The Reliability Factor

On message boards, arguments continually rage about who should be starting and who should be getting more or less minutes. One aspect that I seldom hear in these discussions is The Reliability Factor. Coaches, like any managers, need to know what they have. Sure, a player might play like Lew Alcindor one game, but if he played like Shrimp Shuffelmeyer the next, he could create a disaster. Coaches have to project; they have to put together game plans and strategies if they hope to win. They have to give their players the best chance to succeed, and if they are to do that, they have to know what they are going to get when they put a player on the court. If a player wants to play, he has to provide the coach with some sort of constant that he can plug into the equation of the moment. Coaches do not like a lot of "maybe's" on the court. Maybe the player will take good shots. Maybe he will play good defense. But the player that is more likely to get on the floor, especially at crunch time, is the player who will bring a reliable (predictable) level of play.