Does Stotts make it through the rest of the season?

That wasn't really my point. My point was that you should apply your logic equally both directions. To say the coach deserves all the credit for wins and no responsibility for losses would also be foolish in my opinion.

To your question: The NBA appears to think coaching staffs are worth about as much as the two guys sitting on the end of the bench. Why do they sign those guys? They serve some utility in certain situations but are clearly viewed as a small part of a teams success.

 

No point arguing with this guy. He clearly doesn’t see the value of strong leadership. Probably never had the privilege of working with/for a strong leader in his entire career. If he had, he wouldn’t be claiming that coaching (i.e. the leader of the team) doesn’t matter.

 

@Natebishop3 is an adult and is very aware of my stance, I'm pretty sure he can handle this on his own. We debate all the time and it's never personal with us.

Your assumptions about my personal and career are also inaccurate. I could make assumptions on your personal life & career based off your basketball takes, but that would be pointless and juvenile tactics used when I didn't have the facts to stay on topic.

Why do you think the NBA pays their coaches so little if the value of strong leadership is so high?

Also, I don't believe I've ever said I think coaches don't matter at all. If you have an example of where I've said that, please share. I do think their impact is line with the value organizations pay them, which is about 3 wins/season.

 

Ok, what would you say are the primary functions of a head coach?

Determining rotation? Minutes, etc?

Setting the offense and defense of the team?

How would you grade Terry on those primary functions? I think his rotation is pretty shit. His inability to understand that Melo/Kanter together was one of the worst combos in the league was one of the more frustrating parts of this season. He also doesn't seem to understand who to put on the floor at the end of games (as show in the Phoenix game.) Our offense is extremely simplistic and our defense has been one of the worst in the league.

What are the sub-functions?

Calling timeouts?

Challenges?

He hasn't been particularly good at timing his timeouts and his challenges have been head scratchers at times. To me, if you're mediocre-to-bad on the basic functions of your job, it's time to go. I'll give an example. My job is assigning people work. It's obviously more complicated than that, but I have a list of people and I we get tickets that need to be completed and I assign out the people to do the work. Sometimes the work is more complex and requires more experienced people, some of the work is more basic and can be given to the less experienced people. If I assigned a bunch of new people to a more difficult ticket, I wouldn't be very good at my job. Plus we have some people who specialize in certain areas, so it would be really bad if I filled up their queue with easy tasks. This is the basic function of my job. I also have other responsibilities in addition to this, but at its core, this is what I do.

Terry would suck at my job because he doesn't seem to understand the basic function of his job. He puts the wrong people on the floor in the wrong situations all the time.

 

Not true at all they may be doing correctly in practice and come game time Dame not getting done or other players not going to the right places to receive the ball. But if the that's true then the coach need correct that at timeouts if not then it's the coach at that point. A lot people just like to blame the coach on everything and that shouldn't be the case at all these has some responsibility how they play. Remember this our guards are dribble dominant type of players and at times they get there selfs into trouble.

 

All valid questions. I try to stay way from personal ratings and stick to data based ratings in order to remove as much bias as possible.

I think the functions you listed are fairly accurate. I think his offense is very good, his defense isn't below average. Timeouts, rotations, challenges are not outside the normal application of an NBA coach (all fans complain about these things with their coaches), so I disagree with your assessment that he's hasn't been good at those things. If you have data that shows he's losing challenges well outside the mean in comparison to other coaches, then I'll be wrong.

For me to speculate how good Stotts would be at your career or my career also seems meaningless. There is no way to prove the assessment is correct/incorrect and it has no impact on his coaching ability. If I said Stotts would be amazing at my job, would that all of a sudden make him a good coach in your eyes? I'm guessing no, so why debate it?

 

Who would you put in to replace kanter and Melo. Tell me your rotation that's differs what Stotts doing. I love how everyone is a coach in here so tell me if you was the head coach right tell what you would different.

 

My job directly relates to what he does. Choosing assignments based on a roster of individuals. Different kind of tasks, yes, but still the same in principle. Example, if I needed a defensive stop, I wouldn't put on of my worst defenders on the floor.

Why do you think his defense isn't sub-par? We have had one of the worst defenses in the league for the entire season.

 

I’ve replied to this several times already but I’ll indulge you one last time. BECAUSE COACHES AREN’T THE MAIN ATTRACTION, THE PLAYERS ARE. FANS COME TO WATCH THE PLAYERS, NOT THE COACHES. With that out of the way, the last time I checked $3.5M/yr is a lot of money (that’s the average NBA coach’s annual salary; $7M-$11M if you’re in the upper tier of coaches). Now if coaches made $50,000/year I could understand your point but they are paid A LOT of money which indicates NBA front offices consider coaching to be critical to the success of their teams.

 

Melo's leash is entirely too long. They play him too much on nights when he's ice cold, and they play him with other very poor defenders. Playing them together for short spurts is fine, but really only when you have RoCo/DJJ/Norm/Nurk out on the floor with them. Melo's legacy means nothing to me. If he's playing like shit, bench his ass.

 

Sorry, I meant his defense IS subpar, my bad! No, the defense under Stotts has been consistently below average. Offense has been statistically above average.

Just curious. Do you get paid 10% of what the best individual you manage gets?

 

$3.5 million is a lot less than say $43 million they'll pay Dame. $3.5 million is 3% of the payroll, equal to a low level bench player. Organizations want to make money and if a great coach made a 10 game difference, a team would be dumb to not pay them $30+ mill a year because that number isn't even restricted by the cap.

Any employer who pays a manager 10% of what they pay the employees of said manager, clearly doesn't place a high value on leadership. Maybe all these agents, NBA presidents, and GMs don't know what they're doing. I would highly advise someone suggesting to them that they 10x their coaching budget as we've determined it would lead to a 10 more wins. It would be the best return on investment a team could do.

 

It sure feels like it. Probably sub-50% of what they make.

 

That's actually not a sign of a good coach but okay.

 

Oh yeah? Well the jerk store called...

 

The admiral I served under in the Navy was like Stotts....not ego or power driven but steady and approachable...I think the best leaders are cut from that cloth.....Terry leads by example and it's why we don't have a volatile locker room culture...the best organizations have comradery from top to bottom...we have that in Portland...that's an asset. I think high strung fans are attracted to high strung personalities. I liked Rick Adelman as well for some of the same reasons. The best teachers aren't usually the loud mouthed angry ones. Steve Kerr and Eric Spoelstra and Nick Nurse are similar in demeanor....I like them for the same reasons.

 

An Admiral isn't like a coach. An Admiral is like a GM. The jobs don't compare. You should be looking at a Captain of a ship, not an Admiral.

 

I served on the flagship where the Admiral is the captain....few ships have an admiral at the helm....most boats the Chief Master of Arms is running the ship and he's not even an officer..you can make up your own definitions about job descriptions ..I really don't have any interest

 

He had to be a captain before he is a Admiral. Usually what kind leader he is today was same type leader he was at as a captain.