaches available right now.  I vote to keep MB for at least the rest of this season.  He should be evaluated at the end of the season.

Remember, we have played only 12 games this season and we are 8-4.

Great post..  Completely agree...

Thank you, Golfer.  You're one of the lone voices of reason amongst the the town hall posters lately.  You simply can't reason with people like that and I'm so happy to see that you are giving it a go. 

Mike Brown is not a bad coach since he has been here we have went to the finals, Lebron got MVP, we became one of the top defensive teams and he got coach of the year..i know at times he doesn't make good offensive decisions. I think we should play faster at times but he has help our defense. Go back and look at our defense and road record before he got here before you bash him.

I put this in the other thread about Mike Brown, but since I don't want to type anymore, here comes the good old copy and paste.

This guy raises good points, but I think he may have it twisted. Now I'm going to say somethign is probably goign to surprise and anger some fans, but hear me out and read through my thought:

I agree we have problems on offense against good teams, though the fact that we have averaged such a high total might just mean that we are beginning to alleviate some of last year's issues. But anyway...though I think Mike Brown and his substiutions are to blame in part, I truly believe the biggest culprit may just be Lebron himself.

...Ok, you still with me? Why Lebron, you may ask? Well, look at the rest of the superstars in the NBA- there really aren't any like Lebron. Sure, you have great overall scorers like Kobe, great drivers like the elite tier point guards and great inside presenses like, dare I say it, Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol. YOu also have amazing passers like Nash and Kidd and others.

But Lebron's problem, in my eyes, is that he is so strong in so many categories and tries to do too much and though it works great in the regular season and especially against lesser talented teams, it sometimes ends up gumming up the Cavs production against the best squads in the NBA.

Look at Kobe or Wade- though they are certainly multi-talented, they tend to stick to some key areas. For Kobe, it's getting the ball off the pass or beating someone off the dribble. He rarely passes and really doesn't work a lot with the ball in his hands unless it's the end of the game. As for Wade, he is a great passer and can shoot, but his bread and butter is the drive and slash. Whether he goes for the score with a run to the hoop or a step-back J or passes to an open man, he pretty much sticks to that unless he's trying to win a game or bring his team back with some long-range shooting.

Now, let's look at Lebron. He's a great driver and often just drives to the hole and rips apart his defender. But sometimes, he wants to be a jump shooter and/or a 3-point shooter, so he relegates himself to doing that. Other times, he tries to post up and get fouls or quickly score inside. While he's deciding on what kind of offensive player he wants to be for the night, he also wants to be the PG, distributing the ball to everyone else. See the problem this can cause when everything flows from him and he tries to do so many different things on offense? It's his greatest strength that oftentimes, when he doesn't realize he's doing too much, can be our team's weakness against smart teams and smarter coaches/

This, by no means, is an attempt to downgrade Lebron or say that I do not want him on the Cavs because that's crazy- he's amazing. But what it does say is that I think he controls the offense on the floor far more than some people believe. Sure, Mike Brown creates the line-ups and picks the subs and he's to blame for that, but I really believe it's Lebron who decides the offensive shape and tempo because he is such an all-encompassing player and because Mike Brown doesn't want to make him mad. Also, I think it's gotten worse since we lost Kuester because I think he often was able to wrangle Lebron and draw up some schemes and get him to play in it.

So, to sum up a very long though I've been holding for awhile, while I think Mike Brown is certainly not blameless, I think we should realize he can only do so much when he's on the sidelines. I think Lebron should realize that trying to everything won't work against the top teams and instead of just involving his teammates with quick, open passes, he should allow the offense to not always travel through him and also not try to do five thins at once offensively. Also, I really think a quick fix may be another legitimate scorer. And I don't even neccesarily mean in a trade, though that could help. I mean that our guys need to realize they are talented and capable of scoring without the Lebron and keep that thought on a regular basis. Though you sometimes see it from Williams or even West, they seem to lose confidence in the shadow of the king. I don't know, maybe we need a player like Iverson, though not Iverson, who is a bit bull-headed and confident and doesn't want to be told how and when he can score. I think that's why guys like Flip Murray and even, though he lacked top tier talent, McGinnis back in the day flourished with Lebron- because they wanted to "get theirs". I think too many of our guys just want to "win a ring for the king" as opposed to "winning a ring for me". Now I'm not saying our player should be selfish, but not stepping up when it counts, like last night in Washington and excpecting Lebron to do the work won't get it done in the long run and Lebron needs to not always be in that position.

So yeah, as a very round-a-bout way to say it, Mike Brown has his flaws, but you can't just stack all the blame on him (or Ferry for that matter) because that's just ignorant.