I'm getting confused about what you're arguing, since I have no idea how your link says anything. You can give all the minutes you want to Araujo, but you ain't going to develop him. And there's no comparing centers with more minutes played versus centers with fewer minutes played and how his PER over the five year span is different, so that link is useless in what you're arguing, that Fesenko should be given minutes. The best part is that PER is more an offensive rating than anything, and stat driven at the utmost. Fesenko will be devalued by PER, so I don't know why'd you'd use a blog post about PER for your argument.
I figured that you'd almost reflexively mention Araujo, but Araujo is yet another example of a player who contributed in the playoffs (significantly slowing down Duncan) but Sloan never used him again. IMHO, Hoffa (especially with his T-Rex arms) had less potential than Fesenko, but it was foolish not to use him as a backup C and defensive gadfly on the opposing team's cornerstone player. More of an example of Sloan's poor substituting (in-game strategy) than player development.
What is better to use, something that includes defensive rating, is Win Shares. Since you like outer links.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ws.html
Win Shares include offensive and defensive ratings as well as how the team does while the player is in the game. It's more dynamic since it will show how how much the player influenced the game, rather than how the score changed while he was in the game.
Take a look.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/UTA/2010.html
Number 1 in WS/per 48? Surprise, surprise, Carlos Boozer. Deron Williams a mere 0.001 behind. Kirilenko was third. No surprise there. Next up? Paul Millsap. Fesenko? Lagging far behind. He doesn't produce wins, even with a higher Defensive rating than Boozer and Millsap. Now as for the playoffs, Fesenko produced a negative win share per 48, while Millsap actually increased his and Boozer's fell dramatically, but was still way ahead of Fesenko. If you look at the advanced stats, Millsap was either equal or way ahead in all stats. And then when you look at the raw stats for the Lakers series, the 2/1/1 stat line for Fesenko doesn't help his cause, no matter what the plus/minus says.
Very industrious of you to actually post outside links. I've dabbled with WS% in the past, and I didn't remember why I didn't like it. Upon further review, I have one big reason why: it's substantially correlated with playing time, with an R-square of 0.90 between minutes and WS% (based on the 2009-2010 Utah Jazz team data from basketball-reference that you provided). The formula for calculating WS% also confirms that it depends on how much PT the player actually gets. So OF COURSE Fesenko is going to do poorly in this department; that's a cornerstone of my criticism--that Sloan has tried little to find time for the bigs. And sure enough, KF and KK2 don't do well in a statistical measure that is highly correlated with playing time.
BTW, on-court/off-court +/- has an R-square of 0.09--a far lower correlation than WS%'s 0.90. WS%/48 is still rather correlated with PT, too, at R2 = 0.58.
Now, concerning +/-, when I looked at game four in the Lakers series, it wasn't Fesenko's that stood out, it was Lamar Odom's, and to an extent, Andrew Bynum's. Now, it's possible to reason that the cause of the run was Millsap coming in for Fesenko, but I think a better explanation would be Odom coming in for Bynum. Bynum was hurt and played poorly. I'm sure you'll say it was Fesenko which caused Bynum to play bad, but Bynum's low usage in comparison to Gasol would make Fesenko's play on Bynum less important.
It appears that Sloan was taking out Fesenko when Bynum was out, but it wasn't like Millsap + Boozer was a better matchup on Gasol + Odom than Boozer + Fesenko was. And I already pointed out how that in at least 3 of the 4 games, the Jazz starters (with Fesenko) outproduced the Laker starters before Millsap came in. Coincidence? I think not.
I'm not sure if there is a way to see what Fesenko's rating was on Gasol as opposed to Boozer and Millsap, but I doubt putting Fesenko on Gasol more often would have changed the result, except maybe a higher fouls per 48 for Fesenko, since you're not putting Fesenko on Odom.
Such an analysis would be interesting, but in your quest for a counterargument, you're looking at a more individual stat. Part of my claim is that Fesenko makes the team better, especially defensively, even though he doesn't put up many numbers.
Now, I've provided many a game sample. I've provided many a stat. Here's a quick one. Gaines led the Jazz in rebound rate. He should have been the center. I've provided "outside sources." I've provided more than enough than enough counter evidence that Sloan is horrible at substituting, developing players (actually, you never provided anything supporting this, just a link to PER which doesn't say anything about whether more minutes "develops" players faster), and deciding on match ups. It's clear that he's not.
Again, you're focusing on an isolated stat, but I never claimed that rebounds make you a center. You're reaching and extrapolating. What that does support, though, is my argument that Gaines should've gotten more PT at the backup PG spot, even though rebounding is a relatively less important stat for the backcourt than assists, points, and maybe steals.
Thanks for helping my case.
