The Los Angeles Lakers are 7-2 and second in the Western Conference, and two of their guards have barely seen the floor. This week the team assigned Bronny James and rookie Cameron Carr to its G League affiliate, the Coachella Valley Lakers, ahead of the affiliate’s season opener.

Derek Fisher, the five-time NBA champion and former Lakers guard who co-hosts mornings on 97.1 The Fan in Los Angeles, has weighed in on the move. He is firmly behind it, and he made his case around minutes and practice time.

Derek Fisher Explains Why Bronny James and Cameron Carr Need Minutes

In Wednesday’s 116-103 win at Sacramento, 10 Lakers played at least seven minutes, while James and Carr got one minute apiece. The pair had logged 16 minutes between them this season before the assignment, 12 for James and four for Carr, the No. 24 pick in this summer’s draft.

Fisher, who later coached the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Sparks, laid out how a coaching staff sees its roster by now: “Nine or ten games in, your substitution patterns, the eight to ten guys you feel like you know are going to be the ones that are going to get the lion’s share of the playing time …”

Then he turned to the two guards the Lakers sent down: “If neither guy is going to get meaningful playing time with the big club, sitting there, especially now in the NBA, there’s literally no more practice basically the rest of the season.”

Fisher’s concern went beyond game minutes: “I mean they might practice three times the rest of this year whenever they have multiple days between games, which is rare. Guys sitting there not getting meaningful playing time, no practice time, they are not getting better. This is the smart and right thing to do.”

“This isn’t really about, oh well he can’t play so we’re putting him in the G League,” Fisher said, before turning to the gap between the two levels.

“G League players are G League players because the … guys that are on the big club are some of the best basketball players in the world, and these guys are on the next tier right behind them, but don’t think for a second that you can just walk out there and do what they do either. It ain’t easy.”

Fisher then looked further down the schedule, to the injuries that can thin a rotation: “It’s the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, because also what happens is in another ten ball games, you know we saw Ziaire Williams with the foot issue, or somebody else will have some inflammation of something that isn’t even necessarily a long-term injury, but you’re going to need one of these guys, or both guys, to be able to pop up on a Friday night or a Tuesday night when other guys are banged up.”

“And you’re going to need these guys to play five minutes in a game, and if they haven’t played in two or three weeks because they just been sitting at the end of the bench, like you’re not doing them a favor, you’re not doing the team a favor, and nobody wins,” he said.

The affiliate’s first game is Friday against Salt Lake City, at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert. How long James and Carr stay with the Lakers is still a decision ahead for the Lakers.