There are two guys in the organization that I feel could be the answer. 1. Monty Williams 2. Kevin Pritchard
How about you put someone in charge - and continue riding him as long as the team improves consistently from year to year and gets into contention position? Oh, wait. That would be logical.
I think more logical would be to separate whether the team/record improvement is due to increasing talent or coaching. If the same group of prime players kept improving their record, then you definitely have coaching gold. On the flip side, if you replace a team of scrubs with a team of stars, the improvement probably has nothing to do with coaching. The cases in between those two extremes are much trickier to analyze, especially as there is some interwovenness (new word) between coaching and better talent, when the players are pre-prime. But it's certainly not logical to simply say "Record has improved every year, so clearly the coach is doing things right." He may be incidental or even holding the team back from greater success. Those possibilities have to be explored, if one is going to discuss the issue.
If you listen to Kp in the media, I think Nate has his vote of confidence. I think Nate is KP's guy. But, his long term future rests on Greg Oden. How he uses him and how he comes along will determine if Nate is the right guy or not.
Well, you can not really do this experiment in real life with the ability to go back to the old coach if the replacement one sucks - so that takes it out of "logic" in real-world situations, as far as I am concerned. What you can do - is look at other variables and look at identical teams in history. I believe BEdge ran a statistical analysis last year about success based on age - and this team is an anomaly. It is an awful lot better than any other young teams in the NBA's history. Given that other than Blake - none of these guys won it all in College - it is pretty clear that they all had to get some kind of coaching. So far, at least as a development coach - Nate and company have proved to be well above average. So - the next question is - and it is a good one - will he be able to make the transition from development coach to a successful coach of a maturing, talented team? Can he make the transition to being an above average coach for these situations. The truth is - we do not know. Some people think they know - but it's nothing more than an opinion, and not one that seems to really do well when you look at it under statistical evaluation. Add the fact that Nate, as a coach, had a lot more success than one would expect from a team of misfits like what he had in Seattle - A team with Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis and a whole lot of garbage winning 52 games and making it to the 2nd round of the playoffs - and that he was very successful as an assistant coach of a team of super-stars that emphasized defense (the area he was in charge of) and won it all at the Olympics - and I do not think it would be illogical to give him the time to figure it out with this team he has and see what he can do with them before we call for his replacement. That very well coached team in Seattle that won 52 games, the year after he left, fell on it's face and won a lot less without him. Hmm...
I think his long-term future rests on the team's success, not Oden. If somehow Nate fails to connect with Oden (something that I doubt happens) - and yet the team wins it all with Dante Cuningham being the star - Nate will stay here. It is logical to assume that the biggest chance this team will be a success is if Oden becomes a dominant center. The question, however - is how does he get there - because he is clearly only dominant in short spurts at this point. As was shown above - Nate has pretty much proved that he is a fantastic development coach, at the worst. So - if he chooses to develop Oden by having him work on Defense mostly right now - again, who are we to argue?
Because I think you are leaving a big portion of his game untapped by not developing him not only on the defensive end but offensive end. I would be surprised if I was the only one who felt that way. He has a lot more to give. Atleast, I think so. And by not tapping into his game on the offensive end. You are not only do yourself a disservice. But you are doing a disservice to him.
My greatest fear is that McMillan or our local media alienates Greg Oden and he leaves in 2 years. Short of something happening to my wife or son this is my biggest fear.
It takes the "science" out of it, but I don't think anyone suggested we could study this scientifically. One can still employ logic when speaking conceptually/theoretically. Identical teams? There have been other teams in NBA history with Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, Greg Oden, Rudy Fernandez, etc? Clearly not. You can look at other "young teams" but that introduces a new question: is this team unique (in terms of record versus team age) due to unique coaching or unique talent? It's entirely possible that no other franchise has assembled this much good, young talent. In fact, that would be my default assumption, though I'm open to the possibility that it's so good due to the coaching of McMillan and his staff. That isn't clear to me, though. That is certainly a point in his favour, but also such a small sample that it's hard to know the reason for the success. There have been many teams that had things click for them for one season. My own position on this is that the vast majority of NBA coaches have very little effect on their teams' success. There are a very few difference-makers, mostly at the top end...making a positive difference. There are the rare negative difference-makers, but they likely get weeded out so quickly that it's probably unusual that one has a coaching job any given season. I think Phil Jackson, for example, is one of the unique coaches that is a difference-maker in a good way. I think PJ Carlisimo is one of the even rarer coaches that is a difference-maker in a bad way. I think Nate McMillan is in that "vast majority" that don't make an appreciable difference. To be clear, I'm not saying that you can plug anyone off the street in as NBA coach and see no difference. My comments about the vast majority of coaches having no major effect applies to the NBA coaching population which is already a picked population of coaches who have shown the leadership and basketball knowledge to join that exclusive group. Between most of them, I don't think there's a lot of difference. So, I'm certainly not agitating to get rid of McMillan. If a difference-making coach comes along (I have non-authoritative opinions on who are difference-makers), then sure...replace McMillan. Otherwise, I may occasionally disagree with how McMillan uses personnel, but I think the record and playoff success is largely dictated by the talent level.
LOL wow I'm not sure how I'd react to that hire. Anyone who witnessed the Drexler years might not go for that even if he would be a godlike coach. The natives would become restless me thinks...
I've thought about that too. That is a concern. But if you looked at him the other night. He was fine with what he did.
My final say about potential coaches is this: #1 Poppovich #2 Larry Brown #3 Stan Van Gundy #4 Jeff Van Gundy You know what's crazy? There are only three active coaches that have rings if I'm not mistaken. Poppovich, Brown and Jackson. They account for 15 rings between them!
I think your first two are players coaches. The last two will find themselves in trouble with your players.
Monty Williams as coach and TP added to the staff makes a lot of sense. Both were involved in the SA organization, as well as KP. As for JVG, I have long been a supporter of either of the VG's. The nice thing about Stan, is he brings Ewing wih him.
As much as I'm underwhelmed with Nate, I think Porter would be even worse. At least Nate has achieved some level of success in making it to the second round of the playoffs with the Sonics. What has Porter ever done as a head coach. He wasn't good in Milwaukee and he was outright horrible in Phoenix. In his last stint he attempted to utilize a style of play that was not at all suited for his player's talent. A good coach takes the players he has and uses them in the ways to make them MOST effective. Wayne Winston essentially used this argument to say that Rick Carlsile is perhaps the best coach in the league at doing this, and thus the Mavericks hired him. I don't know anything about Monty so I really can't comment, but I am certainly not a fan of bringing in Porter as a head coach. As an assistant I'd have no problem, but I have nothing in his coaching body of work to give me confidence that we would progress in development...I actually suspect we would recede.
