Baffles me how there can still be Stotts apologist after the shit coaching he has done games after games
Eh, it's not his fault we're missing 2 of our 5 starters. He's basically always been saddled with an imbalanced back court. CJ should have been traded 3 seasons ago. That's not Stotts' fault. The only guy we have who can guard anyone 6-6 to 6-10 is Nassir Little, a dude who barely registered on our Summer League squad. Is that Stotts' fault? He's got a .561 record over 8 seasons, while dealing with the aftermath of Roy, Oden, Aldridge, Batum and Mathews all leaving the team without any compensation. He runs a system that's made guys like Hood, Bazemore and Whiteside want to come here. It's become a destination for players looking to rehabilitate their careers. It's also a system that allowed fringe picks, reserves and castoffs like Connaughton, Frazier, Crabbe, Aminu, and Harkless to become legit NBA players. He somehow saw us through the disaster contracts of Turner and Leonard. I listen to all the major podcasts and follow the NBA pretty closely. From everything I gather, the Blazers are widely regarded as one of the better-run organizations in the league. Our team sucks right now, but I'm definitely not on board the train of dumping the coach. I think we're just in for a lot of losing this season and there's not much we can do until CJ and Whiteside are eligible to trade. At that point I think the pressure should be placed squarely on the GM. I don't think a new coach solves any of the problems I listed--it just creates new problems as we try to implement a new system.
It's Stotts fault if he doesn't play him and let Siakam go 9/10 Yeah. 8 seasons of Stotts helped us achieve this. Or 8 seasons of Dame, it's one or the other.
I know it is easy to bash Stotts after the game. Obiously, he had no idea things would go south after he benched Nasir. Should he? I'm not basketball coach at any level, so I'm not going to argue about his abilities, but... With "second best backourt in the league" in Dame in CJ, with no experience and no knowlege my plan would be exactly what Stotts do - play Dame and CJ ISO as much as possible. I could win above 50% of games on PS with my friends, but I wouldn't go far in the playoffs with experienced ones.
Stotts can figure how to win game this year so he plays Dame the most minutes in the league so Dame can save his fucking job again. But even that isn't working so far
Are you telling me you weren't kind of shocked to see Little in the starting lineup? I was. I'd have preferred he'd left Little out there, but I can kind of see why he didn't. It's a lot of pressure to put on a rookie, hoping he'll basically win the game by containing the other team's best player down the wire. We might have won the game if Little had come through, but maybe if Siakam had gone off we'd lose anyway and it might have set Little back. It's not all X's and O's. Psychology is at play too. It's not just about winning the game in front of you, but developing the player. I think history shows Stotts understands the player development side really well. Little finished the game on a high note with lots to build on. I'm happy for him. Why not a little of column A, and a little of column B? I lived through the Mo Cheeks and Assclown McScribbles years. That was 11 long years of complete coaching incompetence. Believe me, there's no way either of those guys does what Stotts has done even with Dame. Even Dunleavy and Carlesimo were terrible fits for the talent they had. So there's another 7 seasons of below average coaching, before you finally find another coach as good as Stotts in Rick Adelman. 18 years of below average to shitty coaching before Stotts came along. I'm not saying Stotts is a genius or anything, but I'm telling you I've been on the other side of that fence. It was most decidedly NOT greener over there. We might get lucky and find a coaching upgrade by firing Stotts. But I for one don't want to roll that dice. Too many bad memories. If he's got a championship caliber roster, I think Stotts is a championship caliber coach. I think he had our team right in the running in his first season coaching (before Matthews blew his Achilles). He won't carry us, but he won't fuck it up like some of these other guys we've had would. He's also proven to be a really good development coach, which looks to be where we are this year unless a miracle happens.
Why you think benching Little after he was doing good and letting him watch his team losing the game will make him happy? It was proven - by stats and by L - that it wasn't good decision. If Nasir would win us this game with his D on Siakam I could agree that he has "lots to build on". Instead, he was probably more frustated siting on the bench thinking he could hadle it (as most players do).
