Terry Stotts has been extended

I asked Orion if he could make you quit. Seems like he didnt actually have the talent to pull it off. I think BNM got tired of trying to point out that the difference between 9 and 10 is the same as the difference between 5 and 6.

 

That would only bolster his argument!

But some people love the lowest two-number digit!

 

Never heard or seen of these words. Link?

 

You're kind of avoiding the question.

If we lost 4-1 to Denver would you say the same things or would you be questioning his adjustments?

 

Umm... I didn't avoid the question at all...
The answer to Harkless is no. Stotts strengths and weaknesses as a coach didnt change because of Harkless cramping up. In terms of the playoff run, I actually thought he improved this year over passed years, at least this year between games he made adjustments. Adjustments have always been hard for him to make at all, this year from one game to the next he did make them. His rotations, and in game adjustments definitely questionable, and his defensive scheme has always been a question mark.

Losing to Denver 4-1 would not have changed at all my opinion on Stotts' strengths and weaknesses as a coach. We've got like 6 or 7 (?) years on Stotts we know what he is as a coach. I think if you want to make an argument to fire him that is actually the best one. We know what we have, everyone else knows what we have, if you fire him you get to see what Dame and company look like with a different coach and see if the issues really are "all coaching" or if the roster just isn't good enough.

 

I'm not buying that. He'd be getting killed for sticking with his starters and not making proper adjustments.

 

Yet, in the playoffs when a coach fails at making in-game adjustments it makes it very difficult to win, even if he's the perfect coach in every other aspect.

So let me ask you this, does your criteria account for if a coach is good enough to take a team to the championship? Or does his coaching make it so he can get his team in a position to be there but not over the top?

I think Terry is a pretty damn good regular season coach because his players play hard for him and gameplans aren't as tight.

 

I don't agree with the take that all they run is "basic" stuff. I also don't agree that "basic is bad". Analogies are never perfect I realize that but I'm going to use one. I have a team of SW engineers and we do code reviews and stuff at times and we have one engineer in particular who writes these huge chunks of codes that are taxing on memory and CPU cycles and are incredibly complex and you look at them and go "wow" that was genius! Then you read it more, and more it's bad code, I can't tell you how many times I've gone back to him and said you can write this in about 25 lines you don't need this. Basic has a place. In this case, we're talking basketball, every single coach has basic principles that they fall back on and runs frequently both offensively and defensively. You say every coach "could" run a PNR, and of course, they can tell their players too, but how they run it and the reads they make off of it can still be unique. The Dame + Nurk PNR's had become one of the deadlier combinations in the entire NBA this year, dropping that just to run something "more advanced" seems like a bad way to run an offense.

Would I love to see the Blazers run different sets? Yes of course. Would I love to see them practice more defensive tactics? Sure. They should be able to adjust better in game, but mastering the Basics is also extremely valuable. You say if you're "basic" you're bad, there are a lot of teams in the NBA who struggle to run those "basic" plays vs other NBA teams, so the fact the Blazers can run those "basic" things and have success proves that he's playing to his player's strengths. Dame's a PNR guard he's not really outstanding as a 1v1 break down the defender type, he is good at that but his strength is running the PNR.

My answer would be being a master of the "basics" is actually really, really important. Go watch Pops, or Kerr, or I dunno Red Auerbach and there teams generally run a lot of the same stuff over and over too. They master what they think their teams are good at.

Stotts offense way too often in the 4th quarter comes down to Dame and CJ playing hero ball, and that's really annoying, I get it.
I'm not a huge Stotts fan, I'm not waiving my Stotts Jersey around. He definitely has weaknesses as a coach, I'm not a fan of the drop defensive scheme in today's NBA where literally the name of the game makes the most 3's. I desperately wanted him fired last year, and if they had fired him this year I wouldn't of been all that upset about it either. I just think the criticism of him at times is over the top, even my own criticism. He's a decent regular season coach, I would make the argument he still has a lot of work to do with making in-game adjustments, he's not good at that, and maybe he doesn't have it in him to be a Championship head coach, I think that is a fair assessment, but just saying, he's "bad", I'm not on board with that. I'm not on board with every time they win giving all the credit to one or two guys, and every time they lose it's because of Stotts.

 

My opinion on Stotts hasn't changed a ton throughout this year as a whole, losing to Denver it wouldn't really have changed my opinion much. I mean someone might be pissed off at him for it but what does that have to do with my opinion on him.

