Brooklyn Nets: The highest-usage bench in the NBA

No team in the NBA utilized its bench more last season than the Brooklyn Nets. Was this the right decision?

Looking through the Brooklyn Nets team page on NBA.com, something jumps out. The Nets, who had an overall record of 42-40 (.512) in 2018-19, were only 4-10 (.286) in back-to-back games (games played with zero days of rest).

Although there was a large disparity between the two records, it wasn’t clear how significant this really was. It seemed reasonable that every team would perform worse on zero days rest, so maybe there wasn’t anything noteworthy about the record disparity.

I looked at every NBA team’s win percentage with zero days off and compared it to their overall win percentage in the 2018-19 season. I then looked at which teams had the largest differences in win percentage and how the Nets fared relative to the wider NBA.

The San Antonio Spurs were hurt most by games with no rest, posting a win percentage .277 below their overall win percentage. The Washington Wizards actually fared better in these games, posting a win percentage .277 better than their overall win percentage. Unsurprisingly, 20 of the 30 NBA teams fared worse with no days rest relative to their overall performance.

The Nets had the fifth-worst differential, suggesting only four teams had a harder time on no rest (relative to overall record). There could be countless explanations for this, but one theory popped into my mind: Maybe teams that struggled with no days off like the Nets didn’t rely on their benches and/or had benches that weren’t very good. It seems logical that with less rest, team depth would become more important.

My theory was short-lived, however. I found no clear evidence that teams with little-utilized or poor benches performed worse with no days off. In fact, the Brooklyn Nets actually averaged the most bench minutes in the NBA last season (21.4 minutes per game) and still performed poorly with no rest. The bench didn’t perform poorly while on the court either, ranking eighth in bench net rating compared to 15th for the team as a whole. In terms of why the Nets struggled with no rest, there is no clear answer.

Head coach Kenny Atkinson has played bench players a lot in each of his three seasons at the helm. After ranking 25th in bench minutes the season before Atkinson took over, the Nets have ranked first, third and first in the three seasons since.

Especially for developing teams, playing a lot of guys makes some sense, even if the bench doesn’t play particularly well. This was the case for Atkinson’s first two seasons, in which Brooklyn’s bench posted the 28th and 27th best net ratings in the NBA (compared to 28th and 24th overall). But as previously mentioned, the bench’s net rating shot up to eighth this season, making it arguably one of the strengths of the team.

Brooklyn had 18 different starting lineups in 2018-19, so the bench was constantly changing. What wasn’t changing, however, was Atkinson consistently utilizing this bench. Regardless of whether it’s the best long-term strategy, it’s definitely beneficial in terms of developing players. The fact that the bench performed as well as it did last season makes the approach even more viable.