If I let my employees do everything that made them happy or kept them from being frustrated, I'd be a pretty shitty business owner. If I did everything possible to maximize sales at all costs (my version of winning) I'd equally fail. Sometimes being a good leader is looking out for the best interest of the people and the organization, even when they disagree or it doesn't align with short-term goals. We gave Zach Randolph, Bonzi Wells and Darius Miles all the minutes they could handle, and it was pretty clearly a mistake. (However, it wasn't with Dame or CJ.) I'm not sure about Stotts' rationale in this game, but he's earned the benefit of the doubt in my book. Bringing along a young player isn't always easy. Orlando, for example, has been fucking it up for years and years.
I was advocating it for a few games, but yes I was surprised that Stotts actually made a good decision. Thankfully he was back to good old Stotts benching him in the 4th Like he did the rest of the game while nobody else could ? You convinced me, I'm glad we developed Little more by sitting his ass on the bench. So you would do neither like Stotts ?
Oh shut up already about this pressure bullshit, did Little look nervous? Does he look like a guy with a weak mentality? Failure is essential to growth anyway. There’s no justification to Little not playing in the fourth outside of an injury.
The numbers speak for themselves. This is a sufficient sample size to conclude that Stotts is an average/mediocre coach. Yet, there are those that want to give him more chances to improve. That's called hoping. After 11 seasons, he is what he is. Career: .511 Career Playoff: .357 POR: .561 POR Playoff: .373
* 2013-14: Blazers 54 wins, 5th seed...Dame 9.6 winshares...without Dame, 45 wins = 11th seed; lottery * 2014-15: Blazers 51 wins, 4th seed...Dame 10.6 winshares...without Dame, 41 wins = 11th seed; lottery * 2015-16: Blazers 44 wins, 5th seed...Dame 9.2 winshares...without Dame, 35 wins = 10th seed; lottery * 2016-17: Blazers 41 wins, 8th seed...Dame 10.4 winshares...without Dame, 31 wins = 13th seed, lottery * 2017-18: Blazers 49 wins, 3rd seed...Dame 12.6 winshares...without Dame, 36 wins = 11th seed, lottery * 2018-19: Blazers 43 wins, 3rd seed...Dame 12.1 winshares...without Dame, 41 wins = 9th seed, lottery * 2019-20: Blazers 4 wins, 13th seed...Dame 2.6 winshares...without Dame, 1 win = worse record in NBA now obviously, there are many other factors involved, not the least of which is that 7 years in the lottery would have given Portland the opportunity to draft some talent. But the point is that without Dame, the Blazers only have lottery-level talent. A lot of coaches could have replaced Stotts, but a top-10 level player is very rare
For those that think the new team, injuries, or the loss of Vanterpool are the reasons for this team struggling: 2015-16 the Blazers started out 11-20. Even though they finished 44-38, their defensive rating was 20th. 2016-17 the Blazers were 24-35 at one point with a historically bad defense. Nurk Fever happened pushing them to 24th in defensive rating otherwise it would've been much worse. 2017-18 the Blazers never fell below .500 but were just 22-21 at one point in the season. They actually finished 8th in defensive rating that year. Were they turning the corner until getting blown out of the playoffs? Is Nurk that good of a defensive player that he can single-handedly make up for Stotts' defense? 2018-19 the Blazers were just 15-13 at one point and went on to win 53 games. The defensive rating was 16th, even with decent defensive personnel and Vanterpool. 2019-20 the Blazers are 4-8 and the defensive rating is 19th. So even without Nurk, without Vanterpool, without Harkless, without Aminu, and without Turner the defense isn't really any different than it has been minus one season it was actually good (thanks to Nurk). The defensive scheme is the problem, not the injuries or personnel. It's Stotts.
Dame said last night that he's never seen so much box and 1 in his life. The raptors have been incredibly successful this season employing the box and 1 against star players and turning them into passers. Did it to Kawhi and LeBron as well. All three had more assists but couldn't get their own scoring going. But does Nick Nurse play the box and 1 against every one? Hell no, he adapts and changes his defensive schemes based no the opposing personnel. The fact is under Stotts we have never seen an inkling of defensive versatility or adjustments. We play one scheme and stick to it for better or worse (usually worse).
you can probably say that about Stotts’ offense as well. It hasn’t evolved since that first year without Aldridge.
