For Everyone that Doesn't Like Nate's Coaching

So it's settled.

A Van Gundy for Nate, and trade Travis, filler and Raef for Wallace. Then trade Sergio and Ike for Lee.

A new defensive coach and vets

 

But then our defense still sucks?

 

I really have to disagree. A LOT of it is just defensive schemes, which is something Nate is clearly bad at. Look at Boston, none of their players sans maybe Garnett could really be called a good defensive player until they became Celtics. However, Thibodeau's defensive schemes made them a good defensive team. Guys like Ray Allen, who was never known to be a good defender, had his deficiencies masked because the team played great team defense.

 

Disasterous? They went .500 didn't they? I don't view that as a disaster.

 

Nate's so terrible at defensive schemes that he was tasked with creating the defensive game plan for the Olympic team.

 

Nate's Portland team and his Seattle teams both played poor defense.

My guess is that Nate AND Jim Boeheim AND coach K came up with a defensive scheme.

Boeheim and coach K are both extremely good defensive coaches.

 

You make a good guess, but alas an incorrect one. Coach K and Boeheim were both initially opposed to the scheme that Nate devised for defensing pick and rolls and eventually allowed him to implement it. This was discussed in one of Jason Quick's "Quick Chats."

I sometimes wonder if the issue isn't that the schemes are bad, but that they are a bad fit for the personnel? Is it possible they are too complex for young players to grasp when maybe their defensive fundamentals are not sound in other areas or is it that the schemes rely on superior athletes to be effective (like the Olympic squad was)? I admit I don't know.

I agree something isn't working, but it's hard to know where to put the fault: inexperienced players or bad schematically?

 

You saying our players are dumb?

 

Having your center guard Chris Paul is not a good defensive scheme EVER, Nor is having your PG guard Shaq

 

Not really, but they are pretty inexperienced on the whole, so break downs are to be expected, and until you've done something a lot and seen a lot and had success at it, rotating properly and executing whatever plan there is on defense is not going to come as second nature for awhile.

Frankly I don't really know where to point the finger, it might be Nate, but I find it hard to believe that the switches on picks are all by design (some probably are), otherwise you'd see Jerryd switching on picks constantly and he doesn't.

 

Agreed, we've seen some brutal switches that make no sense ... I get the feeling that the switching scheme is situational and that the team is not recognizing when and when not to do it, on the other hand it's up to Nate to teach them when and when not to switch.

I just have a hard time reconciling the gulf between the effusive praise that Kobe and Lebron heaped on Nate post Olympics for his defensive schemes and the awful defensive execution we see with the Blazers.

 

Yeah, maybe it's just that in order to execute Nate's defensive system it needs better athletes? or at the least quicker read and react abilities that only come from playing a lot. Who knows.

 

The italics were supposed to imply sarcasm.

I think Nate is a good coach for this team, I think he's doing a very good job, I have seen no reason to replace him, and wish him to stay at least 3 more years to see how this "cake" turns out.

This was simply a "what if" thread to find out what people who would rather Nate not be our coach are looking for. I put the whole hypothetical situation at the beginning because I wanted to know what coaches people look at and say, "That's what I want in a coach," regardless of whether they are in any way available.

The list has been pretty short. I don't deny that there are probably coaches out there that could do a better job with this team. I just have a feeling that there isn't a whole lot more that any other coaches could get out of this incredibly young group of players. I really don't see Phil Jackson coming in and making us a championship contender right off the bat. Shoot, he didn't do it with the Lakers and Kobe (granted with probably less talent around him than Roy has now, but still, it's Kobe Bryant) for quite a few years.

 

Last night

2 shot clock violations by the Blazers to 0 for the Bucks

7 shots coming within 2 seconds of a violation by the Blazers as well.

 

Clearly the answer is to prise Scott Skiles away from the Bucks. Good post.