[:: LAKERS 2014 THREAD | POLL: Who Should Coach Next Year? ::]

[essential1]

Wanted to get past this debate.. But I kept scrolling and it wouldn't stop.

 

[CP1708]

Greg Popovich was 17-47 his first year in San Antonio.


Doc Rivers was 24-58 and won the Championship the next year.



TELL ME ABOUT COACHING FOLKS. TELL ME HOW IT ALL WORKS.

Well see, our situation, it's dire, no doubt.

But even in dire straits, good coaches are respected.

Now, I know you're going to pull some article about someone laughing at Doc in the middle of practice, or some dude saying Phil is overrated when we were down and out... but lettuce be cereal, if you're trying to say that those 'not the norm' stories make for an overall label of 'bad coach', Uganda be kidding me.

MDA... has NEVER... demanded respect from his team.

Mike D'Antoni, in 3 chapters:

Chapter 1: Excellent.

Chapter 2: Offensive.

Chapter 3: Mind.

The End

The way you talk about him, though... like all he needs is the right pieces to fall in place... NO, man.

Just NO. Diamonds in the rough still shine somehow, even surrounded by 'the rough'.

NOTHING about him shines.

If so... then I'm'a spin your response back on you: tell me how he shines right now.

Tell me.

I can do that.

Steve Nash don't respect him? Kobe don't respect him?

Kind of known that Nash is a tough SOB, as evidenced by the famous shot of him actually yelling at Dwight last year. Nash may be a limited player (defensively) but he fights, and he works like no other. He's the offensive version of Fisher in a way. Tough offensively, smart on defense, but limited. Fish was tough defensively, and smart on offense, but limited.
Kobe? Loves Mike. Kobe played his way for a dozen years under Phil, Kobe changed his style big time last year for Mike. That's not respect?


How he shines now?

Let me use Jeff Van Gundy's point.

All these young, washed out former lottery picks, playin on 1 year deals, let me ask you ,why aren't they fighting for the ball? Why do they (even tho we suck) share the ball so well? Blake, Farmar, Marshall, all droppin dimes, movin the ball around.
Kaman behind the back passes, Meeks havin a great year movin the ball (waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than last year)
Xavier moves the ball, Sacre, and of course Pau can always pass it.
Wes has dropped a lot of nice dimes this year.

All 1 year guys, not fighting to "get mine". Just playin together. Workin, strugglin, but workin .

Career years out of so many of these guys. Not a good enough collection of talent, but why? Because they don't have their franchise leaders doin THEY'RE job.

Kobe, Nash, Pau. Remember them? They were gonna "lead us" post Dwight, remember that?

Where the **** are they?


Give me those 3, healthy, 82 games, fighting, working, taking the last shots, leading, helping, then ya know what, these Wes, X, Bazemore, Meeks, Farmar types wouldn't have to beat Chris Paul, and Kevin Durant, and Paul George, and LeBron James every night, they could just do their role playing jobs.

They don't have those stars helpin this year tho.

But they show up every day for practice, work hard in games, and give what they do have. Even after every loss stacks up.

That's not respect, at all?

Cuz if they just want that contract, why wouldn't they shoot 57 times a game and get their numbers? Why would they pass it to each other, when they ALL need jobs next year?
Why do they ball out, in March, at Portland, a team clearly better than them? Why do they fight, tooth and nail to win that game?

Now last night was ugly. Yes it was. 3rd game in 4 nights. Against Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, Matt Barnes, Danny Granger, Jamal Crawford, Baby Davis, Darren Collison, Hedo Turkolu, JJ Reddik (DNP last night)

I mean........yeah, we couldn't beat the Clippers with Kendall Marshall, Kent Bazemore, Wes Johnson, and Jodie Meeks starting? Say word???????


But when we beat them to open the year, we all forget about that now, right? Cuz it serves our purpose?


I see a team that still fights, even when WAY overmatched, but sometimes the other team just wants to drill you. And that took place. But you don't bring in ANY coach in the NBA and change last night's outcome. The Clipps still wax us, no matter what. And tonight, 4th game in 5 nights, the Nuggets will run us too. Then the Thunder, then the Thunder again, then the Spurs, and then the Spurs again. It will be a looooooooooooooooong time before we get a W again.

It ain't cuz of the guy in the suit tho. On either side of the court.

It's the talent on the floor, with a limited ability to perform the way the other team can.

People need to see that. Cuz we're about to fire a good basketball coach, for ****** players that aren't his fault. Same as if we would have fired Phil Jackson for 2006. Or if the Celtics fired Doc Rivers after 2007. Or Pop got canned in 1996.

Like I already pointed out. Mike D was terrible his first year in Phoenix, and a year later he won 60+ games. Did he get smart all of a sudden, or get more talent on the court?

Not hard to see what happened there.

 

[CP1708]

A bit dated (from December), but hmmm.

Profiles in Coaching: Defensive with Mike D’Antoni

The fates of NBA head coaches are hopelessly intertwined with the abilities and personalities of their players. For that reason they usually only get attention for performance on the extreme ends of the spectrum – utter disaster and chest-beating success. But that perspective ignores a creatively rich middle class of coaches grinding away in relative anonymity. Here at Hickory-High we fancy ourselves as the bane of relative anonymity and so for the next few days we’ll be looking at these leaders, both lauded and ignored, for our Profiles in Coaching series.

