I’ve always thought that coaches get WAY too much blame and credit for how a team does. Is Luke Walton the best coach in the history of the game because of how the Warriors played a couple years back, I don’t think so. Phil Jackson had some down years til he got the right roster, same with many other great coaches. Coach Stotts was getting ripped and blasted on the regular on here this season. Haven’t heard much praise tossed his way from the same people though. Even though we are playing better. If the team sucks, is it the coaches fault? When they are killing it out there is it the players? I know it’s a true balance and there are a lot of factors, just was wondering what the Stotts haters on here are thinking. #PropsToStotts
Coaches, unfortunately, don't have much impact on today's game. It's their job to make the TEAM better than the individual players that make up the team, but they so rarely do. There are few great coaches (Pops is the only great one since Sloan retired), a handful of good coaches (Stevenson, Thibs, Kerr), a whole mess of mediocre coaches (Terry, etc) and then a handful of bad coaches. The Terry-level coaches are all interchangeable and replaceable.
Terry probably gets too much blame and not enough credit. As for Luke Walton.... I don't even think about that the Purple and Piss.
The players seem to really love him. My biggest problem with him is that he is just to soft. I would love to see him call a timeout and get mad once in awhile, not just do it in the locker room at halftime or after the game. He seems to trust that they will just work themselves out of a funk as they lose 18 point leads. Even Kerr gets on his team when they screw up. I do think he is respected around the league as a very good coach. Luke Walton needs to go through a few more bumps in the road before he is named coach of the decade. The purple and piss will certainly put him through that.
Coaches are in charge of development. The fact that we don't have a decent big man coach is on Stotts.
Prior to this year I thought Stotts was a fantastic coach who should be here awhile. However, I started to change my thoughts as the season progressed. The rotations were really bad, that is on Stotts. This is a team that should have had a leg up on several of the "new" teams in the West because of continuity and a soft early schedule. I felt like the team didn't show up for several games this year, especially at home and that is on Stotts too. When he started going with a more set rotation is when this team started playing well. One game in particular stood out to me where the team was playing well and we had a game at Cleveland. Stotts decided to play Harkless at the backup PF instead of Collins because of the matchup with Jeff Green. I thought this was a big mistake to change what you are doing well based on what the other team is doing. Make them adjust to you not the other way around. Obviously he has the team playing well. My only question is why couldn't this team perform this way from the beginning of the season instead of getting off to another sluggish start?
Love the guy....I think he's a great coach....don't need him to have a short fuse...he seems to do a lot of good things and players do often come here and get better.....I think his calling of timeouts has improved which I wondered about earlier in his stint here...stability breeds franchise stability....I think we have a keeper in Stotts
I have bitched about rotation decisions he has made in the past but I havent been one of those to say he needs to go. I’m more on the olshey needs to go train. I think stotts is a good coach but for fuck sake aminu isn’t a 4
How do you know we don't have a decent big man coach? Do you know who the big man coach is or is it by committee? A big man coach doesn;t need to be big, he just needs to be able to coach what the bigs need to do.
I think Stotts does many things very well as an NBA coach, but there are also parts of his coaching that I will always disagree with. In some ways he gets bailed out by his players and in others they make him look worse than he probably is. I think he has room to improve, for sure. If that makes me a hater, then so be it.
@HCP you do know we blazer fans missed the first possession of the second half last night right? I place the blame on the truck if Portland sucks.
Drives me crazy that he often refuses to call a timeout to set up a play at the end of close games, but that's a minor quibble. At least he isn't Maurice Cheeks or Nate McMillan. I would be interested in what you think @HCP.
When his weaknesses aren't getting exploited by the other team he looks fine. When they are, it's frustrating because all he needs to do is make simple adjustments.
Stotts' reckless offense intimidates young teams. With the modern payroll structure, teams must get rid of anyone experienced. So Stotts' style works now, but flopped before 10 years ago, when he was fired twice as an NBA head coach. No, they make a huge difference.
This is the best thing that can be said of him - at least he doesn't absolutely SUCK. BUT. He runs the 3-man weave just like Cheeks did. And he doesn't know how to use more than 2 players in an offensive set (and only then as a pick/pop or pick/roll) in the same way Nate didn't.
Guys, how do we know olshey and allen didnt tell stotts he needed to start turner and play swannigan at the beginning? Also. I see stotts mad quite often. Tonight even. There could be more than we know behind the scenes.
