Stotts is like a great employee who is friendly, always shows up to work and so on. How he's coached Meyers Leonard is like if that great employee steals from you. Automatic dismissal. Can this team get an above average coach before I turn 90? Please? They pay these guys millions of dollars and I know I could hire a High School national powerhouse's coach and he or she would do better. They're nowhere near the Jordan Bulls but our Doug Collins needs to go.
GOD NO! Bill Self can't develop players for shit. His teams are always stacked and get nowhere. The college coach who makes a good NBA coach is rare indeed. Basically Larry Brown and it was more that he was a great NBA coach who tried college coaching. Stotts is fine. He's not the problem.
I don't think Stotts should be judged by this series in which he's coaching the youngest team in the NBA, without a top 3 player, without a single true center (except for 17 minutes yesterday), and against arguably the best team in NBA history. I also don't think Stotts should be judged on Meyers Leonard's progress, or lack thereof. Some things are just beyond the reach of man. I'd at least give him next year.
In reading this thread, I've come around to the idea of not firing him, but rather giving him one more year. Let's see what he can do with a healthy Nurk for (hopefully) the entire season. And let's see who we draft. That being said.....his lack of proper timeouts and predictable plays needs to fucking GTFO. And the FO needs to tell him that straight up.
Click bait. Stotts isn't on the hot seat. Not yet anyhow. Now if we aren't succeeding with a healthy lineup next year then yeah for sure but right now I think he is okay.
For me it's kind of obvious. We had Kaman and Hedo last season. Our guys are young - they need someone they respect. Otherwise they are labile like kids in kindergarten. If we want to keep them young, we have to hire tough coach. If we want to work with Stotts, we need to hire some vets. It's that simple.
Often this is referred to as the 'youngest roster' but outside of Kaman being gone, this is basically the same roster as last season with a Hendo/Turner swap. So they are younger because they don't have 1 old guy sitting on the bench not playing....big deal. The guys that play were all a year older and they under-performed in BIG way. Without Nurkic single-handedly infusing life into this roster, they would have finished with somewhere between 30-35 wins and been in about the middle of the Lottery where they should be given their talent/performance outside of the Bosnian Beast. What Nurkic did was great but it doesn't cover up the gaping holes at SF, PF, the bench and on defense across the board. It they were that much better last year and totally regressed this year, some of that is on Stotts.
Bollocks. Nurk did it by himself. I imagine Kaman is not the guy you can fuck with as well. ET is no Hendo. They are just lazy kids, thats why CJ plays selfishly and Lillard was frustrated for half of the season - they can't force rest to work harder. Stotts can't. Nurk, CJ, Lill - together - can. Give me some fucking vets ffs.
Hendo was 28 last year, Turner was 28 this year......seems like they were both 'veterans' who in their first year with the Blazers, were both playing in their 6th season. So it's down to Kaman who sat on the bench and posted cool fishing/hunting trip videos.
Not a fan of Brad Stevens? Though, I still agree with your overall point, that college coaches are rarely well-adapted to coach pros.
I didn't indicate they didn't have different styles. (Excellent cherry picked photos BTW) Just that they were the same age with the same amount of seasons in the NBA in their first year with the Blazers. So Hendo had more attitude. It's not like that made a big difference where he has been for most of his career and certainly did nothing this season in Philly.