Mike D’Antoni is the worst coach in the league, right?

I mean, he has to be, considering he’s never coached a good defensive team, and it was totally his fault that (a) his high-priced center wasn’t healthy, (b) his 32-year old power forward is in decline, (c) his 38-year old point guard got injured, and thus (d) he was forced to play his 34-year old an ungodly amount of minutes which may or may not have contributed to him rupturing his Achilles tendon.

There’s just no argument to be made other than Mike D’Antoni is a farce of a head coach who has no idea how to lead a basketball team in any remotely positive direction.

Right?

But what if I told you that D’Antoni’s teams in Phoenix from 2005-2008 ranked 17th, 16th, 13th, and 16th in defensive efficiency, with some combination of Amar’e Stoudemire, Boris Diaw, Steve Nash, and Leandro Barbosa defending at the point of attack?

(*Silence*)

What if I told you that the year after winning 70.7% of his games in Phoenix, the team hired Terry Porter, who went 28-23 (54.9%) before getting fired. A year later, the Suns made it back to the Conference Finals running the same exact offensive system D’Antoni had installed years prior?

(*Silence*)

What if I told you that the 2012 Knicks were the No. 5-ranked defensive team in the league under D’Antoni, and that the team’s turnaround (following an 8-15 start) really happened once Jeremy Lin was inserted into the lineup (a move D’Antoni made), not when D’Antoni resigned in March (when the team was 18-24)?

(*Silence*)

What if I told you that the 2013 Knicks won 54 games running the same exact offense D’Antoni installed when he was the head coach, and that they’re 7-17 this season after Mike Woodson made the decision to move away from a spread pick-and-roll offense and back to the isolation-heavy offense he ran in Atlanta.

(*Silence*)

And what if I told you every top offensive team in the league save for Oklahoma City is running a semi-bastardized version of the D’Antoni offense (or, at the very least, heavily borrowing from its philosophies), most notably San Antonio (Poppovich effectively stole the system from Gentry, a D’Antoni disciple, after the Suns swept the Spurs out of the playoffs in 2010), Miami, Houston, the Clippers, New Orleans, and Golden State, and that, for better or worse (mostly better), D’Antoni permanently changed the way coaches think about how to construct an efficient offense?

(*Crickets*)

This year is no exception.

After losing Monday night, the Lakers are 11-13 despite receiving just 135 ineffectual minutes from Steve Nash and career-worst production from Pau Gasol. Outside of Gasol (who hasn’t been good), the Lakers BEST players have been Jordan Hill (dumped by two teams in the last three years), Jordan Farmar (played in Europe last year after being waived by Atlanta), Nick Young (signed a minimum contract because nobody wanted him), Xavier Henry and Wesley Johnson (former lottery picks who were dumped by their original teams within a year and then were declined team options – the ultimate admission of defeat – by their new teams; both are on minimum, non- or partially-guaranteed contracts), and Steve Blake (a journeyman guard playing for his sixth team, has never even been paid league-average salary).

These are their BEST players.

And the team is 11-13, with wins over the Clippers, Rockets, and Warriors.

I’m sorry, but that’s a [expletive deleted] miracle.

This is the ultimate example of outcast riff-raff. From top-to-bottom, outside of the injured Kobe and Nash, the roster is not that different from Philadelphia’s, a team that could be described as “aggressively tanking.” It’s just littered with fringe players that literally no other team wanted. This is by design, the organization didn’t want to take on any money for next year, and they knew with Kobe’s injury contending for a title wasn’t likely. So they hit the re-set button, stocked up on re-tread failed lottery picks, and made sure they didn’t clutter their cap sheet for next season. There was absolutely no illusion about the goals of the team – they had none.

And yet somehow, the team is barely under .500 in one of the most competitive conferences in the history of the league. They’re currently 12th on the conference table (roughly where they were projected), but they’re just a game and a half behind the 9th-place Warriors, just three games behind Dallas for a playoff spot. There’s no rational reason that the team should be this good.

But they are.

They are because D’Antoni’s system is able to maximize the skills of fringe players. The Lakers were largely a disappointment last season (of course, this was D’Antoni’s fault, not because the team was old and suffered a comical plethora of injuries and they had no training camp for D’Antoni to effectively install his system), but somehow Earl Clark played well enough to get a two-year, $8.5 million contract from Cleveland after being dumped as roster fodder into two mega-trades in two years. Steve Novak had the only two relevant seasons of his life playing in Mike D’Antoni’s offense. Mike D’Antoni’s offense made Jeremy Lin and Landry Fields into multi-millionaires. Wilson Chandler, a late first-round pick, blossomed enough under D’Antoni that he was seen as a valuable trade chip in the negotiations that brought Carmelo Anthony to New York. Chris Duhon dished out 22 assists – in regulation – with D’Antoni on the sidelines pulling the strings.

This year, Xavier Henry, Wesley Johnson, Jordan Hill, and Shawne Williams (given up on by a combined 11 teams over the last five seasons) have played meaningful minutes for a team that’s legitimately competitive, not just in a cute “Oh, look, they’re trying to win” kind of way.

