You could be right about Nate's future. I expect he'll get out of the first round with the next team he coaches before he gets fired, but unless he takes his team to the finals, the people around here who I feel have been overly critical of him will say he's still been a failure. And I'm not even going to say that if Nate is successful somewhere else that it's proof he's a great coach, because there are so many factors that go into a team having success and I do not feel coaching is near the top of the list.
Nate better not take the Charlotte job then! In fact, what team will have an opening that has a core solid enough to get past the first round within the next three years? Possible jobs for Nate = Orlando (but Howard will leave or be traded this summer); Sacramento Clippers Charlotte Golden State, once Mark Jackson gets canned I don't see Nate coaching the Knicks, Bulls, Celtics, San Antonio, LA Lakers, OKC or any other contender any time soon.
Outside of the Clippers, I agree that Nate probably wouldn't get any of those teams out of the first round. Having said that, I'm not sure I agree with your assumption that those are any of the teams that would be hiring him and if they one of those teams did hire him, they would only keep him around for 3 years. Again, I don't think coaching tops of the list of criteria of reasons teams advance in the playoffs or not.
Depending on what Miami does this, I could see Nate being asked to coach the Heat should they fall short again. He knows James/Wade/Bosh from Team USA, and he'd give those guys at least a bit of structure to go with their talent.
Nate McMillan, like Phil Jackson before him, will win a title only once he coaches a team with two in-their-prime future hall of famers, and a deep bench of role players. I wouldn't be surprised to see him land in La La Land with Kome or one of the other plum coaching cities. I can't describe how relieved I am that he's gone, and I still can't believe how long he was here.
That can be said about almost any coach. It's the players, not the coach, at least in terms of contending for a title.
Sure, you have to have the players to win, but coaching does make a difference. Otherwise, the team with the most talented roster would always win the title. Shaq and Kobe were together for three years in LA and couldn't even make the finals. Phil Jackson takes over and they immediately win three champsionships in a row. And, in terms of talent, the 1998-99 Lakers roster was better and deeper than the one that won the title the following year under Phil Jackson. I also think the 2004 Pistons are another example of a coach helping elevate his team to a title. That Pistons team didn't have any superstars. Not a single player on the roster had a PER => 20 in either the regular season, or the post season. The players definitely bought into Larry Brown's team concept, on boith offense and especially defense and it made a huge difference. Ironically, the Lakers had a stacked roster with, four future Hall of Famers, that year, but due to outside distractions (Kobe's rape trial) and internal feuding (Shaq vs. Kobe, Kobe vs. Malone) Phil could not keep them focused and playing like a team. Even great coaches have their limits. Dave Collins, a very good, but not great coach, could not win a title in Chicago, but Phil Jackson took over and they won 6 rings. Would the Spurs have as many titles without Greg Popovich? No way to know for sure, but I doubt it. Sure, they've had talent, but other teams had more at various times. Yet the Spurs have four titles. Will the Heat, with their three superstars win the title this season? Who knows. They didn't win it last year, in spite of having two of the top players in the league and a third 7-time all-star with a career PER > 20. Yes, you need talent to win, but having that talent does not guarantee a title. That's where coaching comes in. BNM
Yet after the 2004 Pistons, Larry Brown got fired from his next two jobs. Did he become a terrible coach, or did he not have the players to put himself in the mix for a title? Hey, if you overrate coaching, that's OK with me. Plus, the Pistons had two straight 50-win seasons prior to Brown, went to two Finals with Brown, but then continued to be competitive under Flip Saunders, making three more conference finals. Also, I assume you meant Doug Collins, and not from Cincinnati Red/Toronto Blue Jay great Dave Collins.
Point being, the Pistons never even made the finals under Rick Carlisle or Flip Saunders. Brown took them there twice, winning once. So, doesn't that indicate that coaching, at least as far as winning titles (the ultimate goal), makes a difference. If it doesn't, why didn't Carlisle (a very good coach), or Saunders, win any titles in Detroit. As far as Brown getting fired from his next two jobs, that Knicks situation was a total cluster fuck. I've never seen any organization that messed up in my life. Everything from the unbalanced roster full of grossly overpaid has beens and never wases, to the ownership and the undercutting GM who was being charged with sexual harassment. Brown was LUCKY to get fired from that mess. I still don't know why Charlotte fired him. He took them to the post season the one, and only time, in franchise hostory. He seems to have been a victim of his own success. Perhaps after making the playoffs the expectaions of ownership became unrealistic. Who knows, but that franchise isn't exactly a model of smart ownership. In any case, Brown also has success with the Clippers, Pacer and 76ers before the Pistons. All of those teams improved greatly under him and then fell off rapidly after he left. That said, a hard driving coach like Larry Brown definitely has a finite shelf life. He gets players to buy in, play hard and put the team first, but eventually, he starts to drive his players crazy. How long that takes varies, but you can usually get about 3 seasons, give or take, of overachieving, inspired team play from a Larry Brown coached team before either he's had enough, or his players have. But, he definitely has an impact on how his teams perform. BNM
Boob: Is part of your thesis that players get you to the playoffs, but coaches put you over the top and get you to the finals? I definitely think Nate got owned and exposed in the playoffs. Once our team improved and matured enough to get that far, it was time for a new coach.
