In last night's game, with 6:23 remaining, Finch subbed out 4/5 of the starting lineup: LaMelo, Jaden, Kuminga, and Rudy, while leaving Ant in. Ant played for less than another minute before he too was subbed out to end his night. Innocuous as another 34 seconds might seem, this is for a guy who had tweaked his knee earlier in the game and might miss the game tonight. He had been playing since the start of the fourth quarter after subbing in with the team leading by 28.
As fun as it is seeing us blow teams out, sometimes I wish Finch would see some of these games with a huge lead late as a chance to just let Ant skip the fourth quarter, like Shai often did last year. When the game is already in hand, don't put any unnecessary miles on those knees.
I worry that the reason this won't happen is because Ant cares about his stats. He doesn't want to finish a game with 19 points in 23 minutes. He'd rather come back to add another 10 points in the fourth quarter to keep up his per-game averages and miss the next game, because a missed game doesn't affect his stats in the same way, even though it could end up hurting the team if you lose to a quality opponent.
Obviously with the way we're playing, the most important thing for this team is keeping its starts healthy through the regular season, so if he needs a night off, he needs a night off. But there is a downside to missing whole games, and there is much less of a downside to rest when you're already up big. Particularly after seeing Jalen Williams' injury in the fourth quarter last night, I don't want Ant to risk an injury playing extra minutes on tired legs at the end of a blowout just to pad his stats.