Yes, D’Antoni has flaws. A large part of coaching is communicating and managing personalities, something he has had problems with in his three stops (I feel okay ignoring his stint in Denver during the 1999 lockout-shortened season for a variety of reasons). And yes, he’s very inflexible with his system.

But, on some level, he’s justified in his inflexibility. His results speak for themselves. In 2005 and 2007, his Phoenix teams were first in the league in offensive efficiency (and it wasn’t particularly close, either – they were a full two points better in each season than the next-best team). In 2006 and 2008, they were second. In 2009 and 2010 in New York, he manufactured league-average offenses (17th both years) with minimum offensive talent as the front office tore down the team in an effort to clear 2010 cap space. In 2011 with a revolving door roster, the Knicks had the No. 7 offense. In 2013’s “train wreck” of a Lakers’ season, L.A. had the 9th-ranked offense on a per-possession basis.

His style and high-profile employment has made him a lightning rod for criticism, but most of the criticisms lack context. He’s a poor defensive coach, ignoring that the one year he had a roster capable of playing NBA-caliber defense, they were a top-five defensive team. He’s inflexible with his system, ignoring that he has good reason to be. He plays his stars too many minutes, ignoring that his rosters don’t allow him the luxury of resting them. He’s never won a title, ignoring that Joe Johnson’s injury in 2005 and the Stoudemire/Diaw suspensions in 2007 have a lot more to do with that than he does.

This season isn’t going to assuage any of those criticisms, simply because high-profile coaches overachieving with an overmatched roster usually isn’t a big talking point. The narrative usually becomes that Players X and Y was underrated to begin with and the coach just lucked into the unexpected success.

But make no mistake – Mike D’Antoni has been as impressive as any coach in the league this season.

http://www.hickory-high.com/profiles-in-coaching-defensive-with-mike-dantoni/

Oh hey.

Well what'da'ya know?

 

[CP1708]

But what if I told you that D’Antoni’s teams in Phoenix from 2005-2008 ranked 17th, 16th, 13th, and 16th in defensive efficiency, with some combination of Amar’e Stoudemire, Boris Diaw, Steve Nash, and Leandro Barbosa defending at the point of attack?

Word?

What if I told you that the 2012 Knicks were the No. 5-ranked defensive team in the league under D’Antoni, and that the team’s turnaround (following an 8-15 start) really happened once Jeremy Lin was inserted into the lineup (a move D’Antoni made), not when D’Antoni resigned in March (when the team was 18-24)?

Yeah?

And what if I told you every top offensive team in the league save for Oklahoma City is running a semi-bastardized version of the D’Antoni offense (or, at the very least, heavily borrowing from its philosophies), most notably San Antonio (Poppovich effectively stole the system from Gentry, a D’Antoni disciple, after the Suns swept the Spurs out of the playoffs in 2010), Miami, Houston, the Clippers, New Orleans, and Golden State, and that, for better or worse (mostly better), D’Antoni permanently changed the way coaches think about how to construct an efficient offense?

*gasp*

His style and high-profile employment has made him a lightning rod for criticism, but most of the criticisms lack context. He’s a poor defensive coach, ignoring that the one year he had a roster capable of playing NBA-caliber defense, they were a top-five defensive team. He’s inflexible with his system, ignoring that he has good reason to be. He plays his stars too many minutes, ignoring that his rosters don’t allow him the luxury of resting them. He’s never won a title, ignoring that Joe Johnson’s injury in 2005 and the Stoudemire/Diaw suspensions in 2007 have a lot more to do with that than he does.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaa?????



Surely that writer made all that **** up, just like CP always does. He's so full of **** ya know?


P, *tips cap*

 

[grandtheftbike]

i could have sworn a similar article was posted in last seasons thread

 

[sea manup]

Seaman you still don't want to even acknowledge my post? You still Tryna prove your right to these dudes instead of responding to my reasonable stance?

sorry just got back from class, had a midterm so i didnt read the entire post

brb reading entire post

 

[darthska]

 
doc rivers was considered a terrible coach from 1999 to 2008, thats 9 years of not proving himself

but he gets the right players around him and suddenly hes one of the best coaches in the league

Revisionist history. 

 

I can sit here and say the same thing about MDA with Nash that you said about Mike Brown with LeBron. Neither one 'em are real good head coaches.

 

We need better players. And better coaching.

There you go.

Last year's lineup was decent enough to do FAR more damage than what was done.

Team being a joke this year is easy for MDA to use as an excuse.

Team also being a joke last year? Ummm... no.

But continue the narrative about how it was Dwight's fault last year (not the coach), and injuries (not the coach), and ARod's steroid scandal (don't know what this has to do with anything, but IT'S NOT THE COACH).

What? If he had a stellar lineup of really healthy athletes, he'd do better?

Well nah duh. 

 Any dummy can coach a team of healthy athletes; ain't that right Spo?

But give 10 coaches terrible rosters, and the good ones will still keep the roster on the same page; not flawlessly, but for the most part.

The good ones will still maintain a vision, and it will be evidenced even in blowouts.

You telling me MDA has this team in the palm of his hands?

You selling me that?

You telling me that MDA has a vision?!

Dude is clueless.

And I'm not even saying "Can him!!!"

I'm just not buying that the reason we keep him is because he's All World.

