Exclusive Vote: Stotts and Olshey over a year removed vs when fired

Has your outlook on the performance of Stotts or Olshey during their Blazers tenure changed vs your opinion when they were fired?

 

Stotts was what he was. I was always aware of his limitations and I felt from the day he was signed that he had a ceiling and he achieved that ceiling.

Olshey is awful. He was awful. He will always BE awful. He gimped this team for years because of his ego and his hubris.

 

This thread is nonsensical and irrelevant. Stotts needed to go. We should've just replaced him with Ime Udoka.

 

Worked out well for him in Boston

 

Stotts got to the WCF. That is worth something and I appreciate him more now for that.

 

I thought Terry did very well with what was given to him. The roster was never great and he achieved more with it than expected. It is not that he did not have his faults, but when the solution to the obvious problem is replacing him instead of solving the real problem - it was clear to me that something is rotten in the kingdom of Denmark.

Personally, I like the analytic approach and if possible, like to minimize the number of variables changed to properly identify cause and effect. I understand that sometimes you have to go through multiple variable changes because of the complexity of life, but when you go out of your way to change a variable that clearly is not the biggest problem, that's when it shows you lost your way.

NeO and his approach was the issue, and management took the easy way out of believing in his bullshit. That's a shame, because it set this team backward for a while.

 

I don't think Stotts is a championship coach. That was my problem with him. He was usually exposed at the higher levels as not a great tactician. With that said, the fault is clearly with management and ownership right now.

 

Maybe. He certainly was a championship assistant coach. I don't think there was any NBA championship team in the recent 20-30 years that did not have a championship roster, so, as long as the coach maximizes the roster that he got, there is a chance he could be a championship coach. You just never know unless it is clear that he is not. To me at least, it was not clear that Terry was always the problem. When the Blazers were roasted against NOP in the playoffs, some of it was clearly on him, but realistically, roster wise, that team should have won 1 or 2 games, not won against that NOP team with health. But the fact that Dame expanded his range to overcome this the next year and the fact that Terry supported it - shows that he could learn from mistakes.

If we remember, after Nurk was traded we had Nurk fever, next year, the team tried to force feed Nurk in the post and within 20 games, when Terry recognized it does not work, he switched again, learning from mistakes. Frankly, that's what you want from a coach.

So, again, my analysis is that while not perfect, he was not the reason the team did not go as far as it went. Is it possible that he is not a championship coach? Of course. It is possible that he could learn from mistakes and become one - the way he fixed some things when he can leads me to believe that there is a chance he could have. But, the reason the Blazers did not go further than the WCF with him is not on him. Frankly, the fact they got that far with that roster is a testament to his capabilities, imho.

 

there should not be a single option in the poll that includes Olshey looking better or the same. The only options should be 'Olshey looks worse' or 'Olshey looks worse than worse' or 'Olshey sucks, then, now, and forever'. Other than Greg Oden's knees Olshey was the worst thing that happened to the Blazers since Adelman was fired

I haven't changed my perspective on Stotts any. He was a decent coach who developed schemes on both ends of the floor that generally fit his roster. But he was a decent coach with some big flaws. His tenure in Portland should have ended at 6 seasons instead of 9

 

Um, have you checked why Ime is currently very available again?

And didn't Stotts "need to go" because he was getting better results with a worse roster than Chauncey has? Maybe it would've been fun to see what he could do with forwards who were a bit better than Harkless, Aminu and Kanter (currently all unemployed).

 

I don't see how that's true. Look at the roster that Stotts had in his last year. On paper it should have been better.

 

2020-2021
Dame
CJ
Covington
Norm/Trent
Melo
Enes Kanter
Nurk
Little (48 games)
Simons
DJJ

2022-2023
Dame
Simons
Grant
Nurk
Hart
Sharpe
Eubanks
Winslow (29 games)
Watford
Payton (15 games)

Which team wins that matchup just based on talent alone?

 

How?

That team won at a 58% clip, that's a 48 wins on a full season, they won 2 games against Denver, with the reigning MVP in the playoffs with Dame apparently playing wounded (remember that he went to the Olympics after that and was a non-factor) and CJ disappearing.

You really think that team had more in them than a 48 wins season?

 

And you don't think that's better than this current team???

 

Maybe I misread what you wanted to say. If you are saying it is a better roster than this year, maybe. I assumed you said that Terry should have done more than what he did with that roster, which is what I objected to.


If the question was this year vs 2020-2021 -
I think this year's roster is probably on the same level as that roster, maybe a little better starting line, lesser bench.

Starters:
Healthy Dame > semi-injured Dame
Ant < CJ
Hart = Norm
Grant > DJJ / Roco (or whoever was playing PF that year, I can't remember)
Nurk = Nurk

Bench:
Keon < Ant
Sharp = GT3
Justise/Little <= Melo/Little
Watford <= Melo
Eubanks = Kanter?

 

Rasta said that Stotts was getting better results with a worse roster than what Chauncey has.

I disagree. I think that 2020-2021 roster was better.

 

I think they are about the same, and I mentioned why. I would argue that Terry got better results with about the same roster, but this is easily fixable if Chauncy starts playing to the roster instead of the system.

Now, if we look at a year before that (2019-2020), where the Blazers somehow made it into the play-in and the playoffs, and this team does not make it, it would be true that Terry took a worse roster further than Chauncy with this year's team.

 

that could be an artifact of that weird season...covid/bubble. That team finished the season 4 games under .500. But they entered the bubble 8 games under .500; Dame went ballistic and carried them into the playoffs (and Trent had his best stretch of games as a Blazer)

The current team is 1 game under .500