Remember when everybody thought that Nemanja Bjelica was getting held down on the Timberwolves because he was only averaging twenty minutes per game? Okay, not everybody thought that. It was mostly Serbs thinking that. But they thought it, and now I think the same thoughts are being thought by Croatians in regard to their boy Dario Saric, who is “only” getting 23 minutes per game with the Timberwolves.
Sure, maybe Saric isn’t being used to his full potential. But there are guys in the league getting held down way harder than Saric is being held down. Nerlens Noel, for example, is being held down so hard that his flattop miraculously turned into braids. The down-holding that Noel is experiencing is considerably more severe than Saric. Same with Wayne Ellington before his trade to the Pistons.
But the infraction seems more flagrant when there’s a whole subset of fans (Croats) who consider the player in question (Saric) to be a surefire star in the making. All of a sudden, it’s not a matter of a bench player unfairly getting only garbage time minutes; it’s a matter of a star never getting a chance to establish his stardom. I personally don’t view Saric as having star potential, which is perhaps why I’m not perturbed by his minutes situation too much.