We keep him, LITERALLY, because there's no better option, and because (as you said), moving someone else into his office means implementing a completely new system WITH (presumably, and most likely) completely new players.

We don't keep him because he's great; we keep him because a stale peanut butter sandwich is still better than a moldy, rotten fish sandwich. Save the crap about how great the stale pnb is.

 

[sea manup]

 

 

 

if you cry about a 50 point loss and blame it on dantoni

You make sense. But this comment right here alone proves that you still don't get our perspective.
That comment just shows you think all were doing is blaming how horrible we were last night on MDA solely. As if it's not anyone else's fault but his.

Until you realize that we've mentioned 4007373 times the NBDL roster talent is not his fault, we'll just keep going back in circles bro.

I've already explained thoroughly what my stance is but you keep hanging on to your perception of our thoughts that is completely inaccurate.
We'll get no where that way.

so lets go with he was one of the many reasons why we lost yesterday

so that would be blaming not just dantoni but also a bunch of other factors
then if we are going with that line of thinking then why is it hard to credit a bunch of other factors AND dantoni for our players playing hard or the win at portland

@CP1708 @sea manup

Listen. I'll break this down one more time thoroughly and concisely.

It's not hard to go with that line of thinking.
Now were getting somewhere.

I'm not that one minded of a person to only believe he is a detriment but does no good. I've pointed out a LOT how great of an offensive basketball mind he is. I am AWARE that many coaches have looked at a lot of his systems and used many of his thoughts to influence their own teams. I am aware he can draw up some amazing plays out of time outs. I am aware he can be a great coach for a point guard offensively.

I acknowledge there is many good things about MDA. He's not completely horrible, and he's certainly not the worst coach we've had. Not even close.

But I state numerous times as much of a genius as he can occasionally be offensively, as an overall HEAD COACH I do not think of him too highly.

All I've ever wanted from you guys is to be just as fair and admit that he has his flaws. Because I've been fair and admitted the things he's great at.

But the flaws never get taken into account for you and cp, and there's always somehow an excuse for why he's never been a great defensive coach.

If you wanna talk double standards just think about it. Don't worry about the others who may be completely one sided, talk to me.

I'm open.
I see both sides, I see pros and cons.

I've pointed out his pros from my eyes, all I ever want from you is to point out the cons.

To ME, the cons of him as a HEAD COACH outweigh the pros. That's just to me.
And I state it.

But at least I can acknowledge he'd be an AMAZING offensive assistant just as he is for Coach K with team USA.

He just can't take talent to an overall next level on both sides of the court (not talking about this season, just speaking in general). That's my perception.

Even if you don't agree with me.
Is my view an ignorant or completely flawed stance to have? Is it unfair?

I mean am I really being a hypocrite?

I hope you get me now. Because
I don't think I can ever explain things any more calmly and thoroughly.

·hope im replying to the right post, there are a bunch of long posts to pick from

nothing wrong with saying for me the cons outweigh the pros so i dont like dantoni as a coach

i dont agree with that but if according to your standards dantoni is a bad coach then he is a bad coach (according to your standards)

dantoni is no where close to being as good of a coach phil jackson was, we can all agree on that but we can also agree that phil also had his flaws 

but of course phil`s pros greatly outweighed his cons (no need to talk about this we all agree)

the big question is if dantoni is not good enough than who (that would want to coach us) is good enough

thats where people are being hypocritical

"dantoni has never won anything"

"i would rather have george karl as a coach"

^ that is being hypocritical (i dont think you said that but in past posts i was responding to who ever said something along the lines of what i just typed)

the only reasons to fire a coach are 1. the players dont listen to him anymore and 2. there is a clear upgrade that is interested in the job

1. except for pau who has been on his period for the past 3 seasons most of the team seems to enjoy the freedom they get while playing on this team

2. there really is no clear upgrade for us right now, phil is not coming back, pop is coaching the spurs, riley is gming the heat and red is dead

 

[sea manup]

 

 
doc rivers was considered a terrible coach from 1999 to 2008, thats 9 years of not proving himself

but he gets the right players around him and suddenly hes one of the best coaches in the league

Revisionist history. 

 

celtics fans were screaming to get doc fired before 08

saying that doc was always a great coach would be revisionist history

didnt we have the best second half of the season record in the league last year 

 

[licensed to ball]

Although I might not agree with all of your points that's a respectable response seaman.

I can dig it. Thanks for the reply.

 

[kal-el-8]

 

 

 
doc rivers was considered a terrible coach from 1999 to 2008, thats 9 years of not proving himself

but he gets the right players around him and suddenly hes one of the best coaches in the league

Revisionist history. 

celtics fans were screaming to get doc fired before 08

saying that doc was always a great coach would be revisionist history

didnt we have the best second half of the season record in the league last year 

They weren't running ANY of Dantoni's system.

that was alllllll Kobe.

See torn achilles and 44 mins per game.

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

didnt we have the best second half of the season record in the league last year

and what happened that led to that.......?

this is what I mean.....I distinctly remember having this exact discussion months ago and posting quotes about Pau and others explicitly saying they weren't running Dantoni's system. but I guess there's nothing else to talk about :\

 

[CP1708]

Team also being a joke last year? Ummm... no.

