Unless you are one of the 5 or 6 "star" players on your team, your minutes will always be determined by how much you can contribute to your team. The players who can consistently help their team win games are the ones who get playing time - it's just that simple. Want more minutes? Then you need to understand how to make yourself valuable to your team.
You do this by embracing your role and focusing on things other than scoring. Sure, you've spent your whole basketball life developing and displaying your offensive game, but suddenly you aren't getting those scoring opportunities in games. You take thousands of shots in the offseason, you work on your shot before and after practice, yet you may go weeks without taking a jumper in a game.
If you can become really good at things like screening, passing, defending, communicating, boxing out and rotating defensively, you can have a huge impact on your team winning a game. If those parts of your game become a habit and you develop consistency and embrace whatever role your coach places you into, you are going to be valuable to your team and you will get more minutes.
A lot of players can't or won't do these things because they don't see the value in it. However, those that "get it" look at it as sacrificing your own game for the greater good. This is true to an extent, but you don't just play this way because you are a nice player and you are willing to let other players shine. You do it because you want to win, to be a part of a championship team, and you do it because you want to create value for yourself. If you come off the bench and you start to take more shots, to take your scoring average from three points a game up to five points a game, not many people are going to notice. You are doing the same things, just in a more inefficient way.
On the other hand, if you average only five points a game but defensively you can adequatelty cover the othe team's best 3 or 4 players, you are going to be able to play plenty of minutes over your career. At the same time, your play will have more of an effect on winning than it would otherwise.
On the other hand, if you average only five points a game but defensively you can adequatelty cover the othe team's best 3 or 4 players, you are going to be able to play plenty of minutes over your career. At the same time, your play will have more of an effect on winning than it would otherwise.
The goal is to try to make it very difficult for your team to replace you, so that they have to do what it takes to keep you around. That's how a player creates value for himself.
(Thanks Nick Collison & Bob Starkey)
