everyone has been throwing out ideas in various threads about what to do..so i thought i would make a thread. what should we do to fix this season right now? trade felton? cut him? sign brooks? rebuild? retool? let it fly
Fixing this season shouldn't be the goal. It's time for management (or just Paul?) to wake the hell up and realize that there is no "win now" scenario that is all that viable. If he can embrace this paradigm it might lead him to actually go out and get a GM and empower that person to get busy. Sadly, there's not much in Allen's track record to suggest that he's about to suddenly start making really shrewd basketball decisions.
Establish and Execute an Offense. Our Defense is Great, just need to figure out our 4th quarter execution and we can beat anyone in West.
Remove Felton and McMillian from this team. Hire a real GM. Institute real moving offense. Continue to start Batum. Play EWill more.
I call bullshit. If it's that easy to blame the players, then we've had 5 years of bad players..... just coincidence? Nate McMillian will never get the Blazers out of the first round of the playoffs. This is because his offense stinks, and his sub patterns are so stubborn/rigid that the opposing coach can easily guess his moves.
most coaches go with fairly standard substitution patterns through the first 3ish quarters of the game.
You bet, however, Nate even does this when people like [batum] are on fire, or [felton] is playing shit. SO what I am saying is, it doesnt matter how good a player is playing often times with nate, he sticks to his sub pattern all the time. If i was an opposing coach i'd have a field day with prepping my guys on what to expect.
go back in time and trade rudy for monta ellis, draft chris paul, and draft faried and draft dejuan blair and paul milsap and durant and miguel jordan, michaels mexican doppelganger....and have paul allen pay blake griffin and his twin brother 1 billion dollars to change places, and sign blake for the league min cp3 monta durant blake and miguel jordon at the 5, he is like 8'6" seriously
After 31 games how do you suggest they "figure it out?" And really do you honestly believe that this is a "figure it out" problem and not just a "lack of talent" problem?
How can you blame the players when guys like Brandon Roy, Steve Blake, Andre Miller, Travis Outlaw, Martell Webster, Jerryd Bayless, Joel Przybilla, etc. aren't here anymore yet we still run piss poor isolation offense? Players have come and gone yet the only remaining consistent factor is Nate McMillan. So when Jamal Crawford is running 5 ISOs in a row in the 4th quarter its Crawford that is dictating the strategy? Even if it was Crawford deciding to run the ISOs its Nate's job as a coach to recognize that and come up with an offense that works. Instead he calls a timeout and the play out of the timeout is another Crawford ISO. The most tired excuse of firing Nate is, "who are you going to bring in?" Well, there is a reason its called a coaching SEARCH. You go find new talent like Chicago did with Thibs, New Orleans with Monty and Indiana with Frank Vogel. There is no rule that says you have to hire head coach retreads. Even if you did go the retread route, Rick Adelman and Kevin McHale were available in the offseason. They have Minnesota and Houston playing well with arguably equal to or less talent than our roster.
Nate's kind of like a guitarist who only knows how to play a couple of chords (the basketball equivalent of Smoke on the Water and and Layla). He's not the most imaginative coach in the world, but when he's got a certain kind of player (Ray Allen or Brandon Roy) he can make it work (at least in the regular season ... when it really counts). Unfortunately, he's been handed possibly the worst starting backcourt this team has seen since Bassy and Jaun Dixon were headlining (and to be honest those two might have been an upgrade?). So there's a certain amount of responsibility for Nate for failing to know how to be more creative, but this team by far has more of a talent problem than a "system" problem.
I think Nate, to an extent, tried to be more creative, knowing he didn't have "his players" by pushing the tempo this year. Again, like you said, the backcourt has just been awful, and that has killed the creativity aspect of it. But, he did show, when losing out on the ability to run his game plan that he prefers, he was flexible in changing it, or trying to.
Nate after a time out. "Come on guys! We need to hustle, rebound and have motion on the offense! We need to make the other team guess on the defensive end. Okay so here's the plan. Top of the key, give it to Crawford. Everyone needs to put themselves on the 3 point line and clear out. After we miss, we need to get back on the defensive end, then keep running those ISOs. Clips won't think we will run it again, so we keep them guessing!"
Nate after a time out. "Come on guys! We need to hustle, rebound and have motion on the offense! We need to make the other team guess on the defensive end. Okay so here's the plan. Top of the key, give it to Crawford. Everyone needs to put themselves on the 3 point line and clear out. After we miss, we need to get back on the defensive end, then keep running those ISOs. Clips won't think we will run it again, so we keep them guessing!"
not trying to defend nate's creativity at the end of the game. but the Clippers made a huge effort to keep batum from hurting them. There were pretty poor picks set to try to get nic open, and a poor effort to run defenders off of those poor picks. If the primary options on a play fail because of poor execution, often times a play falls to an iso. when our guards leave before the pick is set, and th eguy setting the pick gives a half assed effort in setting the pick to begin with, the top pick an droll at the end isn't as effective as it could be with a good pick, and a good use of the pick.
How do you guys propose we go about "waking up" the Accidental Zillionaire? Not likely, so until he sells the team we are stuck in a "win now" scenario. OR Perhaps he already has waken up and is waiting to give Steve Kerr the reigns after the season... Naaa It's been a "figure it out" problem through the last 300 hundred games. Loved Brandon Roy, but absolutely hated what he did to the TEAM. He masked all our offensive problems and relieved Nate of ever having to address his lack of offense. Nate is finally forced to create an offense that works for the whole Team. Since I'm a homer I'll give him the benefit of the doubt he can figure it out by playoff time. Offensively you're right, but the defense of this team is Legit. Glass half full if we can establish any reliable offense at all, all those close games will be W's