But continue the narrative about how it was Dwight's fault last year (not the coach), and injuries (not the coach), and ARod's steroid scandal (don't know what this has to do with anything, but IT'S NOT THE COACH).

Coulda swore that we had one of the best records in the NBA the second half of the year.

In that first half, we had Darius Morris and Chris Duhon as our PG's.

Nash, Pau, Blake, Ron, and Dwight all missed time due to injuries.

And then of course, we killed Kobe to end the year.

But didn't we ALL push for that? We DEMANDED they make the playoffs, because we had no pick to get, so we wanted a chance in the postseason, since we didn't know if Dwight would stay, and we couldn't get a good pick anyways, so we wanted to roll the dice. So they did. And we blew up Kobe because of it.


Now all of a sudden he was terrible last year?????? Huh?

 

[CP1708]

Revisionist history

Doc Rivers stinks as an NBA coach.



After watching him butcher my favorite team for 15 months and 134 games, I feel pretty comfortable making that assessment. On the surface, Doc seems fine. He always dresses nicely, his interviews are good, and his "Come on, guys, let's go!" clap ranks among the best in the league. When his team blows a winnable game -- which happens often, by the way -- you can always count on him to look sufficiently disappointed, almost like how Tony Almeida looks on "24" whenever Jack decides to disobey him. Doc has that look down pat. And if you weren't paying attention, you would almost think that he wasn't the problem here.



Well, I think he's the problem. And here's why I care ...



There's a decent chance that the Celtics could trade Paul Pierce within the next six weeks. I don't want that to happen because you can always find another head coach, but you can't always find another Paul Pierce. Still, the "Should we trade Paul?" question has been lingering over this team since November, when it became apparent that Pierce was heading for a career season on a subpar team. Playing his heart out every night, playing the most efficient basketball of his career, Pierce stands out the same way Tom Hanks stood out in late-'80s movies like "The Money Pit" and "Turner and Hooch." Back then, you always felt like Hanks could do better, that he would do better. Same with Pierce.



Pierce rarely forces anything, leads by example and does it with a smile on his face. During crunch time, where most franchise guys are looking to make the biggest shot, he's just as likely to grab a big rebound or take a crucial charge. As late as last spring, it seemed like the rigors of the league had beaten him -- just another young star who made too much money too soon, took everything for granted, trusted the wrong people and couldn't handle the burden of carrying his own team. Now he's one of the best all-around players in the league, a franchise player in every sense. Meanwhile, he's surrounded by mostly overmatched young players and wildly overpaid big men, as well as the only coach in the NBA who refuses to settle on a nine-man rotation.



And that's what worries me. One of these weeks, Pierce will push to play somewhere else. In NBA vernacular, this is called "Pulling a Vince" -- if someone dislikes his current situation, the collective bargaining agreement allows him to sabotage that same situation and keep getting paid until his team trades him for 40 cents on the dollar. (Note: This is the single worst quality about the NBA right now; seeing Vince making game-winning 3s in Toronto for the opposing team makes me want to shank somebody.) Pierce has more pride than Carter, who proved to be an opportunistic weasel with his immediate resurgence in New Jersey, but that doesn't mean Pierce couldn't inadvertently sabotage his own trade value. When a reporter broached the "Would you welcome a trade to a contender?" question after a devastating loss to Dallas on Monday, he seemed to welcome the idea. At least for a day.



That leaves the Celtics with two options:



1. Trade Pierce now. I mean, RIGHT NOW. Get what you can, whether it's Luol Deng and picks from Chicago, Corey Maggette and Shaun Livingston from the Clippers or whatever. If they can convince Isiah to take Pierce and the Mark Blount/Raef LaFrentz/Brian Scalabrine/Dan Dickau "Salary Cap Poison Package" for expiring contracts and Channing Frye, even better.



2. Fire Doc Rivers and see if the 2005-2006 Celtics could be salvaged with a competent coach.



I vote for Option No. 2. You can always find another coach. You can't always find another Paul Pierce.



Then again, I'm not running the team.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Which brings me to the real point of this column ...



The Doc Rivers Special is not a TV show or variety hour. It's not a DVD or a compact disc. It's not something you can order at a breakfast diner -- although if a diner DOES decide to name a dish after Doc, I hope it's the egg-white omelette with bacon and cheese. The egg-white request says, "I'm trying to eat healthy." The bacon and cheese request says, "I don't care about eating healthy."



Put together, those two intentions make no sense. Well, neither does Doc Rivers. And after 15 months of watching him coach, four words have emerged to describe any night in which the Celtics lost a winnable game only because of their coach: The Doc Rivers Special.



For instance, my father attended Friday night's home defeat to the Hawks, who lack a passable NBA point guard and don't have a single rebounder on the team other than Zaza Pachulia. They should NEVER beat anyone decent on the road. So the Celts let them hang around for three quarters, then switched to zone in the fourth so the Hawks could shoot open 3s (they were 11-for-19 for the game). Meanwhile, Al Jefferson (6-for-7, 17 points) sat at the scorer's table from the 6:30 mark to the 1:30 mark -- amazingly, there wasn't a single stop in play, and even more amazingly, Doc wouldn't call a timeout to get him in -- while poor Raef LaFrentz limped around trying to cover Al Harrington (who couldn't guard Jefferson down low if he was allowed to use a two-by-four). We even had two 24-second violations down the stretch, a Celtics staple over the past two seasons. All in all, it would have been an astonishing defeat if we hadn't already watched something as ugly at least 25 times over the past 15 months.



