Hey Kingspeed,Travis is Gone... [video=youtube;H-Q7b-vHY3Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Q7b-vHY3Q[/video]
The Blazers suck, yet will still make the playoffs but they wont get swept by the Lakers, which is a good thing
I give Nate plenty of credit for his motivation of the team and his mentoring of young players. Where I am critical is his poor offensive play calling in the 4th quarter and his inability to make in game adjustements. I honestly think he is among the worst coaches in the league in those areas and it's costing us games we should win. I'd have to go back and check, but this is either the 6th or 7th time this season the Blazers have lost a game that they lead after 3 quarters. That doesn't count the two games they entered the 4th quarter tied, and lost, or the times they entered the 4th behind, took a lead and then lost. All total they have lost over 10 games this season in which they led in the 4th quarter. Many of those games they had sizable leads. Many were at home, and many were against opponents that have worse records. And let's not play the injury excuse here. Only one of the games mentioned (the NOH game on 1/25) was without Brandon Roy in the line-up, and they blew multiple 4th quarter leads before Oden and Przybilla went down. This is a season long pattern that has happened regardless of who is on the court for the Blazers, or who the opponent is. Although last night's loss, after leading by 25 points in the 3rd quarter, was painful to watch, it was almost expected. Nate McMillan getting out coached by Jerry Sloan is nothing unusual and shouldn't surprise anyone. It's not really a fair fight - even when Nate's team is spotted a 25-point lead. But, he's also getting out coached by guys like Lionel Hollins and Jeff Bower. Jeff who? That HAS to make you question Nate's in-game coaching ability - at least a LITTLE bit, doesn't it? This failure to close out games they should win is the root of my beef with Nate. Other teams and other coaches have adjusted to Nate's 4th quarter game plan and now routinely shut the Blazers down. His offensive play calling in the 4th is one-dimensional predictable and ineffective. It has been ALL season. But he hasn't made any adjustments. I'd REALLY like to see what the Blazers shooting percentage is in the 4th quarter and overtime of non-blow out games (say games that are decided by 8 points or less). I would be shocked if it's above 25% and would not be surprised if if was below 20%. Our 4th quarter offense is flat out bad, and as evident by last night's collapse, the latest of many, it isn't getting better. And I blame that squarely on the coach. Do you disagree? If this pattern of blowing 4th quarter leads due to an inability to score isn't the coach's fault, whose fault is it. Why can't the Blazers score late in the game, but our opponents can - seemingly at will? Yeah, Nate's a good guy, a class act and does some good things as a coach. But, if you want to win a championship, or even have moderate post season success, you need to be able to close out games and win the games you SHOULD win. Based on this pattern of blown 4th quarter leads, I am convinced Nate is NOT the coach to take this team to the next level. I don't expect Nate to be fired mid-season. It's just not Pritchard's/Allen's style - and with a young team, such a change may be too disruptive. But, I sure hope the Blazers just don't blindly re-new his contract without exploring other options. BNM
Nice try, but you embraced that point of view by refuting mine. Sorry, you don't get to have it both ways. In this case, taking a negative position is the same as taking the opposite position.
And like I said, Nate's not a perfect coach. When looking at the other options out there, I don't see any clear upgrades. I think we'd be trading one set of problems for another. We should also remember that last year we were among the best 4th quarter teams. What's the difference between this year and last one? I think it's the lack of injuries. We had a rhythm last year we haven't gotten this year. People had defined roles last year. Who does what on this team this year?
How will we know if we keep blindly going down the same path? I am convinced that almost every head coach in the NBA, several former coaches, many assistant coaches, several WNBA coaches, many NCAA Division I men's coaches and maybe a few guys in Europe and the D-League would be better at 4th quarter play calling than Nate. So, start with that list and narrow it down to guys who would be available for the right price, narrow it down further to guys who have a track record of winning, and start bringing in guys for interviews. The difference between this year and last - every other coach and player in the league now knows EXACTLY what the Blazers are going to do in the 4th quarter, and knows exactly how to stop it. Everyone else has made the necessary adjustments, but Nate hasn't countered. He keeps doing the same old, same old, expecting the results to magically get better. Its like he's the ONLY one who hasn't figured out that everyone else has figured him out. BNM
I'm pretty sure we didn't surprise anyone last year either. We either went to Roy or Outlaw. Like I said, dumping Nate may be just exchanging one problem for another. Feel free to look, but again I'll ask who is clearly better than he is. I think there may be some equals or a bit better, but not a lot clearly better.
Nice hypothesis, but that is all these are, is hypothesis. Are there coaches out there who are better than Nate? Surely. It is a big world and I am sure there are coaches out there better than him. Can we identify one of them, and bring them in? That is a whole another question. I would just remind all of you, that one of the best coaches in Blazer history, and one of the best coaches in the NBA, came off the bench behind a coach that was struggling here. And nobody saw him coming.
Hmmmm, you seem to have taken the wind up route as you know you have no leg to stand on. No matter how many times you lie it won't change the facts that: Your defense of Nate was in an alternative universe that does not exist. I made no claim to knowing what would happen on Planet Blazer 949 like you did. Telling you that you have no way of knowing what happens in no injuries land is not taking the contrarian view. But, in your defense, you did prove that Nate is an amazing coach in a world that doesn't exist. Well done.
How cute. When did I defend Nate? I put the blame for last night squarely on him. Again, a swing and a miss on your part. I postulated that if we didn't have any of the injuries our struggles early in the season would have been behind us. Roy would have learned to have worked with Miller. We would have learned to work on offense with Roy, LMA and Oden. Our PG situation would have worked itself out. You disagreed. There are two states of that equation: We figure out the problems and work together or we don't. Since you disagreed with the idea that we would figure out the problems, you had to come down on the side that we wouldn't. Sorry, Sparky. Your fancy debate tricks won't work with me.
