I thought Dame was the one having an MVP type season. So lets say both players had an MVP type season....OKC still had more regular season wins and Playoff wins. As for 'mutually parted ways'....fine. Wish we would have 'mutually parted ways' with Stotts long ago. Every year there is some excuse for Portland and other teams that did better had some reason some fans down played. @wizenheimer had it dead right. 4-28 in closeout series under Stotts. I enjoy the excuse making, rationalization or whatever other reason why we should continue down that road. Don't agree with it....but enjoy reading.
whos making excuses? i want stotts gone too, but he's a better coach than donovan. we saw first hand last year,
No one here wants Donovan so a bit of a straw argument. Just saying if Donovan is gone with a better record all around, how does Stotts keep his job year after year? ....and as for who is making excuses? Uh....really?
I'm not sure I agree that Stotts is better than Donovan. Realistically, they are comparable and both mediocre.
Sure, but Terry coached circles around Donovan head to head. This year's OKC run where they won 2 more playoff games in the first round shouldn't remove that fact. And seriously, OKC was REALLY healthy all year. When was the last time Gallo played damn near every game for his team? What about Paul? We think Terry is bad at making adjustments in the playoffs-- Billy is just as bad. He's not an upgrade over Stotts at all
I think that you know the answers to that, but just for the sake of discussion: 1. Yeah, he lost Westbrick and George, but he got CP3 and Gallo to return to a very solid supporting cast. 2. He didn't have the injuries that the Blazers had: No Nurk until the bubble, Collins and Hood lost in the first month of the season. 3. The Thunder got 3 wins in the playoffs, but it was against the Rockets, (No. 4 seed) not the Lakers (No. 1 seed) , and the Blazers lost Collins and for 1.5 games, Lillard. There is absolutely nothing I can say that will convince those who think that Stotts is the major reason for the Blazers lack of success. I guess I somehow expect people to at least acknowledge reality though.
Neither Donovan, Bud, nor Brett Brown are hills I would be willing to die on. At best, they would be only minor upgrades. OTOH, 2 of those guys are out of work and the 3rd is hanging on by his toenails while Stotts is seemingly bullet-proof. If those teams can find up-grades, so could Portland.
Not the only reason, not even "the major reason" , but one of the reasons. The same can be said about Olshey. If the Blazers are serious about contending, they need to make multiple changes.
I'd put changing Stotts for, say Pop, at about a 3 on a scale of 1 - 10 of things that would make the Blazers better absent any other factors. I'd put trading for Giannis at 10. If Olshey can pull off the second one, he can keep Terry for good as far as I'm concerned.
I don't think anyone here truly thinks that Stotts is THE major reason for lack of success. There are many reasons. IMO, the primary reason are the choices/decisions of Neil Olshey. Several of us have indicated as such. But the point remains - given the small market challenges that Portland experiences, the front office and coaches cannot be average if you want to compete for a championship. NO & Stotts are not terrible, but they are also not exceptional. As long as those two stay in place, Portland will remain a mediocre team. Coaches generally get more spotlight (right or wrong), so more of the conversation is geared towards Stotts.
I'd probably agree with you there. I disagree with you on this one. Talent is paramount, and Giannis would be a HUGE upgrade. But I still can't see Terry coaching his team to a championship. There are just too many 'little' things that occur game after game, year after year that have not been fixed. Terry would be a great assistant coach, but I don't like him as a head coach.
No problem with reality. The sad part is, it is 8 years of such minimal growth given that he has had Dame the entire run who has become better each year. STILL waiting for an adjustment to the playoff trap that everyone KNOWS is coming. Do we wait another 5 years when there has been no change in the first 8? Completely wasting Dame's career and not at least giving the team a chance at something better?
First, the "reality" statement wasn't intended as a dig at you personally. I just have an overall annoyance where some posters do a kind of "his playoff record sucks" or other similar statement to prove Stotts sucks and then fail to note little things like a couple of the sweeps were against the Warriors who pretty much swept everyone out of the way on their title runs. As far as wasting Dame's prime years, yeah, I'm worried about that too. My position is that we need a better roster more than we need a better coach, and I also think that's necessary in order to attract a top-tier coach to a small market team like the Blazers. No established, top-level coach is signing on here unless he's got a roster that they're pretty certain is going to compete for a championship. Fixing the roster so that there's a major scorer at the PF spot would also go a long ways towards fixing the trap game as well. It would be pretty tough for the Lakers to send AD out to double Dame like they did in this last series, and like the Pelicans did when they beat the Blazers, if we had someone like Giannis at the 4 waiting for a pass from Dame.
No shame in getting beat by the Warriors. To get swept year after year showing no growth and the only win coming at home with Steph Curry out tells me we aren't progressing.....whether we lose the series or not. Win or lose, after 8 years of showing not a single improvement in dealing with the impending, 'know it's coming', playoff trap, it's time for a change. They likely don't win those series against the Warriors and certainly were the underdog against the Lakers. But even in a loss, you can tell if improvements or growth were taking place.....and I see none. I've been on this island for several years now and thought we we were swept by the underdog, lower seeded Pelicans, that finally something would get done. Here we are, years later, and dealing with the same issues, the same problems....except now Dame is on the other side of 30. It pains me greatly.
You contradict yourself with those 2 statements. Many posters, including me, have said that nothing will change until Stotts is gone. Yes, he is THE major reason. Talent doesn't matter when you have a coach who doesn't mind a hundred errors per game. If he coached the Lakers or Clippers right now, he could not win a championship.
And I doubt that Rivers or Lakers coach could take the Blazers to the Cship. Both have failed a number of times till they got teams with 2 super stars. And they still may fail, we know one of them will.
I didn't contract myself at all. First & foremost, you need the talent on the team to win. Right now, Blazers don't have enough talent on the roster. Pop, Phil, Red or any of the other Hall of Fame coaches would not take this Blazer team to a championship. But I do agree that Stotts is a problem. I could see him taking the Clippers to the WCF & maybe the Celtics to the ECF. He possibly could 'coach' the Lakers to a championship, but that's only because Lebron is the real coach of that team... There is no way in hell where I could see Stotts coaching that Miami team to the ECF this year. So really we have multiple problems... Stotts is just one if them.
Stotts is not THE major reason. We wouldn't still have Stotts, we wouldn't still have the redundant, overpaid and necessarily underutilized CJ McCollum and we would have accountability starting from the top down if we didn't have THE major reason for being stuck in mediocrity... Neil Olshey. By the way, Neil needs to stop sabotaging CJ's career. CJ is going to need to be a platooning point guard on a couple of championship teams if he's going achieve his ultimate goal of taking Kenny Smith's place.