The next morning on the phone, my Dad deemed it yet another Doc Rivers Special, adding that Doc was battling the flu, but the fact remained, "Even when Doc feels good, he doesn't know what he's doing."



Now, my father couldn't coach an NBA team. Neither could I. But we have watched enough games over the years, especially in person, to distinguish the difference between a well coached team and a poorly coached team. The Celtics are poorly coached. You can discern this with the naked eye; you can discern this through a variety of statistical ways. Regardless, the local media doesn't seem to care -- there hasn't been a relevant writer covering the team since Jackie MacMullan. Casual Boston fans don't care, not when the Sox and Pats continue to keep banging out playoff appearances. Die-hard Celtics fans seem torn between blaming Doc and blaming GM Danny Ainge, who tied up the team's salary cap through 2007 with untradable contracts.



Well, you know who cares? Me.



I don't want Paul Pierce to leave town for even 60 cents on the dollar because his team is underachieving. Just compare Doc's season to Phil Jackson's yeoman effort in Los Angeles. Nobody has done more with less. Much like Rivers in Boston, Jackson has one superstar (Kobe Bryant) and one above-average talent/head case (Lamar Odom), but he is saddled with 10 other below-average players who can't be remotely trusted. But Jackson has his fake system in place, and he pretends that everyone has a stake in what's happening (when they don't), and then everyone gets out of the way and Kobe gets 40-plus possessions a night and looks like the prohibitive MVP favorite (even though he's a complete ball hog and a suspect teammate). Did you ever think Jackson would tailor his coaching style around the egocentric talents of one player, allowing him to hog the ball and disregard his teammates at almost all times? Isn't that the absolute antithesis of everything Jackson was about? Still, it's working because ...



A. It's the only way the Lakers can compete;



B. Kobe is an inherently selfish guy and wants to win this way, so Jackson knows that Kobe will kill himself on the court to make this work;



C. Jackson doesn't care -- he's coaching the team only because they pay him a lot of money and because he's whipped; and



D. There's an illusion of team play in place (the triangle, a set rotation, role players at every position), so none of the Lakers realize that Kobe is the wolf from "Teen Wolf" and they're basically the "Other Guys."



Well, you remember what happened in "Teen Wolf." The other guys eventually revolted, leading to the climactic scene when Scott Howard refuses to turn into the wolf for the championship game, then looks like a young Bob Cousy for four quarters (even though he can't dribble without looking at the basketball). With the Lakers, Kobe continues to show up dressed like the wolf and everyone else seems happy to be there except for Odom (a mortal lock to flip out soon). And that's only because Jackson's greatest skill has always been his ability to rally his team around a common goal, even when he's deceiving them in the process. They aren't a team, they're an entourage. But it's working. At least so far.



What would happen if Doc Rivers coached the Lakers? He would be playing 11 guys, juggling rotations, urging Kobe to share the basketball, blowing close games, using an offense in which Chris Mihm and Kwame Brown were forced to make decisions in the high post, telling the press things like "We gotta cut down on the turnovers" ... and everyone would be miserable. Unfortunately for Doc, the L.A. Times has writers like Tim Brown and J.A. Adande covering the team -- they understand basketball and would see right through him. In Boston, where nobody understands or cares, Doc could linger.



(And linger. And linger ... )





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



So how do you identify when your team has a bad coach? It's not as difficult as you think. Take last week's Celtics-Bobcats game in Charlotte. The Celtics shot 57 percent, the Bobcats shot 40 percent ... and the Celtics won by three points. On paper, that makes no sense. Well, the Bobcats grabbed 17 offensive boards. That's a lot. More important, they turned the ball over only five times and forced 23 Boston turnovers. That's ridiculous. The end result? The Bobcats attempted 100 shots (compared to 70 for the Celtics) and 35 free throws (compared to 31 for the Celtics), giving them an astonishing 32 more possessions during the game. If the Celtics shot anything less than 57 percent, they would have lost. Of course, after the game, Doc told reporters, "Turnovers frustrate me more than anything. We just don't value the ball."



Poor Doc sounded like the parents in that MTV "True Life" special about kids moving to New York, the ones who paid their daughter's rent, gave her a free credit card and money every month, then flipped out when she started going on spending sprees. What the hell did they expect? The same goes for Doc -- when you don't bench people for dumb turnovers, and when you're mixing and matching lineups like a hungover college kid picking a starting eight for his weekly fantasy hoops team, do you really think everyone will play well together?



Eight categories show if your NBA coach is in over his head. Call it the Bad Coaching Index:



1. Lousy record in close games
"Close games" means "any game with a final margin of five points or less." In those games, the Celtics are currently 5-11 ... although that record doesn't possibly convey how many dreadful games the Celtics have blown in the last 3-4 minutes. Somebody on this planet (where are you, 82games.com???) needs to come up with stats to determine things like "double-digit leads blown in the fourth quarter," "crunch-time field goal percentage," "24-second violations in the fourth quarter," "botched two-for-one possessions at the end of a quarter," "number of games in which your coach accidentally ran out of timeouts" and "number of times your final play of the quarter caused your fans to scream obscenities and throw a remote control." If these stats existed, the 2005-06 Boston Celtics would be seen in an entirely different light. I promise you.



