The man has been coaching his ass off this season. I'm not sure how many coaches could have taken the hand they were dealt in the off-season (losing four starters) and found success completely re-tooling their offense with a bunch of offensively limited front-court players and former role-players and molded them into what we've seen this year. Minor quibbles aside with his defensive philosophy, we've been witness to some A+ level voodoo this year. I hope people appreciate just how rare a feat of coaching we're witnessing.
He has some issues, but then again so does every coach, including the great ones like Pop. I don't remember who it was but someone wrote an article asking if Stotts should be our "Pop, Sloan, Carlisle" type of coach. I wasn't sold on him till this year, but I'm warming up to that idea. He's definitely on his way.
Stotts is a Zen Master of managing personalities, young players, and chemistry (in addition to X's and O's skills). Observe: After a 16-game start where we were 6-10, we've done the following... In the last 41 games (1/2 of the season), we're 24-17. That's a 48-win season pace, well above many peoples' expectations, even fans. ...but it gets even better: In our last 27 games (1/3 of the season), were 19-8. (58 win pace) In our last 20 games (1/4 of the season) we're 15-5 (62 win pace). In our last 17 games (1/5 of the season) we're 14-3 (68 win pace).
I am sold. I hope we resign him to a long term contract. I can't think of another coach (who would be available)that I would replace him with.
Also, he gets a bad rap for defense, but when we had those extra days at home and had time to work on the defensive scheme, shit seriously improved. That is coaching.
I was definitely okay with them looking around at other coaches this offseason, but now I want them to lock him up for years.
And CJ with 1900 minutes played still putting up 45% FG, 40% 3P, and 80% FT... Only two players in our regular rotation (Harkless, Vonleh) shoot worse than the conventional "good percentage" of 33.3% (33% 3P equals 50% 2-pt FG% because 3 is worth more than 2). Six regular rotation players shoot better than 33.3% -- that's a result of good spacing, good offensive decision making, good playbook.
Without a second All-NBA caliber player next to Damian? Probably no better than the second round in a couple of years, but that's not a coaching problem.
I think he's "good" but definitely not All-NBA and it seems doubtful he gets to that level -- and I'm sure me calling him "good" will somehow get spun into a negative, it's just that the bar for All-NBA level is very, very high IMO. Damian for instance is just "barely" there.
I'll reserve judgement to see how he adjusts during a Playoff series. We're playing better than most expected (though not much better than WE expected). But currently my opinion is that Dame deserves most of the credit, and that Stotts deserves credit for "not getting in the way", which a lot of other coaches might have done.
Klay was all-NBA 3rd team last year, and the difference between him last year and CJ this year is not much. CJ is better now than Klay was 2 years ago, and this is CJ's first year as a starter. You're prematurely assuming that CJ has reached his peak.
