Oh, I can see how you may have thought I was referring to Stotts as you were talking about a change, but i wasn't, I listened to a radio show this morning and they were talking about if Few doesnt win it all tonight it will reflect on his legacy as he's had numerous shots but never won the big one. He imo, regardless if he wins it all tonight or not has been a superb coach and for 12 million a year has built a terrific program.
I don't know I've ever heard this as the main reason for not wanting Stotts fired. Then again, I don't hear many people who are 100% against firing Stotts. The majority of posts I read that are considered "defending Stotts" are actually just questioning if he's the real problem or if the problem is more related to the roster.
I know you're tongue in cheek with this, but it's kinda interesting. I wonder how many Zag fans are upset they let him go 21 straight years without a championship without getting rid of him. Hopefully none. Few has done a great job, he's adapting to the new transfer and international style of roster creation as well as any, well ahead of the curve.
There might be people like that. There are also plenty of "This isn't working, so just fire Stotts" people without much consideration of how much of this not working is due to Stotts. My viewpoint is: Fire Stotts the instant you (the general you, in the case, the team) believe you have a superior replacement available. That superior replacement could be a proven NBA head coach, it could be a top college coach, it could be a talented assistant. But I think you should already have someone (or someones) you believe in as a better option for this team when you fire a coach or GM. To me, that's operating with a plan. Franchises that say, "Fire so-and-so and we'll figure out the rest later" are operating by the seat of their pants. I want Portland to be operating with a plan.
Our roster is much better than theirs. Their roster is pretty trash. Draymond's production has fallen off a cliff. I'd take 5 of our guys over any of theirs outside of Steph.
That's literally all YOU do. You can make this complaint without being hypocritical when you start defending Stotts with actual basketball reasons.
This is another false claim using absolutes. Find a post where I said Stotts maximized every player on a roster, like you just did about Kerr. No chance you'll find that. I've laid out measurable criteria in this specific thread that can be vetted and measured looking back and moving forward. I might be wrong, but I've taken a stance and laid it out ahead of time. Saying a coach maximized every player is beyond subjective. If you're ready to lay out criteria, that can be used league wide, I'm all ears. I've asked for this before and you've continued to come up with excuses for not providing it. Or you say something like assists correlate to winning, then I pull the data and they do not, then you get upset. I don't know how many times I have to say this: My stance is that coaching (not Stotts) plays such a small role in overall team success that it is not something worth creating an entire brand over. I believe top end talent is by far the best predictor of who will win championships and I believe I have backed that up with data. Want to fire Stotts tonight? Fine with me. I still think we're still a 1st or 2nd round team in the West.
I don't see that. In fact, it makes little sense to me to be honest why would a team be looking for a replacement coach if they thought the current one was up to the task? They'd be looking because they knew he wasn't. If that's the case, what does it matter if somebody is in the queue or not? The first step is firing the coach, so why delay? besides that, if a team is interviewing HC candidates it's going to be known. It will leak. It will be known by the players and the current coach. That's not a good situation at all.
There's a difference between "can't do the job" and "we should be trying to find an upgrade." I think most analysts would say Stotts can do the job, the question is more whether someone else can do an even better job. Maybe if you had an all-time disaster like PJ Carlisimo, you just fire him to get him out of the locker room as quickly as possible. I doubt the Blazers (or any team) see Stotts as that urgent an emergency. You don't necessarily have to have reached the interview stage. You just have to have some idea of where you're going to go. Since the Warriors are a popular team to reference, they fired Mark Jackson with two candidates in mind: Stan Van Gundy and Steve Kerr. They hadn't interviewed either one yet, but they had identified the guys they wanted as replacements. I don't think they'd have fired Mark Jackson with no concrete idea of who would come next, where they planned to go, especially considering they were already a playoff team (which is where the current Blazers are too).
You think their roster is trash? interesting Curry - Dame Oubre/Bazmore - CJ/Simons Green/Paschall - Cov/Melo Wiggins - DJJ/Powell Wiseman/Looney - Nurk/Ennis Im not sure they are really that trash. Show me where they are trash against our players? just curious.
Curry = Dame Oubre < CJ Wiggins < Powell Green < RoCo Wiseman = Nurk (I say this is a wash because of Nurk's health issues)
But, but... The players like Stotts ! And he's a good guy ! Dame want him here ! He brings a good culture ! And all those other think that have nothing to do with actual basketball being played !
This could be right. I wonder why so many Warriors fans have the same complaints about him as some here about Stotts. Coaches can be traded I believe. Maybe the GSW would do Kerr + 2nd Round pick for Stotts? Blazers add 2 1st round picks if Kerr leads us to a championship in the next 3 years.