2. Too many turnovers
The Celtics average 16.6 turnovers a game ... only the Knicks (17.0) are worse. Well coached teams take care of the basketball.



3. Too many offensive rebounds allowed
The Celts grab 10.0 offensive rebounds a game (26th in the league) and give up 12.2 (24th) for a differential of minus-2.2 (only Phoenix is worse). Well-coached teams don't give up second chance points.



4. Not enough winning streaks
Given the rhythms of a six-month season, even decent teams should peak two or three times per year, when players start clicking together, everyone's healthy and you strike the right scheduling quirk. Statistically, it's almost impossible for this NOT to happen, like if you kept flipping a coin and it showed tails one time, heads the next, then tails, and that just kept happening. If it's not happening, there's absolutely no rhythm to the season. Of course, the Celtics are 14-21 ... with a high winning streak of exactly two games, which happened just once. Keep in mind, Pierce and Davis (the best players on the team) have played every game. And according to ESPN.com's strength of schedule index, through their first 35 games, the Celtics played the second-easiest schedule in the entire league, facing opponents with a collective winning percentage of .485. What happens when the schedule gets tougher or Pierce suffers an injury? Take a guess.



5. Opposing 3-point percentage
This category shows whether you're giving up too many wide-open 3s -- well coached defenses like the Spurs and Pistons rotate well and contest open 3-point shooters. Of course, the Celts rank 23rd in this category. To be fair to Doc, some Boston players (Jefferson in particular) rotate about as fluidly as Kenny Mayne on "Dancing with the Stars" last week. But it's still on his watch.



6. Lousy record on the road
Poorly coached teams usually get eaten alive away from home. In a related story, the Celts are 4-13 on the road. Only the 3-15 Hawks are worse -- yup, the same Hawks who won handily in Boston on Friday night. I will now stab myself in the neck with Salim Stoudamire's afro pick.



7. Lack of a consistent rotation
The single biggest sign of a bad coach: Someone who can't settle on an eight-man or nine-man rotation. NBA players need consistency. They need to play together for prolonged periods. They don't like looking over their shoulder every time the horn blasts. They don't need a coach whisking guys on and off the court for four quarters, especially a young player battling to maintain his confidence. Of course, Doc can't stop tinkering with his lineups -- in the Dallas game on Monday night, Doc played all 12 guys on the roster in the first half. Who does this? Seriously, when have you ever seen that work? Poor Al Jefferson played 28 minutes against the Hawks on Friday night ... five days later, he played six. Hey, he's only the future of the team. Let's keep yanking him around.



(Note: In that second Hawks game, Scalabrine played a whopping 28 minutes because he was doing a good defensive job on Harrington, including all but 83 seconds of the second half. In the previous 11 games, Scalabrine played 37 minutes total. I should also mention that he has a crew cut and a beer gut. Really, you don't want to give Scales a longer breather in the second half when he's more maroon than a college kid in Cancun who fell asleep on a pool chair? Thanks to Doc Rivers, these are the nagging questions I deal with three times a week.)



8. Downright stupidity
It's the little things that makes the 2005-06 Celtics so frustrating to follow. Like Rip Hamilton getting a wide-open look with 0.8 seconds remaining to sink a buzzer-beater. Like nobody calling a timeout with six seconds to play in Golden State, trailing by two, leading to an out-of-control Pierce turnover to end the game. Like my buddy House calling me after attending the Wiz-Celtics game on Saturday night just to ask me, "Why didn't Doc go offense-defense with Delonte West and Marcus Banks down the stretch when Delonte had five fouls and you needed to foul?" ... followed by me answering, "Um, Doc doesn't understand the concept of offense-defense." Like the fact that the Celtics are so consistently atrocious at defending pick-and-rolls, opposing teams don't even bother running other plays anymore. Like a set offense revolving around uncoordinated big men (Blount, LaFrentz, Kendrick Perkins) perched on the high post and looking to find cutters near the basket. Like all of the botched two-for-one possessions at the end of quarters, or the predictable offense down the stretch that basically consists of "Post Paul up 20 feet from the basket and let him create." Like my Dad calling me just to say, "Yup, that was another Doc Rivers Special."



Anyway, those are the eight categories in the Bad Coaching Index ... and poor Doc fails all of them. Doesn't that mean that this current Celtics team is underachieving? He's not a great game coach. Young players don't seem to improve with him around (either in Boston or Orlando). So what's left? Why are we going through the motions here? If it were up to me, the Celtics would keep Pierce and fire Doc, stick Danny Ainge on the bench for the rest of the season (after all, these are his guys), see whether anything changes, then move in a different coaching direction this summer.



Believe me, I'm not asking them to spend six million a year on the next Larry Brown-type free agent -- if anything, I wish they hired a coach like Bobby Finstock from "Teen Wolf," someone who rolled the ball out for practices, played the same six guys every game and dispensed wisdom like "never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body." With Finstock at the helm, the Celtics would be a .500 team, maybe better. He wouldn't overcomplicate things. He'd play his best five guys as much as possible. In crunch time, he would call plays for Pierce and ignore everyone else. And the fans would love him.