Sort of. Let me put it another way. Talent will get you far, but only so far. Basketball is still a team sport and teams win titles. Sure, you need top individual talent to just advance in the playoffs, but once you get down to the final four teams (conference finalists), all the remaining teams have lots of individual talent. So, what determines who eventually wins the championship? This is where coaching comes into play. You need a coach that has a system that takes advantage of the individual talent of your superstars, but also maximizes the contributions of your role players and bench. You also need everyone to buy into the system. I think Larry Brown got that out of those Pistons teams. Phil Jackson definitely got it out of the Bulls teams and later the Lakers. Remember, Michael Jordan did not reach the finals until his 7th season, Pippin's 4th. They had the talent prior to that first title in 1990-91, but they didn't have the right coach with the right system. Once they did, they were truly dominant - a true dynasty (intrupted only by Jordan's ridiculous baseball "career"). I think the best example I remember of a coach maximizing the talent of his roster was Chuck Daly with those Pistoms teams back in the late 80s/early 90s. Sure, he had some very good players, but if you compare those Pistons teams to the Celtics, Lakers and Bulls of that time period, there's no way the Pistons win two titles on raw talent alone. But Daly had a real knack for getting the most out of role players, with limited talent and huge deficiencies, on his roster. He managed to exploit the one and two dimensional talent of players like Vinny Johnson, James Edwards, John Salley, Dennis Rodman, etc. while hiding their weaknesses. He knew how to use his players to maximum advantage and what combinations worked well together. I don't mean to bash Nate too much. After all, comparing most coaches to the all-time greats that have multiple rings, isn't really that fair of a comparison. But, I think he was too rigid in his offensive and defensive sets and his substitution patterns. I think that made the Blazers too predictable and easy to game plan for in the post season. Of course, in the end, he had clearly lost his team and had to go, but even before that, I don't think this team ever reached their full potential (in terms of post season success) under Nate. BNM
I think Nate got "exposed" because Houston was a veteran team with a healthy Yao while Nate had Brandon Roy and a bunch of young role players, Phoenix had Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, and Nate had a hobbled Roy, and Dallas was just better, as shown by then winning a title. Just so I'm straight, does coaching only matter when taking a very good team to a title?
I think BBert (and BNM) have a good point. The world's greatest coach won't get a bad team to the playoffs. But a very good/great coach can bring out that extra edge. And often it's a fine edge. Playoff games especially are frequently won/lost by close scores. In individual sports, winning and losing can be fractions of a second. That's why both college & pro sports, and individual Olympians and pros, look for the special coaches. It's no accident that some coaches turn out winner after winner.
Any Blazers fan who suffered through the infamous Game 7 meltdown against Phil Jackson's Lakers should be painfully aware the difference a great coach can make in tipping the scales in a close series.
But Dunleavy called an unncessary time out when the Blazers were scoring pretty much at will, stopped the momentum, allowed the Lakers to catch their breath. I recall like yesterday at the start of the 4th quarter sitting in Staples Center balcony screaming "Don't relax! Not for a microsecond!". It came out after the fact that during a time out the Blazers were discussing the filet mignon at the best steak house in Indianapolis. The Coach should have knocked their heads together! I am not putting all the onus on Dunleavy but can't believe he was just a helpless witness.
No, but Phil Jackson was the one who convinced the Lakers that they weren't dead when the Blazers had them down by 15 in the 4th. Coaches can't win the game, but they can affect the mental state of their players, make adjustments to what the other team is doing, and give their teams a better chance of winning.
You hate the team because it has no General Manager, yet you think we need no coach. A paradoxical conundrum. Interesting, intriguing, and thought-provoking. Dumb, but interesting, intriguing, and thought-provoking.
