Hey, first off, love the discussion and your take on things. You're making a lot of sense. I'm still in disagreement but you're making me reconsider things, and question my own takes. Thanks for that. Anyway, I'm of the belief, and maybe it's incorrect, that any coach coming into a situation where you have this much loaded talent would have a difficult time determining what works best so quickly. Juggling an offense headed by Roy and with Oden, Aldridge, and Miller seems like a difficult task. I mean your offense last year gave you remarkable results. You don't want to rip it apart and start anew. You want to slowly massage the changes into the system I would think. I don't know. I just don't believe coaching is as simple as some of you make it. You want Oden to have the offense revolve more around him right away. Ok, but you then have to realize that then you have less touches for Roy (who wants to be an All-Star again), Aldridge (who wants to be a first time All Star), Miller (who wants to feel relevant), Bayless (whose patience is dwindling), and Fernandez (see Bayless). With Roy as the first option, Aldridge as the second, and Oden as the third, you at least have our stud superstar and his sidekick still happy. You have a PR gold mine with the the two of them possibly making the All Star team. There's no need to thrust more on to Oden in his first full season than you have to. We could move on to the dynamics managing Miller and others, but I'm too pooped to. You'd find though that there's a cause and effect with all these alternate coaching moves you'd rather see implemented. There's always more to it than just "why the fuck can't this bonehead coach do this or that".
No, it's actually fairly easy. If you score 200 points a game you can allow each of the main 4 (Roy, Oden, LMA, Miller) to score 40 points. That allows Rudy to score 25 so he doesn't feel left out and Bayless to score 15 so he can become an All Star overnight. You should run fast because Miller likes it that way and LMA is made for it. You should pace yourself because Roy plays better that way and Oden is better in the half court set. You should space the floor with shooters and let Oden pull attention down low, then kick out to the shooters. You should clear the floor, bringing Oden out high so Roy can drive the lane. You should pick and pop with Roy and LMA so LMA can get his shots. You should clear the floor, bringing Oden and Roy to one side so Miller can sneak around the other. You should let Bayless have the ball and do whatever the hell he wants. Rudy should be starting. Webster should be starting. Outlaw should be starting. Batum should be starting.
For some reason I always feel like I have to preface any Nate criticism with: "I've never been a Nate basher in the past but...." Since he's been here, I've just mostly watched the debate and I've appreciated the great job he's done moving the team forward, even when I thought he was mishandling our point guards. However this season he really disappointed me from day one. I'm now convinced he is not capable of adapting an offense to use a real PG, a real post presence, and Brandon. That just dumbfounds me. I'm just going to defer my comments to BNM and BrianfromWA since they do such a great job writing what I'm thinking. No, I don't think Miller is 'great.' He'll be gone in a year if not sooner. Unless Nate shows some fundamental growth, soon, he should be too.
If he returns it's gravy. A tablespoon of it that miraculously falls from the sky just as you yawn after a nice bit of mashed potato. Hopefully it's a miracle and just some pigeon with giardia.
As long as the latter is here, that challenge will always exist. My thought is, let's just employ the triangle which nicely covered for the careers of PGs and Centers in Chicago and the Lakers.
Where the heck is mediocre man during all this? Is the guy in a glee induced coma or something? For that matter where is "The"? I smell conspiracy.
I don't think the question is do we change the offense to make miller happy. The question is, would you rather play the same iso Roy offense, or utilize the strengths of the whole team? yes Roy is an all star, yes he's our best player, but one man doesn't win championships. even kobe and jordan ran in a system. when all else failed, they'd take it one on one, but before that, they mostly play within the system to get everybody involved and do what was best for the team. miller isn't a bad fit for this team, he's a great fit. we've got a roster full of players who look to run, LA, webster, bayless, outlaw, oden, rudy, batum...you name it, the whole roster would benefit from playing a more up tempo game, but we stick with the slow game because nate thinks thats the only way to win. instead of running with all those athletes, he's turned half of them into spot up shooters and parks them in the corner. he's a fool, and he is not the coach to take us to the next level. Roy needs to realize who he has around him and that he needs them to be at their best to win it all, and the spread iso isn't utilizing anybody but Roy.