See, it's not that hard to coach an NBA team. You need nice suits. You need a voice. And you need to keep it simple. Doc Rivers only does two of the three. And that's why he needs to go.

Written by a born and raised Celtics fan, PRE 2007.

Revisionist?

Naw

 

[sb]

those CP breakdowns

 

[eb4president]

There have been a lot of good points - but I think it's pretty clear MDA is not a good coach, never has been. I am not judging him based on this year, because this team is trash, but based on his coaching philosophy.

He reminds me of the boss you like to have, but not quite the boss that gets the best out of you. Most NBA players are offensive minded and don't care much for defense, so of course they like playing for a coach who shares that mentality.

The good coaches get the best out of their players, even if the players do not like them (i.e., SVG with Dwight, Larry Brown with AI). MDA has qualities that make him a decent coach ( offensive genius, likeable) but he doesn't possess the qualities that make him a good/great coach. One NBA player once said you win a game 115-112 with MDA he is happy the next day and doesnt even think about the game, whereas with another coach (Doc, Phil, Larry, Pop, Thibs) you win 115-112 and the next day coach is talking about how you gave up 112 points.

Regardless, Lakers have a ton of issues and coaching is just one of them. Jerry > Injuries> Roster> Coaching... However coaching may impact roster (i.e., no melo because he would never play for Dantoni, or no championships because MDA is not built to make the Finals)

This summer and next summer will be a very interesting one for the Lakers - as long as we stick together we should be ok

 

[kal-el-8]

 as long as we stick together we should be ok

 

[Maximus Meridius]

It's just funny at this point.

 

[freeze]

i need a hug

 

[grandtheftbike]

Team also being a joke last year? Ummm... no.

But continue the narrative about how it was Dwight's fault last year (not the coach), and injuries (not the coach), and ARod's steroid scandal (don't know what this has to do with anything, but IT'S NOT THE COACH).

Coulda swore that we had one of the best records in the NBA the second half of the year.

In that first half, we had Darius Morris and Chris Duhon as our PG's.

Nash, Pau, Blake, Ron, and Dwight all missed time due to injuries.

And then of course, we killed Kobe to end the year.

But didn't we ALL push for that? We DEMANDED they make the playoffs, because we had no pick to get, so we wanted a chance in the postseason, since we didn't know if Dwight would stay, and we couldn't get a good pick anyways, so we wanted to roll the dice. So they did. And we blew up Kobe because of it.


Now all of a sudden he was terrible last year?????? Huh?

at some point, ska will have to give credit to someone. will it be kobe? will it be mda? we'll find out next time on dragon ball z

 

[kal-el-8]

i need a hug

 

[senorroboto2k5]

at some point, ska will have to give credit to someone. will it be kobe? will it be mda? we'll find out next time on dragon ball z

View media item 845701

 

[mosk33toe]

Revisionist history.   
Last year's lineup was decent enough to do FAR more damage than what was done.

Team being a joke this year is easy for MDA to use as an excuse.

Team also being a joke last year? Ummm... no.

But continue the narrative about how it was Dwight's fault last year (not the coach), and injuries (not the coach), and ARod's steroid scandal (don't know what this has to do with anything, but IT'S NOT THE COACH).

What? If he had a stellar lineup of really healthy athletes, he'd do better?

Well nah duh.   Any dummy can coach a team of healthy athletes; ain't that right Spo?

But give 10 coaches terrible rosters, and the good ones will still keep the roster on the same page; not flawlessly, but for the most part.

The good ones will still maintain a vision, and it will be evidenced even in blowouts.

You telling me MDA has this team in the palm of his hands?

You selling me that?

You telling me that MDA has a vision?!

Dude is clueless.

And I'm not even saying "Can him!!!"

I'm just not buying that the reason we keep him is because he's All World.

We keep him, LITERALLY, because there's no better option, and because (as you said), moving someone else into his office means implementing a completely new system WITH (presumably, and most likely) completely new players.

We don't keep him because he's great; we keep him because a stale peanut butter sandwich is still better than a moldy, rotten fish sandwich. Save the crap about how great the stale pnb is.

But but but...he had no training camp...

GIVE ME A BREAK. MDA's team last year should not have been struggling to make the playoffs, MDA can't coach the Lakers. Put him on Orlando and have them overachieve, we need a more well rounded coach. Obviously defensive specialist (Mike Brown) and offensive specialist (MDA) hasn't worked. Give me a good coach, that is all.

 

[CP1708]

All anti MDAers, please provide a list of coaches you would like to replace MDA.

5 names each.

Within reason. Do not list Greg Popovich, Pat Riley, or Phil Jackson. No Eric Spolestra, etc.


Available coaches, guys that aren't "franchise" coaches with their respective teams.


5 guys you want, that you feel are better than Mike D'Antoni.

Please list them, and LTB, please combine them somewhere in the OP. You don't have to list the same name 8 times or whatever, let's just put a list together, compiled from all the different Laker fans.

5 names per person, list them now please.


licensed to ball

 

[kal-el-8]

Please Sign this

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pe...etball-operations-los-angeles-lakers/MtyR2LmH