The Absurdity of NBA Coaches

In honor of the start of the NBA season, I will bitch about NBA coaches instead of NFL coaches for a change.

One thing I've never understood is why coaches bench a player who gets into early foul trouble. I mean, I know that when you get too many fouls, you foul out of the game. But when the coach benches you, you're ALSO OUT OF THE GAME. It seems to me that for a guy in early foul trouble, the decision comes down to either benching him early in the game or (the ref) benching him late in the game.

But I still don't understand why you would do it voluntarily--you don't know what the player would do for the rest of the game, foulwise. When you bench a guy for 10 minutes in the first quarter, you lose 10 minutes of production for certain. If he fouls out, you might lose 10 minutes of production at the end of the game, but he also may be able to stay in. Why would you give up 10 minutes of this guy for sure when there's a chance you might not even have to?

Now, in certain situations, I can see the logic of pulling a guy. Maybe he gets too mentally soft with lots of early fouls. Maybe the guy's fouling because he's rattled. But otherwise, if a guy averages 3 fouls or whatever per 48 minutes, I don't necessarily think that having two clustered together in a short period of time really means that much.