The Detroit Pistons have fired coach Mo Cheeks

Need fo' Sheed!!! Bring Stan Van Gundy in here Joe, or even George Karl! Hollins would be my 3rd choice of the 3

 

I was thinking George Karl but Lionel would be a good choice.

 

I blame the spirit of the fan base on getting to game 7. Not the coach.

 

Yeh, if he had started giving Sabonis more minutes earlier in the series (and in the season), maybe it wouldn't have gone to 7. (Oh, I hope I'm talking about the right series?)

 

Nah, the defining moment was when he went with the big lineup. He waited until we were down 3-0.

It was

Pippen
Bonzi
Sheed
ZBo
Sabonis

It dominated the fuck out of Dallas, but Mo waited too long to put that lineup in.

 

Let that sink in if you can't remember how inept Mo Cheeks was. He was given a roster that included Pippen, Wells, Wallace, Randolph AND Sabonis, and still couldn't get us out of the first round of the playoffs. It's hard to believe that actually happened.

 

Well, the Mavs were really good. We were the 8th seed. They were the first seed. Dirk was basically unguardable at that point.

 

Zbo absolutely dominated once he was given minutes.
Mo was far and away the worst Blazers coach I've ever witnessed. Simply awful.

 

History (and quite a lot of beer) has dulled the pain of those memories. I forgot we had a team that stacked, and all we got out of it was the 8th seed and a first round exit.

You left off Damon Stoudamire, though. He was on that team, and he was a massive liability that Portland always struggled with. Even there, though, you can't say, "Well, Cheeks had to put up with that whiny entitled runt." Because he CHOSE to play him at point over Pippen. Nobody put a gun to his head and forced him to make Stoudamire the primary ball handler. It was all part of his very special idiocy.

 

I Went half mast just reading that line up.

 

WTF you talkin' bout???? Dallas was the 3rd seed and the Blazers were the 6th seed (tied with the Lakers for 5th best record in the West). Yeah, Dirk was Dirk, but remember Dallas started Raef LaFrentz and Shawn Bradley, who combined to give them about 7 points a game in that series. Hardly an all-NBA front court. Considering we had Sabonis, Sheed, ZBo and Dale Davis (yeah, I know, but he was still better than LaFrentz and Bradley), we should have KILLED them.

It took Cheeks 3 games of dicking around before he finally realized they didn't have anyone who could guard ZBo. Given that Dallas was staring three-7-footers, and was using Dirk at small forward, why the fuck did it take him that long to realize he should also be going with a big line-up of Sabas, Sheed (guarding Dirk) and ZBo? I was at Game 6, and that was the line-up that DESTROYED the Mavs and held Dirk to 4 points. And, even in that game, he didn't start Sabas, but he came of the bench to score 16 points and grab 8 rebounds in 12 minutes.

Cheeks was/is a terrible head coach. He was always in way over his head and refused to listen to his more experienced assistants. Detroit was stupid to hire him and got what they deserved.

BNM

 

I don't care who coaches that team, it was going to be a disaster. They should have never gone after Josh Smith unless they were going to trade Monroe right away. Cheeks may not be the best coach but its crazy to blame him for this team. Dumars is the one who should be fired. He brought in two of the worst chuckers in the league in Smith and Jennings, they needed a PG who could get good looks for all their big men and Jennings is not a ideal fit for that role. Smith is a good player but he has to play at the 4 to be effective. He is too happy to sit back and take wide open mid range Js all day when he is out on the perimeter.

 

^^^Yes & no. It's a flawed team, but a good coach could make it work. Mo shouldn't get a pass just because Dumars put together a less-than-ideal roster. There's enough talent there to be in the middle of the Playoff pack in the East! Mo just sucks.

 

The owner should have fired Joe D as well.

 

If for no other reason than hiring Mo Cheeks!

 

Wasn't Phil Jackson brought in as a consultant for that head coaching search?

 

Eh, I was going off memory. I thought they were a #1 seed, but either way I knew we didn't have HCA. I do remember Nick Van Exel torching us in that series. We could live with Dirk, but Nick hit some major daggers.

 

I was pretty young when Mo was the coach of the blazers. But what I remember of him is this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4880PJnO2E

I don't care if he cant coach. Great Portland moment.
Stop trashing the Man.

edit - but that team was messed up all the way... Remembering right now a player playing 6ish mins in the first half because of foul trouble... Then watching him and another player laugh about it on the bench before halftime. Yeah -.-

 

Great guy. Decent assistant coach. Terrible head coach. How he got another shot is beyond me.

 

How much money and guaranteed years did Cheeks have? Could be a very successful job for him in that regard. Work for 4.5 months get paid $10 million.