Hey, all I'm looking for are available coaches that are better than Nate. Since Nate is so shitty, they should be easy to name. It's like one of those polls where President Obama is losing to the generic Republican challenger. Okay. The problem is when you start listing names--Romney, Palin, Huckabee, Pawlenty, etc.--the "generic" number starts to go down. It's easy to say Nate sucks. It's harder to say, "here's the solution." I'll give you one to get you started: Monty Williams. I think he'd be at least as good as Nate.
I disagree. Last year we were a young team that had missed the play-offs five years in a row. How many top teams spend valuable practice time and scouting time on teams they routinely beat? Do you think teams spend extra time preparing and altering their game plan to stop the Sacramento Kings? I doubt it. So, I think the Blazers did tale some teams by surprise last year, and it took them a while to make adjustments and come up with a defensive strategy to stop the Blazers late in games. They have now made those adjustments and Nate has failed to counter. Nate seems to hate change. He resisted, irrationally IMHO, benching Blake and starting Miller at PG - even to the point where he would rather force Brandon Roy to play out of position at small forward than bench Blake in favor of a better starting PG. Outlaw is gone (and wasn't available before he was traded) and every team we play seems to know exactly how to stop our offense in the 4th quarter, yet I don't see Nate adapting. I don't see him making any changes. I just see the same failed 4th quarter offensive play calling over, and over and over. The situation has changed, but Nate stubbornly clings to the familiar - even when it's failing miserably. The ONLY way I'd be in favor of bringing Nate back next season is IF he's willing to hire an experienced, proven offensive guru, like Tex Winter, and actually turn the offense over to him. I use Tex as an example becuase he's a proven offensive mastermind and happens to live in Salem. I'm not sure if he's still on the Laker payroll, but he's the kind of offensive coach the Blazers need to reach their full potential. It's not going to happen under Nate with his predictable, uncreative, one-dimensional play calling. Even then, would Nate be willing to turn his offense over to an assistant? When Mo Cheeks was here, that was one of his biggest problems. He actually had some more experineced assistants on his staff, but would NOT accept input from them during the games. Herb Brown quit becuase Cheeks flat out refused to listen to him during the games. Nate, on the other hand, has surrounded himself with less experienced assistants that he has hand selected. They are all "Nate Guys" - basically Nate clones that he has endoctrinated with his own philosophy and limited play calling. So, I doubt if there will ever be any dissenting opinions from anyone on his staff. What chance is there for creativity when they are all basically Nate disciples? In terms of better coaches, Phil Jackson is the first one that springs to mind. He did not renew his contract with the Lakers. He is pissed at Jerry Buss for passing over Jeanie to run the team and turning it over to his less qualified, less knowledgeable, less involved, less intelligent son, Jim. As soon as the season is over, I think Paul Allen should call Phil Jackson personally and offer him whatever it takes to get him here. There is no salary cap or luxury tax on coaches. Paul has invested a fortune in this team and that will continue to rise as more of our young players come off their rookie scale contracts and get big paydays like Brandon and LaMarcus. It only makes sense to invest comparably in the man who will guide those highly paid players. What is the contract status of Greg Popovich, Jerry Sloan and Rick Adelman? I'd take any of them in a heart beat over Nate. I'd also give Avery Johnson and Kevin McHale a look. Avery has a career record of 194-70 as a head coach. McHale was a crappy GM, but he is great at developing young big men and his teams always seemed to over achieve when he took over as coach. Those are just the most obvious choices. If none of them are available, I'd also scour the ranks of collge coaches, WNBA coaches (Laimbeer, perhaps) and Europe. I'd also look at the top assistants of successful teams like the Spurs, Lakers, Jazz and Celtics. Put as much effort into hiring the next coach as Pritchard does in preparing for the draft. IMHO, getting the right coach for this team is more important than who we draft this June. When it comes to hiring a top notch coach, money talks and Paul Allen has more of it than any owner in sports. Guys that may not appear to be available can suddenly become available if enough money is offered. Everyone has their price. BNM
It's funny, the four you mentioned were the ones I think are heads and shoulders above McMillan. Let's run through them one by one: Phil Jackson? That's like Jesus hiring Satan. Adelman and Pops just re-upped. And I can't see any amount of money getting Sloan to leave Utah. So there are three no-go's and hiring a stain that can never be cleaned from your soul.
And whose fault was the PG situation? And whose fault was it that Roy and Oden seemd to be at odds, getting in each other's way rather than playing off each other's strengths. Who was it that forced Roy to play out of position at small forward rather than bench Steve Blake in favor of Andre Miller? Who was it that rather than try to integrate Oden into the offensive game plan, told him, after he had just led the team in scoring in preseason, not worry about scoring and just focus in defense and rebounding? It shouldn't have taken a month and a half of the regular season to FINALLY try a staring line-up of Brandon Roy at SG and Andre Miller at PG. That SHOULD have been the line-up starting the very first day of training camp. Andre Miller was not signed to back up Steve Blake. He was not signed to guard other teams SGs with Brandon Roy playing SF. Any kinks and adjustments should have been worked out in training camp and preseason - not starting in mid-December after we'd already lost multiple players to injury. BNM
In your opinion. How do you know they are no-go's? Everyone has their price. And I'd rather have Phil coaching the team and winning titles than watching Nate's mindless, self-defeating 4th quarter offense blow yet another sizable lead. BNM
I find it ironic that the same poster who refuses to consider hiring Phil Jackson is defending our current coach - Mr. Sonic. If we're going to hire away a coach from a hated rival, we might as well get the one that will help us win the most games. BNM
