woo woo - first to vote. I voted stay. Although I'm no huge Nate fan. But I want to see a healthy year. If next year is a disaster, bye Nate. barfo
Agreed. I am split pretty evenly with things I like/dislike about Nate's system, but the bottom line for me is that he has managed to find success through some pretty tough situations. I'd like to see him get one more year to try and make a run with a healthy squad (knock on every damn wooden object in the house), and if things don't go well next season we would still have time with this core to try another coaching style.
Give me a better option that's realistic and I'll listen. Dumping him just to dump him is dumb. JVG, Avery, etc, really aren't better options.
Exactly. Only Larry Brown is obviously better, and he's (a) old, (b) won't stay and (c) won't come in the first place.
I voted stay, but if there was a meh option I'd have gone that way. They could probably do better, they could definitely do worse. STOMP
So there is really only 1 coach out there that is better than a sub .500 regular season coach and a sub .400 playoff coach?
Nate took on this team during a massive rebuilding effort. I don't think stats say everything. Cleveland former coach probably has great stats. Watching Clevelands offense is brutal and is worse then Portlands. I would be more critical of Nate if we had a great PG and still ran the same system, but we don't have that PG. I understand why people are frustrated with him, but really name a handful of better replacements that we can get? I would be happy to upgrade if there was a certainly a better coach that was much better.
I voted stay; I'm not happy with everything he does but he seems to have the capacity to change, so I'd like to give him one more year.
I voted "go." I know that alternative options might be limited, but I'd take that risk and let him go, even if it meant Monty had to step in for a year. I'm scared of how he will potentially screw up the rotations even more once we get healthy. Contrary to popular belief, I think the injuries somewhat helped Nate, because he didn't have to make PT decisions anymore.
I would rather the Blazers keep Nate than KP . . . and I like KP. Sources say Lebron wants to play for Nate.
I voted stay, but not because I particularly like Nate as a coach. I'm already concerned with the stability of the front office, and I think it would send a bad message--and potentially portend a bad direction--if we also axe the coach after an injury-plagued 50-win playoff season. I don't want our organization to be seen as perpetually dissatisfied and unrealistic, and that's how we would look if Nate were fired this off-season.
I would argue that most of the guys who probably are better options, aren't guys on that list. They are probably assistants and not on a list of "have beens". So, really is anybody going to be able to provide a list of suitable candidates to you?
If people would like to list assistants that they can definitely say would be better than McMillan then I'm all ears. Something tells me that's a hard list to make, though. The best coaches in the NBA the past 20 years have been Jackson/Sloan/Adelman/Pop/Karl. Off the top of my head those are the coaches that clearly seem to be above the rest. Everyone else for the most part is the same, unless they're just beyond terrible like Tim Floyd or Isiah Thomas or something. I don't think Nate McMillan is a great coach like the 5 I mentioned, but off the top of my head I can't really think of anyone else that I know would come in and do a better job, because Nate himself has done a pretty good job with what he's had to deal with. Next year really has a chance to be a great year when you look at how well the team played after getting Camby and combining him with Batum. The defense they started to play was pretty good. Tweak a couple other things and this team can be a contender going into next year.
Voted yes, because we somehow won 50 games despite the biblical plague of injuries and he seems like a pretty good coach. However, once again in the playoffs his offensive scheme was painful to watch. And the adjustments that Alvin made during the series were better than Nate's. Our offense needs to vastly improve next year. Enough with the isolation plays! More movement! Despite that, if Oden, Roy, and Batum were healthy, who knows? We still managed to beat Phoenix twice (they swept the Spurs who beat Dallas, and they're currently tied with LA in the WCF), so it's not like Portland was horrible. But a first round exit next year (or worse) and I think Nate needs to go.