 

For me, who has been calling Terry "basic" for years, the term is short-hand to say that his offense is almost entirely a two-man game. The offense consists of the ball-handler and the screener - the other three guys are not involved. Or, they aren't involved until the "set" breaks down and we need to just try to get a shot off. It's also basic because there's very little variation - we run the same two-man offense whether it's working on not, because we don't have anything else in the playbook.

I agree that keeping things as simple as possible is good - complexity for complexity's sake is dumb. But Terry's offense falls flat on its face because there isn't any side action to keep the defense guessing as to where the ball is going - it doesn't need to be complex, but it at least needs to exist. The only time there's an Option B is if Option A works out and gets the ball to the roller, who can then pass to Stationary Player X for an open jumper (or sometimes a cutting Moe) - but as we continue to see, double-teaming Dame kills Option A so that even if he gets the pass to the roller it's not a clean pass and the defense has time to rotate. But we continue to march Dame right into double-teams because it's the only thing Terry knows.

Terry's offense is absolute garbage. It's not the P/R that's garbage - it's the fact that that's all he's got, and he runs it without any side action. It works in the regular season because everyone is just playing a game at time trying to make it to the end, and Dame, CJ, and Nurk are supremely talented players who will rack up a lot of wins whether there's a coach or not.

 

does that come with a coupon for a free angioplasty?

 

Then Dame lost the WCF for Stotts too.

At least show a little bit of objective logic and consistency.

 

I'm not trying to defend Terry but this is just an honest question:

Do you look away from the ball? Ever?

Our other 3 guys are constantly screening off ball in most of our plays. Watching the ball has you thinking that only the ballhandler and screener are the only ones involved in the play.

You have to look away from the ball to see what the other guys are doing.

 

Gee, thanks ref - I never thought of that!
Yeah, I suppose I forgot about all that running around three-man-weave above the 3-point line that does nothing to move the ball from a small arc 25' away from the basket. And yeah, I do recall that Nic ran the farthest of any player in the league when he played for us...not that it did much of anything. But I suppose you technically disproved my argument. My bad.
For all that running though, it's pretty apparent that our offense has far less motion - at least meaningful motion - than GSW or DEN.

 

This has always been the conversation regarding All European coaches.
Here is the content that was discussed for his move to the Lakers if that should happen. The very reason he went to San Antonio was to get a better hold on defensive principles as discussed in this link.
"As with most European coaches, his most important transition will be on the defensive end. Most European coaches have to adjust from the more zone-based defensive schemes to which they’re accustomed to the NBA style. That being said, Messina’s main intention in coming to the States as an assistant was to learn more about the NBA game to make his transition to a head coaching position easier. While also demonstrating his lack of ego, the time spent with the perennial contenders in San Antonio and their dominant defense has definitely instilled in him modern NBA defensive principles. "

https://hashtagbasketball.com/los-a...-case-for-ettore-messina-as-lakers-head-coach

Now am i trying to tell you he will be a bad Defensive Coach? No i am not. What i am however saying is that he has indeed been soft on defense and he is a good enough coach to understand that and he is addressing it. Learning is a Life Long Process. Ettore Messina is working to improve. This is nothing but a way to commend his ability to see his weakness and fix it.

 

Oh, I thought I saw him straight up tell you he was leaving because of you. I was just enlightening my friend who I don't think was around during this. Didn't mean to offend anybody. Maybe none of that actually happened.

 

Right. Well then your memory should also serve you correctly that he was then also noted as having a blow up in another thread earlier that morning (referenced in the thread where he posted leaving because of me), So either you are speaking out of line of which you don't know all of the happenings, simply to instigate drama, or You are speaking about what you know and twisting it to create drama. Either way, I knew you would play mister innocent. You never own your shit.....

And technically, he didn't leave because of me. He left because of his own inability to just pass on by my posts or put me on ignore.

Don't get me wrong, It sucks, I liked his posts and it actually hit me a little hard that he all of a sudden went off on me for simply having a little fun and mocking other posters that were doing what the majority of the forum complains about. I mean him and I had had some good convos in the past.

So if you wanna get down and dirty and be factual and frank on this, he pussed out. Simply put. He might be here under another name now as I see many new members around that have similar traits as old ones... if so, cool.

But either way, I hold no guilt over his decision as in my opinion he quit and gave up instead of using the tools available to make his stay more pleasant than he voiced it was.


Now. Why are you trying to stir shit up?????????????? You and I have had a fairly decent year over the last. Lets not revert back to old times, okay?