Stan Van Gundy is the COY at this point with Mike Brown a close second. Phil Jackson and Doc Rivers are basically doing what was expected of their teams.
Heck no. As someone said earlier: Nate may well be an average to slightly-above-average coach. Great for an average- to slightly-above average team. Not so great if you're attempting to win championships by going against the great coaches. Just as a for-instance: Last year Doc Rivers had one of the better assemblies of talents in the last 10 years. He got taken to 7, 7, 6 and 6 games partially because he wasn't a great coach. He's a smart enough guy to motivate and to hand the D over to Tom Thibodeau, but nowhere close to the Phil Jax/Pop/Van Gundies/Riley level (or in the playoffs last year: Woodson, Brown, Michael Curry). These last 18 months Nate's had one of the best young talented teams ever assembled. They go on 13 game win streaks. They start well above .500 against a brutal schedule. But they finished @ .500 last year, and haven't done much on the court to improve their team (few new offensive wrinkles, issues with rotation management, still poor perimeter defense, etc). Nate is by all accounts a good motivator, but I don't want my coach agonizing over decisions like "should I keep the players who have practiced all year together, or switch up my entire philosophy b/c my star player went down for a week or two? Should I tell someone they're the Opening Night starter, only to change my mind after the last practice of the preseason?"
As Reagan once said, I'm not going to hold (the Blazers) "youth and inexperience" against (Nate). I mean, does coaching virtually the youngest team in the NBA account for ANYTHING?!
Michael Curry wasn't a head coach in last season's playoffs. He didn't take over for Flip Saunders until after the playoffs.
Not according to a bunch of people around here. Frankly I don't know if there's really anyone who could get more out of this young, inexperienced bunch -- For fuck's sake we're starting 3 rookies now! There's a reason teams don't play more than a couple of rookies and there's a good reason it hadn't happened in Blazer land since the inaugural season in 1971.
I'd agree that we've never had three (four?) with this much potential, but like all rookies their performances fluctuate all over the board on a weekly or nightly basis; it's pretty damn hard to build any kind of consistency or winning ways when you're never quite sure what you're going to get on a game to game basis from a third of your rotation.
Two of those rookies wouldn't even be starting if it weren't for injuries. The Chicago Bulls a few years ago are the only team led by really young players I can think of that actually made the playoffs this decade, and there have been some really young teams. Young players are more prone to mental errors and being affected by slumps. These guys haven't failed in getting better every season, unlike the Bulls. Eventually, they'll have a veteran mindset.
