To me, all these stats who is how silly it us to cite Thib's record as support for anything. Mike Brown? Scott Brooks? There's enough mediocre names here so that it's clear that what binds all of these coaches together is roster talent not coaching abilities.
I sort of thought Mike Brown wasn't all that great a coach, but his record is quite impressive. I mean, he made the finals once, conference finals once and semis twice. His teams achieved pretty much what they were supposed to, and he did get a lot out of a roster so bad that LeBron threatened to leave (and ultimately did) because it sucked so bad. The arrow points to a year he coached the Cavs without LeBron and added 9 wins to the previous year's record. What's remarkable about Thibs is he won 48 games last season with Boozer starting at PF, DJ Augustin as his primary offensive player, Dunleavy at SF, a not so hot Butler, 29 minutes of Kirk, etc. He even played the rookie Snell 16 minutes a night for 77 games. This included the salary dump of his starting SF and defensive ace, Lu. In fact, he's had quite a bit of roster changes each season.
Most of those coaches at one time or another coached a team that many felt was overachieving. Several stuck around long enough to coach a team that many felt was underachieving. How much of either edge of the achievement sword is truly on the coach? IMO, if you listen to the media, way too much.
I'm finding your points about Mike Brown to be very persuasive. I feel like my impression of him is tinged by his somewhat goofball public media persona. He was able to get solid performances from any number of marginal NBA talents and nutjobs: Delonte West, Larry Hughes, Ira Neble, Daniel Gibson, JJ Hickson. Jamario Moon. Full stop. That Lakers roster was terrible too. I'm interested to see if he can replicate his success on the Cavs in a better situation.
100% spot-on accurate. Last season's 48 wins is seen as some kind of great accomplishment, but Thibs was one of five coaches to have a First-Team All-NBA player at his disposal. He had the DPOY at center and a 2nd-Team All-Defense wing, meaning he and Vogel were the only coaches with 2 All-Defense players on their roster (plus Thibs had Gibson, who was 16th in All-Defense voting). Hinrich was 27th in voting including 2 First-Team votes, which means according to the voters Thibs had 4 of the top 27 defensive players in the NBA on his roster. (And these are the same guys who voted Thibs Coach of the Year, FWIW. So if their All-Defense votes mean nothing, their COY votes mean just as little. Or just as much, however you want to look at it). It shouldn't be any surprise that they won 48 games, the only shocking result was that they lost 4-1 in the first round of the playoffs even though they had home-court advantage. Yeah he had Boozer as his starting PF, but that was his choice - he had a much better option coming off the bench, Thibs was the one who decided not to start Taj and to play him less than 29 minutes per game. Transplant said it best, for the most part the media puts far too much emphasis on NBA coaching. The coach's main jobs are to manage ego's, play the best players the most minutes, and get his team to the playoffs healthy and rested. They do most of their coaching in the playoffs, when you have to play the same team over and over. Can they adjust their rotations and their offense and defense to best deal with each particular opponent? What's the old golf saying, "you drive for show, you putt for dough"? The NBA is quite similar, the regular season is nice and fun and it's cool to win a lot of games, but NBA coaches get paid for how many games they win in the playoffs, not how many they win in the regular season.
This is all well and good and a decent and often used plan of attack if one is looking to rip Thibs. But the fact remains that he has had one roster that was reasonably capable of getting to the Finals at playoff time during his tenure here and they made it to the Eastern Conference Finals and lost to Lebron's Heat, the team that has made it to the finals the last 4 seasons. That's only a disappointment to the utterly unrealistic. Respecting the job Thibs has done here has to do with winning all those regular season games with a franchise that has been dealing with the Rose injury situation year after year. Thibs keeps the team highly competitive, gets the most out of his guys (even the nates and DJs of the world) and usually surprises despite all the roster instability. Many of those regular season wins came without a superstar. The same can't be said about Brooks and Brown. His guys tend to thrive under him and he gets them paid. The idea is that there is no way in hell Noah is a 1st-team all-NBA player before Thibs got ahold of him (who predicted Noah would play at that level?) Even with all the turmoil and more Rose injuries this season, the Bulls are going to likely be entering the playoffs as the #3 seed. Butler becomes an all-star under Thibs, surprising many. Gasol's career is revitalized under Thibs, becoming an all-star starter again under Thibs, surprising many. This story seems to repeat itself year after year in some way with Thibs as the coach. Vegas has the Bulls as the #3 favorite to escape the East this season, with the Cavs as the favorite to win the NBA title and the Hawks (who have been championed at length on this forum) rated ahead of the Bulls as well. Losing to these two teams in the playoffs would be expected. Beating them would be an upset. If you are looking to have an honest discussion about how the Bulls have done / are doing, I think this is a good way to frame the situation. If you are looking to spin, then spin away. Everyone knows that to get onto the Mt Rushmore of NBA coaches you need to win some titles. Thibs has one as an "associate head coach" and is known and respected for his innovate defense whose principles have been adopted to some extent league wide and has also has the excellent track record of success here with the Bulls outlined in the tweets above. But no ring as a head coach yet. Perhaps some day he'll have his 2nd roster to work with that is capable of winning a NBA championship. At some point of course in the NBA, the head coach can only do so much. MVP level talent reigns and Lebron is Lebron. In the absence of MVP level talent, a core group of all-star level veterans that have a tight cohesion formed through tons of playing together and practicing together in meaningful basketball with a front office that is on the same page as the head coach has also shown success at times. Oftentimes it feels like our Bulls are what the Cavs were to MJ's Bulls.
http://www.sportstwo.com/posts/3410602/ Honestly, how did we get from this to where we're at now? It defies belief.
Schizoid to say the least. I like how 4 of the top 27 defensive players just magically happened to be on his roster without any regard for the fact the guy is a renowned defensive genius.
