I am not against change on the Blazer's coaching staff for change itself. But I am against the idea that "well, the alternatives will probably be much worse, so we might as well keep Stotts." I will never buy that notion. Great coaches might not be in plain sight sometimes, but during an off season you never know who might say yes. Phil Jackson had to coach the Albany Spitoons at one point. You have to take chances.
Why no love for Coach Bud? Budenholzer led Atlanta to a 60+ win season with no real superstar (but a bunch of good players) and now is leading Milwaukee to one of the best records in the league (with one star surrounded by strong complementary players). Bud should be in Tier 2 with Stevens imo.
Stotts does suck and although Carlisle may not be elite, he is certainly a notch (or two) above Stotts.
This is wrong. But I'm not going to get into it, because it's shit like this which has made my appearances on this forum minimal.
I cant speak to well for the other fanbases, but I can see a point to this; being a fan that watches every game (or just about), it can be easy to be “hyper-critical” of a coach or a player or a team. The Denver game this week was a good example of this. I think Stotts made some bad coaching moves, but I can almost guarantee you that if Denver loses that game people in Denver wouldve been all over some of Malones faults. It was a close game, and a winnable game, whoever lost was going to be upset about it.
Give Stotts and Carlisle teams of comparable talent, and match them up in a 7 game series. Who picks Stotts to win?
Just a random thought. No one would deny that Stotts has been more effective with the Blazers than he was with the Hawks and Bucks. In between his 2nd and 3rd head coaching jobs, he spent 4 seasons as Carlisle's assistant. Seems like RC was a good enough coach that Stotts learned from the experience. Am I having a senior moment, or hasn't Stotts himself said that?
He often talks about working for George Karl in Seattle and coaching Payton, Nate and Rainman...he was assistant there I think with Gentry..he also coached in the CBA for a long stretch I believe..
Until I clicked the little vertical arrow, I thought HCP had dumped us. Come on back, you dumb honkie! I liked your name.
Stotts never coached with Gentry. You may be thinking of Dwane Casey. As an NBA assistant coach, his fellow assistant coaches who became NBA head coaches were Casey, Bob Weiss, Mike Woodson, Gar Heard, Jim Boylan, Keith Smart, and Tony Brown. Also, Bob Kloppenburg was a temporary head coach for 2 teams totaling 7 games. (I knew that. This post did not take me the better part of an hour.)
EVERY COACH, no matter how successful, even Phil Jackson (the GOAT coach), gets shit on by their fans and media when they lose a game. After we won Game 2 of WCF 2000, there was a huge article about how the Lakers just weren't ready. Phil Jackson was always criticized for simply not coaching at all. Not calling timeouts and letting his team get destroyed. After Game 4 of WCQF in 2011, Carlisle got destroyed by fans and media. Why wasn't the ball going to Dirk down the stretch? Same old Mavs gonna choke and lose this series. And this even happens to star players. The media called Kevin Fucking Durant Mr Unreliable. LeBron wasn't aggressive enough. Michael Jordan was too selfish to win. Etc. Etc. Etc.
"Fans get mad at their coaches too so youre wrong in what you blame Stotts for" is the flawed premise of this post, or so it seems.
If 'elite coach' means 11 Playoff wins in 11 seasons as a head coach....we may have to redefine what the term 'elite' means.
From reading this forum, the Blazers don't have much talent either and yet Stotts since he has been in Portland has had much more success than Carlisle.
