The NBA’s ruthless reserves, All-Stars in 20 minutes or less.
Basketball is a team sport, a sport that extends 12 men deep. The impact of the sixth man may exceed that of the eighth or the ninth, but plenty of rotation players still make their presence feared on a regular basis.
They may never be NBA All-Stars, or they may never be NBA All-Stars again, regardless, the following list of players gives their team maximum effort, night-in, and night-out. A lot of strong NBA teams suffer endlessly because the players coming in for the relief shift struggle to contribute, slow their opponents, or both. The first team that comes to mind in that department is the Clippers, though they hope they’ve corrected that to some degree with the addition of Jeff Green.
The Pistons are a team who have struggled to get production from their bench all season. The injury to Stanley Johnson and the now null trade with the Houston Rockets make poor bench play for the Pistons the rest of the way a dire reality.
Three of the top five rated benches in efficiency via hoopsstats.com are San Antonio (1), Boston (3), and Golden State (4). I’m not a genius but it doesn’t take one to see that great teams get great contributions from the second unit.
The following five players have helped lift their teams when the big guns sit down. They all played 20 MPG or less as of February 24th, and they all have started less games than they’ve come off the pine.
Next: Festus Ezeli