Hi All, New member here. Glad to join the forum! I’m having trouble understanding the logic behind the Billup’s hire, so looking for a little help. I thought the objective was to win now. Like immediately, before Lillard leaves or before he starts going downhill. How does hiring a guy with no head coaching experience accomplish that? Shouldn’t the Blazers be going after a coach with a proven track record in the NBA? Somebody like D’Antoni, for example?
- teams have won with new coaches. Kerr, Nash if not for injuries etc - this team is nowhere near winning a championship so it’s a moot point really.
This is covered in many other threads, but I'll give you my quick take. Billups was really a coach on the floor, even when he was a player. He is and was a prototypical "play hard, but play smart, first" kind of guy. He is a great hire. Coaches with experience usually garner the pejorative "retread". The problem is that the game is so much different from the game that they grew up with, making them having to adapt. Not all of them are good at that. D'Antoni was a choice many were interested in, because he has always been an innovator. He has adapted his offensive schemes to his personnel. However, he is slowing down as a 70 year old, and not known for defense - which is a central problem to last year's team.
Kerr…. Phil Jackson….. Pop…. All a bunch of first time head coaches who won titles and had immediate success with veteran teams.
I disagree this team is nowhere near winning a championship. A couple of tweaks, with a new basketball mind running the show is sometimes all that's necessary. D'anPhoney is a retread with no new thinking, basketball wise. Now he is a very good offensive coach, but so was Coach Stotts. Billups has been a top defender, and a point guard that lead a Championship Pistons team that wasn't full of superstars either. They had a perfect team of top talents like Sheed & Rip Hamilton, and great role players like Billups, Wallace, and Prince. Sheed was maybe the only Superstar technically. Billups has run a championship team on the court, worked in the front office, and now is an assistant coach. Hopefully he is as successful as Kerr.
I doubt Indiana considers Rick Carlisle a “retread.” And I’m sure Dallas doesn’t think that way about Jason Kidd.
Assistants do a lot of the Xs and Os for game planning. Billups would have the ear of the players and their respect for in game adjustments
and watching billups on ESPN, it's clear he actually got that part of the job much better than other candidates. he really excelled in explaining sets/concepts and you could read from his pieces that he could design valid counters.
Portland is in a shit show of a situation from here on out. thanks Neil. He should just be fired at this point. I mean two of the candidates had major background issues wrt violence toward women, the other candidate is a woman. Neil choses one of the former...wtf.