What it will take to get Stotts fired?

To be fair, he did think Meyers was a great pick, thinks CJ is a legit Robin to his Batman, and doesn't believe in fast break easy baskets. As much as we may love him as a player and respect his knowledge of the game, it also seems okay to question when perhaps he is too close to something....like his coach.

 

To add to this, Curry didn't want Mark Jackson replaced either.

 

I can appreciate loyalty like Curry with Jackson, or Dame with Stotts. But it's a job, and after so long, you might be too close to the situation to make a rational, intellectual decision versus an emotional one. Dame 'likes his guys' to be sure, but for such an accomplished player (and the fear they run the majority of this squad back again next year), I hope he is put in a position to do more than just get swept in one conferance finals appearance.....before it's too late.

 

Before I read this thread, I thought that everyone grows up and loses the addiction to suckling his mother.

Now I realize that some immature people will find any irrelevant excuse to avoid change in their lives. This also explains why this nation fights self-improvement to the death.

 

Coaching matters...

 

Sources: Chauncey Billups interested in pursuing head-coaching job
https://sports.yahoo.com/sources-ch...d-in-pursuing-headcoaching-job-170343598.html

chris haynes reporting.

i think sam cassell would be my first choice.

 

I hate to say it but I don't think it's Stotts as the head coach that's the problem. I think Neil is the problem. Neil or whoever would replace him needs to trade CJ for pieces that actually fit with Dame and Nurk. Neil or whoever replaces him needs to sit Stotts down and figure out what Stotts is going to do about the blitzing traps of Dame and the defense. I think Neil or whoever replaces him would find that Stotts could beat those traps if the guy Dame passed out of the traps to 90% of the time wasn't MeJ (maybe it would be a guy that would take the open shot or quickly find the open man). I then think that Neil or whoever replaces him would need to tell Stotts that he is getting him a defensive lead assistant coach with a big salary, just like Stotts was for Carlisle on offense when they won a championship.

Stotts can lead this team to a championship as the head coach, he has a good offensive mind even if its seemed a little limited lately, he has buy in from his players which is huge and he has developed talent well. He needs better players or I should say players that fit better together and he needs a defensive minded guy who is almost his equal and can be the bad cop to Terry's good cop, holding players accountable on defense especially. We can win a championship with this head coach and some of this roster. Dame, Nurk and Gary could be starters under Stotts and win a championsip, with any combination of Zach, Nas, Wenyen and Ariza staying and coming off the bench (obviously we would get rid of Zach, Nas and/or Ariza to make the right trade work but they could be effective off the bench on a contending team) and obviously adding talent from trading guys away and using our MLE.

 

We don't play defense. We play hero ball. That's the coach.

 

why can't I have both? Olshey and Stotts both unemployed

7 years of Portland being a pretender and getting their asses kicked by contenders...and the Pels

even OLive has noticed the 4-28 record Portland has posted in bowing out of the playoffs the last 7 years:

* "The bottom line is that Portland needs a second All-Star or it will continue to get bumped from the playoffs in similar fashion when it runs up against true title contenders."

https://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/...n-stop-getting-obliterated-by-contenders.html

I'd expand on that and say that all-star has to be an outside-in player, a talented 2-way perimeter player who complements Dame instead of having the poor-defense, redundant, poor man's mimic of Dame they have now and are paying 32M a year for

 

If the biggest case for retaining Stotts is because he was a successful assistant almost a decade ago.

How could Stotts "beat the trap" with better personnel when he sets up the floor for Dame to get trapped in the halfcourt corner, the outlets to be the C catching the ball in the middle of the court 30ft away from the rim, or CJ catching a crosscourt pass at halfcourt? Someone you're blaming CJ for not making the right play to beat the trap when the balls in the air for 2 seconds before he catches it at halfcourt... The issue there is the floor balance, not personnel.

How does a coach who has some of the worst ball and player movement in the league a good offensive mind? I dont think running a lot of isolation and basic pick n roll makes someone a good offensive mind.

 

Yeah, I don't understand how he has so much trouble. We had CJ, Melo, and Trent out there to space the floor. It's scheme. Not personnel.

 

I agree that there are more creative ways that Stotts could address the trap but there are a lot of times that CJ gets the ball, actually it's more than 1/3 of the time that he gets it on the wing, not at half court, with either wide open teammates he could get the ball to or him being wide open himself and CJ chooses to dribble the ball instead of taking the 4 on 3 advantage. I also think if Nurk made faster decisions and sometimes he does, getting him the ball up top (even 30 feet out) should result in easy baskets too; either him driving down the open lane and scoring at the hoop or if he has a guy on him finding the open teammate. We see CJ do the right thing every once in a while so we know it could happen but he turns down a lot of opportunities in which Dame has gotten him the ball in an advantageous situation off of the trap.

You are right that when we do beat the trap or don't get trapped our half court offense is simple and stagnant but when we get into our half court set we are actually a very effective and efficient team. I know you like the x's and o's but besides solving the trap when it comes really early, we don't have other problems offensively. Our simplistic offense of pick and roll and a lot of iso ball works.

