IMO, Stotts is the best Blazers coach since Rick Adelman. Let that sink in. How hard is it to get a truly good, head and shoulders above the crowd, NBA head coach? Really fucking hard, apparently. Stotts isn't perfect. He really needs a good defensive assistant and a good big man coach on his staff. But unless it's a clear upgrade, I wouldn't change head coaches on the basis of this season. Fix the roster, give Stotts another shot at the playoffs, then decide.
They seem to adore him because he is a players coach and let's them do pretty much what they want. I've seen him diagram plays where they ran absolutely no part of what he drew up. He either didn't have their respect or they thought what he wanted was clueless. Either way, neither of those is good. After 5 years with the Blazers his Playoff record is 12-24. Not exactly confidence inspiring.
Now that you mention it, and correct me if I'm wrong (haha...did I just type that? Like the posters here would hesitate a millisecond to flame someone for being wrong... LOL...) but wasn't the infamous 0.9 Damian Lillard shot to win the Houston series NOT the play that was drawn up in the timeout? Wasn't the ball supposed to go to LaMarshmallow?
I wouldn't be against Stotts going this off season, but I would prefer to give him the mandate that he has to bring in a top level defensive assistant as has been mentioned, and give him another year.
What about bringing in Lionel Hollins to be the defensive guy? I haven't seen where he's been doing much besides medicine commercials.
Stotts doesn't demand perfection, and that is an issue. He's an easy going guy - so the players like him. It's a rare bread that can demand perfection, but still be relate-able to the players so they like him.
While I agree with this to a degree, the poor team defense is on him. Thibs had top defenses playing 3 old men, one of those was Carlos Boozer. We have the youth and length to play defense, almost no matter who's on the roster.
They are both issues if you are looking for a championship. If you're looking for a perennial play-off team, Stotts is a good coach. He lets his team get away with too many bone-head plays and doesn't demand excellence.
He's way too easy going. He doesn't call guys out on the roster or the coaching staff. I'm skeptical the roster can be fixed in a meaningful way like some posters seem to think. They need some fresh playbook options and defensive schemes. The Blazers need a coach to send a message up and down the roster that the current state of effort (at least defensively) isn't acceptable for what these dudes are being paid.
I'll bet the players actually do love playing for Stotts -- who wouldn't love a coach who doesn't demand effort on defense? Which brings me to the only question that matters: Has the team improved at all on defense since he's been here? Have any individual players grown or advanced under his tutelage? I sure as hell haven't seen it. And therefore, if the team isn't likely to improve in that area, then I think there is a legitimate argument to be made that he needs to go and somebody who can get the team to play that end of the court competently is a top priority. I'll concede part of the problem is personnel, but the part that is coachable is poor. All that said, I'm fine with giving Stotts one more half-season to see what he can do with Nurkic anchoring the middle and hopefully Olshey addressing some glaring needs. If he can't get it done, then this is a results oriented business and there's gotta be somebody out there qualified who wants the job.
