Okay, but that's exactly what I just said--the team obviously doesn't want to bench him ("bench him" = "want him to be a bench player").
And you're one hundred percent wrong that benching implies poor play. It's only a possible explanation. Was Manu Ginobili playing poorly when Pop decided, at times during the Spurs dynasty, to bring Ginobili off the bench? For the Suns, in 1994-95, were Dan Majerle and Danny Manning playing poorly when Coach Paul Westphal decided to bring them off the bench? There is a known phenomenon of coaches wanting their most reliable veterans to be bench leaders.