 

Stotts always gets credit for offensive X's and O's because the Blazers always have highly ranked offensive numbers in the regular season

but the true test of an offense isn't running thru unprepared and unfocused defenses in the regular season. The true test is succeeding against strong focused defenses in the playoffs; adjusting to what those defenses are doing. And for the most part, those Stotts offenses have failed, and failed miserably against true contenders

I'll give Stotts a pass for his 1-4 record in the playoffs when he was the Bucks head coach. But he only has a .357 playoff record as the Blazer HC. That translates to a 29-53 record for an 82 game season. That's not good at all. And the way his teams have bowed out of the playoffs.....yeeeeesh. A 4-28 record against good teams with good defenses. And if you add his Milwaukee record, that's a 5-32 record in the 'close-out series. That would be an 11 win regular season

it's not all on Stotts though; Olshey has dealt Stotts some shitty cards

 

Paul Allen wanted to fire Stotts, but Olshey and Stotts argued and got 1 more year to improve, then Allen died months later.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25321406/zach-lowe-damian-lillard-portland-trail-blazers-nba

 

The people in this article try to explain why Budenholzer and other coaches (Stotts) are reluctant to make adjustments: “Stay true to who you are,” is a common refrain. One exec described it as going beyond tactics and almost into a coaching morality based on approach: “My guess is they need to adhere to a principle because that’s how coaches are. Principles are everything and they would rather lose than abandon their beliefs. What some consider adaptable and flexible, others consider flaky and inconsistent. It’s almost a badge of honor to have a principle and see it through.”

“The main hesitancy for coaches is, in essence, it goes against what they’ve done all year long,” Jones says. “These are things you’ve done for an entire season. You’ve worked to perfect it. You don’t want to disrupt who you are, what you’ve been, what you do just to attack, or react to a specific team. Because ultimately the playoffs are about matchups, what doesn’t work vs. one team may look great against the next. The best adjustments in the playoffs are the subtle ones where you tweak what you do to fit a certain team. “Coaches go over more scenarios than most can imagine and have to battle a gut feeling vs. their brain all the time,” Jones continued. “The thing that gets lost sometimes is how much you can affect your team with certain adjustments. You can affect the confidence in a big way because if you take something you’ve worked to get people to believe in, say essentially it’s not good enough and then fail again, what do you have left? That’s a quick way to lose a team. It’s also easy to forget the other team knows this as well and they can smell blood in the water. You’re ringing an alarm.”

However, this guy is basically saying that if a coach adjusts during the season, it will be less disruptive when he adjusts in playoffs:
“I think a lot of it is wanting to trust what got you there in the regular season,” the scout said. “Like, to me, it’s no coincidence that the guy who is willing to make changes in the playoffs (Nurse) is the same guy who makes changes all throughout the regular season.”

https://www.actionnetwork.com/nba/n...tter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mattmoore

 

Great take on the issue. Coaches put CYA ahead of winning. I can see why a coach on thin ice is reluctant to admit mistakes, but what excuse does Stotts have? He has a lifetime (of Dame) appointment!

 

This is something, that is difficult to understand. Adjustments affect team? It's almost like you have to play with kids and honor their ego over winning. If it's better for team to bench someone and play a role player you just say: "now we have to do this and this". Instead you got hurt feelings of wannabe star players. This I something I don't understand with CJ. He seems to be such an intelligent guy, yet he prefer to be a hero and hurt the team sometimes. And Stotts let them do whatever they want. I still see Lillard shot over PG and Stotts shaking his head in disbelief. Imagin Pop's reaction for that.

So players often don't see basketball as their work. If they would, they would just listen what to do to improve team results. They prefer to shine than to win (unless you in Spurs or Heat and you're under Pop or Pat).
Funny thing, when it's about contracts, they do find game of basketball as their job. There are not many players that would take cut in wages so team can add better free agent.
Stotts is team friendly, Blazers is nice and friendly team. Being friendly not gonna take you far in sports. It can carry you in regular season, but will fail you bad in important dog fight. Imagine Mike Tyson being friendly.

 

Even okc is solving their coaching Problem, except us of course, the Blazers, the most boring franchise in the league

 

There is no diplomatic way to put this. Olshey worked for Donald Sterling, the NBA owner who cared the least about winning. When the Blazers hired Olshey, what did they expect?

 

I don't love Stotts, he could do a lot of things better but this is just bullshit if you ask me. Comparing the playoffs to the regular season is pure craziness. Look at what "good coaches" records are in the playoffs. There are very few with a record over .500. Winning a third of your games in the playoffs isn't bad. It's not the regular season. I also think Stotts needs to adjust better in the playoffs and there have been one or maybe two playoff series where I was really pissed at him, definitely the NOLA sweep but other than that his teams got beat by the better teams. That run last season was a good run, I don't really care how it ended, just that it ended at the conference finals (I do wish it ended with a championship but that team didn't have a chance). I also think pointing out what a coaches record is in series that he lost is pointless. The way you are quantifying this it's like you better either miss the playoffs, sweep opponents, lose in 7 games or win championships without going to game sevens otherwise you're fucked. If a coach got to the finals every year for three years going to game seven in every series except getting swept out of the finals all three years and then the next year won the championship going seven games in every series including the finals... that would be a pretty fucking awesome run and that coaches winning percentage in the playoffs would be .505. That translates to a 41-41 record for an 82 game season... pretty underwhelming until you realize that coach just won four straight conference championships and one NBA championship. Another example is a coach that goes to the playoffs seven straight seasons but loses in the first round in seven games all seven post-seasons. Was that coach more successful than Stotts who has also gone to the playoffs for seven straight seasons and has won 4 series, making it to the conference finals once? The answer is obviously no that other coach wasn't more successful than Stotts but that coach has a win percentage in the playoffs of .429 compared to Stotts' playoff win percentage of .357 in the same time span. Do you see how your statistics are kind of shitty? Don't get me wrong, I would have fired Olshey and Stotts a while ago but that doesn't mean that the numbers you are using paint an accurate picture.