Of the current 30 NBA coaches, I bet you only 3-5 of them win an NBA title in their career... Most NBA coaches don't win NBA titles, even the good ones (Rick Adleman), so that's a safe bet.
i just hated his rotations, and how he didn't play the best starting 5. i also do not like his slow-it-down half court offense, because its now getting predictable, and thus our offense was hurting early in the season. With all of these injuries, hes had to be more dynamic, and voila, we are winning.
We were playing faster before the injuries and our offense looked out of sync. We are playing slower now, and the offense runs great. The two are not related. The issue is trying to force the ball through Oden to make sure he develops or running the offense threw Roy, who is an offensive beast.
I give more props to Roy more than anyone else. The guy has really picked up the slack as players continue to fall off left and right. The Miami Heat are 16-12 right now, but few are congratulating Erik Spoelstra. Wade is just flat-out balling, winning games in spite of having a much worse roster than our depleted one. He'd kill to have one teammate as good as Aldridge. Our ability to beat really tough teams after so many injuries is a testimony to how Wade-like Roy is becoming. Also, it doesn't hurt that teams are genuinely scared of Jerryd Bayless. I've been amazed over the last couple of games how much attention he's drawn by defenses. Coaches realize he's a threat to score 30 on any night, and if he does we almost certainly win. Even when he isn't scoring, he's creating so many wide open looks for teammates with his dribble penetration and his ability to pull away defenders. Steve Blake is breaking out of his shooting slump just as Bayless has taken off, and I don't think it's mere coincidence. So yeah, Nate's done a good job of cobbling together this roster into something workable. In about three weeks we went from having the best center tandem in the NBA to just another donut team. That's tough for any coach to handle. But I'd put much more of the success at the feet of Roy than Nate.
I would somewhat agree with that. The problem at the start of the year was somewhat because of Nate's decision to sacrifice the start of the year to get Oden to develop, offensively, imho. But, this is a reasonable sacrifice to make, even if I would have liked to see it a little slower to develop. But, at the end of the day, this team should really realize that Roy is the engine that runs the offense, Oden is the anchor of the defense. Sure, we should see some plays for Oden on offense, but it needs to be a secondary option, at least in the near future. Let him pick up his offense slowly. On the other hand, it is pretty clear that Nate realized that the idea that Miller can spark the 2nd unit is bunk, Miller at this stage is a role player, he can not be the primary focus of the offense night in, night out. Bayless is a much better guy to have as the focal point of the offense with the 2nd unit. So, moving Miller to the starting unit and giving Bayless a good outside shooter to work with makes sense, and it seems to have helped Miller get his head right.
Nate has done a good job, but I think the players are doing a better job. They aren't giving up, which is great. It tells me KP did a fine job finding the talent to work together. As much of a cliché it was talking about "culture players" or "organic growth", it's worked. They have finally banned together to make all us Blazer fans proud.
It occurs to me that, following just about every win, one player or another doesn't hesitate to give Nate kudos. There's a reason for that, folks.
Nate has shown to be a great coach with a young team; an uderdog team; but he has yet to show success with a healthy, maturing team. I thought his coaching was dismal at the first of the year - but now that the team is overmatched, etc. - he is providing leadership that the players appear to be responding to! I give Nate much kudos (now) but remain a skeptic once we get to next year with a healthy roster on the floor.
We won 54 games with a healthy, maturing team last year... Most wins with any team that young in the history of the NBA...
Worst playoff record by a team that young, too. Nate's doing great when his rotation is defined for him by injuries, though he's still overthinking some things (Cunningham and Webster at PF over JP against the Clips), though it was good tonight. Amazingly enough, I understood going with DC and Webs at the PF. Kudos to the coach for thinking outside the box and not letting Nellie out-Nellie him. As long as Roy is available, I'm not giving up on this team. I love what Roy's been able to do with Webster and Bayless as his main 2nd options, and Miller and Howard giving Vet Savvy Points.
Again, Nate did a great job last year when the rotations were not defined. Batum starting was not defined, neither was balancing Oden and Joel. We're all good at second guessing Nate when things don't work. Oh, and I believe 2 playoff wins is the most by a team with Portland's average age (or younger).
We turned into the Rockets and it fits Nate's style, we got a full healthy roster and Blake becomes point of emphasis.
Odd as it is to say, but I find it very difficult to believe Nate's name doesn't come up in Coach of the Year discussions. If Adelman is in the conversation, so should Nate.
They go out of their way. So does the media, so do his coaching counterparts, so do players of other teams, as do other teams' fans. Nate has certainly had his coaching foul-ups, but there's nothing, NOTHING indicated in the W's and L's columns - where it truly counts - which would indicated that he's as poor of a coach as some in here (mainly, you) have maintained. This team continues to show me that it's the little engine that could, with Nate (your clown) riding solid on its top.