I understand Miller's frustration. However, the dude is getting $7M big ones to play here. For that dough, he should at least be willing to compromise a little to fit in better. In terms of the last game, he did not play that well in the 3rd qtr, resulting in an 8 pt deficit. The bench players came in at the beginning of the 4th and reclaimed the lead. So, Nate chose to stay with that group, which is not uncommon. Should Miller still be inserted during crunch time, late in the 4th qtr? Maybe, but staying with a group that was playing well is also understandable.
You're absolutely right. We didn't have a successful year. We didn't have one of the youngest teams and tie for second or third-most wins in the West. We got bounced, but our boys had zip for experience. How well did the Jordan and his boys do in their first Playoff match up? Whatever. You have to start somewhere. And where the fuck did I say he can't succeed in the Playoffs? I said I don't believe he can with our team. That is all. He could be the missing piece for another contender. I think he's a heck of a player. I've never said anything differently. You're attributing an opinion to me that I never made. First, I'm not saying that the only skill set we need in our point guard is three-point shooting. We had that against Houston in the Playoffs in Blake, right? Didn't work. We need a PG that can not only shoot from distance, but also defend and create for himself/team when Brandon's being shadowed by an entire NBA roster. But, what the fuck ever, go ahead and assume that I think the missing piece is another clone of Blake. I sure was watching that game. I actually liked what I saw. We got Howard a decent shot that just wouldn't stay down. Brandon, for the one of the rare moments, did get out of control and had his shot blocked. But, it was a shot that he typically would get off and make at a very high percentage rate. The dude was spent. We got Webster for a couple of threes. And we had Bayless driving and making one and I believe getting two other shots either blocked or missed badly. But again, this season isn't about winning at the expense of development. My big aspirations for this year are gone. I want Bayless failing, because it means he's learning. All players have to go through this. And let's get something straight about the ISO. It's not just about a opening up the lane for Roy to drive through and it's not only about three-point shooting. There's the mid-range jumper from LA, Howard, or Cunningham; there's the outlet to Bayless for him to then dribble-drive.
CD cost us that game. Coaches Decision. We had built up a nice lead late in the fourth quarter by playing aggressively when Nate called for the stallball offense, where Brandon runs the entire clock out at the top of the key and jacks up a quickie, drives and dishes to someone who had better hope the get the shot off before the buzzer goes, or runs deep into traffic. Its a losers game. Cost us the first game against Atlanta, the second one a week or two later, as well as other games this season. There is no point in changing to this strategy when what you are doing is working. Every time he has tried this it completely changes the momentum of the game. Not for the better. Of course the coach will accept no responsibility for this. He throws his players under the bus saying they didn't execute.
What I want is the ball to be in Roy's hands a quarter of the game. Much of that will be an ISO. I want the offense to remain essentially the same. The players may have changed recently, but it doesn't mean you abandon your system. You plug in the very reserve players you drafted and signed for your system, but with some tweaks, as you must accomodate for the glut of guards returning. Aldridge and Pendergraph become our centers; Howard and Webster our power forwards; Roy and Batum our small forwards; Fernandez and Bayless our shooting guards; and, Blake and Miller as your point guards. You try different line ups to see what works best with Brandon. The goal though would be outside shooting from the 1-4 positions, a beasting 5 (and no LA is not soft and can play the 5 if that's his role), all-around defense from every position (which could bump Blake with Fernandez, Batum, or Bayless), and someone who can create from the perimeter (Miller, Bayless, or Fernandez). We've a long way to go, but it's not as dire as you make it. We're not in contention any longer but we can make as much noise as last year, if not more, while developing our young core even more around Brandon
No worries. I don't post what I post to try to be popular. I post what I believe, regardless if it's popular, or not. I said what I had to say, read the opinions of others, and still believe in what I wrote (although I don't remember saying Blake would have to be injured before Nate would ever start Miller at PG over Blake - certainly not in this thread, and if I did it was tongue-in-cheek). In any case, I received more "rep" today (now yesterday) than I normally do in three months. So, my opinions on this matter must have not been too unpopular with the masses. BNM
