Ken Berger of CBS Sportsline has a lot of into in this report: Really. There's a variety of interesting stuff here From the inside scoop: To a preview of tonight To a Christmas present To predictions and dirt on the future
This guy is on a real roll: The prospects for a new coach: I kind of feel bad for Paxson. I do have some feeling that he wanted things to go in other directions a few time over the last couple years and we overruled. He should have either been more convincing or quit with some dignity in tact. Because this ending isn't gonna go well for him. The state of the current coaching: And the state of coaching past: WTF.
I'm not ready to pin this on Vinnie. The key question in all those quotes above is "What happened to last year?" Analysis follows. For starters, Del Harris is gone. The guy's the best coach we've had since PJax even if he wasn't our head coach. The guy never proved to be a championship level coach, but in 14 seasons he had a 556-457 record (.549). His worst full season as head coach was a 14-68 record, but his other teams finished with 40+ wins. Bickerstaff is rather the reverse: 414-512 record (.447) and 4 of his 10 teams won 40+. Even with those guys whispering in Vinnie's ear, there were obvious coaching mistakes made (like out of time outs). Really basic things you expect of any coach. So it's not clear that Vinnie was the front man for those two guys. Is the loss of Harris enough to make the difference between this year's and last year's team? Could be. Obviously missing him and Gordon are two really key changes. Which leads to the summer. Reindorf seemed much more assertive. Somehow Paxson got a promotion, but is still involved in personnel matters. It sure looks like marching orders were given - we're going to be a D league team featuring Rose; maybe Deng comes back. We're going to be like the first Pax season - little talent but we'll play hard. So Del walks. The thing is, the team seemed to be good last season, especially after the trade. Everyone played better. There were more plays. Rose was assertive. We averaged over 100 points/game. Now why were we so much better last season, really? My take is that Vinnie was given a lot more leash and pretty much ran the team in his own vision. This season, he's running it in Pax's stated vision all along. And we suck like we did for most of the seasons Pax was in charge. It shows in Vinnie's enthusiasm. It shows in Del's lack of it (he walked). It shows in our production on the floor. It shows in statements like "To tell you the truth, I don't know what we ran last year," Rose said. "I just forgot. I tell you, I swear, I forgot some of the plays that we ran last year." It shows in the record. The bottom line is that it's best for Vinnie to leave and go elsewhere where he'll be given that same short leash. In spite of those rookie coaching mistakes, the team actually did well, and looked quite prepared for the playoff series against Boston. This season, his heart isn't in it. He won't even draw up plays anymore. Blog-a-Bull got it right. Organizations lose 35 point leads.
You're living in a bizarro world if you don't think the last few nights reflect directly on Vinnie. I know it doesn't jib with your pet theory of blaming everything on Reinsdorf and Paxson, but it couldn't be more clear. Please tell me how player rotations are anything but Vinnie's responsibility. If Vinnie isn't in charge of making sure the offense is learned and players practice effectively, then I have no idea what he does. If you actually watched games, you'd see Vinnie even calls the plays. So I don't know how you can't find fault with how's he doing....
I wouldn't at all be surprised if someone on the bench is taking cell phone calls from GarPaxDorf telling him who to sub and when. Or certainly he's being hammered not to coach like he did last year - which was far more successful.