At the same time, no other coach seems to have been able to deal with Alvin Gentry and how the Suns are playing. The reason is, because you have to have the personnel to pull of an adjustment in order to make it happen. You either have to be able to go inside with your bigs to attack the Suns, and in order to break their zone, it helps if your perimeter players can hit open 3's. What did Greg Popovich try to do in order to adjust to Phoenix? The same thing Nate did. Anytime Phoenix gets your primary offense to be a RJ perimeter jumper you are going to win a lot of games. Phoenix chose to give up perimeter jumpers from the PG and small forward as the poison they picked. What happened in Portland? Phoenix played a zone and gave us perimeter jumpers for Andre Miller and whoever was our SF at the time. Unfortunately for us, Batum was only a part time player in the series and he was our most effective 3 point shooter. Portland had no interior game to be concerned about, so there wasn't much need to guard for that. What is happening in LA? In games 1 and 2 LA did the right thing and went through their bigs for the win. In 3 and 4, they became lost in the zone, just like Portland. Just like San Antonio. Phoenix is giving them the Ron Artest jumper, the Lamar Odom jumper, the Derek Fisher jumper. If Phoenix gets LA to do that, they have a good chance to win. It's all about forcing the other team to play your game. But in order to do that, you have to have the players to make it happen. I am not a big Nate supporter. But I think he has done as good as job in the playoffs as could be expected with what he had to work with. A small adjustment like bringing in an offensive specialist assistant, would go a long ways towards increasing team IQ on the offensive end.
I would submit that that's a large adjustment, and would love to see it happen. I had this discussion with a good friend (and former Sonic fan, so he was a little more biased toward Nate than I am), and we tried to make lists of "coaching tiers"... Top Tier is the Jackson/Popovich level. I'd add Riley if he coaches next year. No matter how sleazebaggy you might think they are, they a) have coached great players to higher levels, b) won multiple championships, and c) done it in an way or system that doesn't matter what you do, 'cuz they do what they do better than you do what you do. Next level we kind of had Sloan/Adelman/D'antoni/Don Nelson when he cared/Larry Brown/Jeff Van Gundy/Fratello tier. Rick Carlisle and Scott Skiles just missed this one. They're all good coaches, had a calling card that you could use to exploit other teams (the P&R, D'antoni & Adelman's offenses, Nellie-ball and adjustments, JVG & Carlisle's D), but never won the big one for whatever reason, usually b/c they were playing one of the coaches above and a superstar player. Skiles/Carlisle, maybe even Westphal's funky Offense. I'd put Nate at the next level with Scott Brooks and others. He's never won anything of substance, for whatever reason (1 playoff series win in 10 years of coaching). He doesn't have an offensive or defensive calling card, other than "slow it down and don't turn it over". I can't point to a player that he's taken to the next level. My buddy thought George Karl should go above this tier, but for every time he might outcoach Nate, he might also toss a player under a bus or quit on his team. I don't know that it would be that much different with Avery Johnson, Eric Spoelstra, Doc Rivers, Stan Van Gundy, Byron Scott, Woodson, Jim O'Brien, Flip Saunders, Lawrence Frank, etc. Mike Brown, Dunleavy, Rambis, Eddie Jordan, Jay Triano, Kuester, Del Negro, Kiki, Hollins, Bower don't do anything better than Nate, and some things worse. Though Eddie J's an offensive mind I'd kind of like to see what a Euro motion offense would look like with our team. I know we won't get Blatt or Messina, especially if we say they have to be assistants, but having smart, disciplined play with good shooting and elite NBA athletes might be fun to see.
I'll go with "Stay" for lack of seeing a better option. If Pritchard, or whomever ends up at GM, sees someone else as better and replaces McMillan with him, I wouldn't be up in arms. But until someone is identified by the front office as better, I'm in the "keep Nate for lack of better options" camp. He at least has one identifiable, positive trait: he keeps the players focused and motivated, even through adversity. Since I believe that by and large talent wins and coaches don't have a huge impact (outside of the very, very best and very, very worst ones), that's good enough for me to believe that McMillan is a net asset. I'd like to see how this team does with better health. If they're fairly healthy and the team still can't advance beyond the first round, then look for new options. (Though, there will still need to be someone available who's better and willing to come to Portland.)