Plenty of coaches have succeeded in integrating more talent than Nate had to deal with. In fact, most coaches would LOVE to have Nate's problem of trying to come up with an offense that adds a dominant young center to his all-star shooting guard. Nate's response when Greg was our leading scorer in the preseason - telling Greg not to worry about scoring and to focus on defense and rebounding. While rebounding and defense are very important (I value them both highly in a big man), it raised a red flag for me that Nate had no clue how to properly utilize Oden on the offensive end and would rather tell Greg not to expect many touches rather than figure out a way to get him and Roy to work together. As good as Roy is, he can't win it all by himself. Basketball is a team sport and the greatest offensive players in the game (Wilt and Jordan) could not win a title until they leaned how to play team ball and rely on their teammates. The classic example was the play-off series in 1986 when Jordan set the individual player scoring average record (43.7 PPG) for a play-off series - and his team still got swept. And Roy is no Michael Jordan. Running ISOs and nothing but ISOs will only get you so far. Other teams are already figuring it out. His PER is down from last year (21.4 vs. 24.0), his shooting percentages are down across the board as defenses double him more, and most notably, he's getting his shot blocked nearly twice as often (13% vs.7%) when he drives to the basket. This is a direct result of help defenders collapsing on him when he leaves his feet. And now, Nate has decided to use Bayless in the exact same was as Roy - ISOs only. Prior to the San Antonio game, Bayless was showing a great variety of offensive talents. He was doing a great job moving without the ball and scoring in a variety of ways when playing alongside Roy. Since the San Antonio game, Nate has started to use Bayless like a Roy-light. Rather than using Baylesss to complement Roy's game, he is making Bayless redundant (and less effective). It seems Nate can only dream up TWO ways for is guards to score. You either need to score off the ice play, or camp out at the three-point line and wait for the kick-out with 3 seconds left on the shot clock. Too little variety is killing our offense. It limits our players talents (first Rudy, then Oden and now Bayless) and makes it a lot easier for opposing defenses to stop us. With so many viable scoring options, this team would be great (when healthy) with the triangle offense. At the very least, Nate should be teaching Roy and Oden how to run the two man game together. Seriously, can you imagine how tough they would be to stop if they ever learn how to run a decent pick and roll (not just a pick and pop) together? It's one of the most basic plays in basketball, yet it seems to be totally absent from the Blazes playbook. Perhaps that's from having Joel as our starting center for too long, but Nate needs to learn that Greg is NOT Joel, he's a dominant force in the paint - on both ends, and he has to take advantage of that and not just tell Greg to forget about scoring and concentrate an defense and rebounding. Assuming Nate is still here, if he hasn't figured out how to use Roy and Oden together by the start of next season, he needs to be fired on the spot. There is no excuse for such ineptitude. BNM
Bingo. Somehow, this debate always seems to disolve into a discussion of which player should be kept happy. The question ought to be what approach will help the team win a title.
I see Canzano took the opportunity to whip out his "Andre Miller Was Never A Good Fit" article which he probably wrote in October to commemorate the fight yesterday. As I said before, even if the team is all right after the fight, the Oregonian won't let them be all right. They won't let Miller and Nate make up. They'll make players take sides in interviews, pick pick pick at the scab until it bleeds over and over again. It will not be all right again because all right again is a boring story.
Wins Above Replacement Player. Based on performance and playing time, the wins a player has created as compared to a replacement-level player seeing the same minutes. There is no doubt that Miller's individual performance is better than either JB and Blake. There is also no doubt that it is not translated to wins. I think this is an indication that WARP (or any other individual stat) does not always translate well to team wins. I think it is hard to argue about that in this case - and I think it is pretty clear that Andre Miller's 3 years and running being a 50% winner when on the floor on 2 different teams and 3 different coaches makes it pretty clear that something he does on the court is not as good as his individual stats are.
