What it will take to get Stotts fired?

Discussion in 'Portland Trail Blazers' started by Bruno_Sabino, Aug 22, 2020.

  1. PCmor7

    PCmor7 Generational Poster

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    Do you think the Raptors knew Nick Nurse was an exceptional coach when they hired him? Or Mike Budenholzer with the Hawks? Or Brad Stevens with the Celtics, considering the track record of college guys making the leap? Or Kerr? Or Pop?

    I mean, I just don't know if I can accept the idea of keeping Stotts just because we MIGHT hire someone the same quality. He seems to have been exposed for having some very exploitable problems and he hasn't seemed to do anything to overcome them and he's had an awful lot of time to do that.

    I'm like you. I don't think he's a horrible coach. I think he's an average coach. The odds are if you replace him, you are going to replace him with another average coach. So what, then? Are we that afraid to make big moves that are going to take us out of the championship picture? We're not in the championship picture. We're falling out of the playoff picture. And we have one of the 10 best players in the NBA.
     
  2. Tince

    Tince Well-Known Member

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    How many below average coaches in the league have a 7 year playoff streak under their belt? If coaching was the end-all, be-all, wouldn't an average coach make the playoffs half the time?
     
  3. brooklynballer

    brooklynballer Well-Known Member

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    HE HAS A HOF PLAYER ON THE ROSTER FOR PETE’S SAKE. Take Dame off this team and I’m not sure Stotts has even a single playoff appearance.
     
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  4. TBpup

    TBpup Writing Team

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    Would be interesting to see how many coaches have had a player of Dame's caliber for that long....and then compared Playoff success.
     
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  5. PCmor7

    PCmor7 Generational Poster

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    I just keep seeing a lot of the same things. First, it was that we couldn't sign decent free agents. Except there are examples of other less-visible markets finding ways to do that without overpaying.

    But, OK, let's say that signing a free agent who moves the needle for the Blazers is a pipe dream. So how do you move the needle then? You either have to have a GM who is exceptionally shrewd in trades or drafting (or both) or you need a coach that finds ways to make role players move the needle, either via scheme or via motivational skill or both.

    Yes, maybe that's an exceptional coach. But if I keep hearing all these reasons why the Blazers can't compete I'm starting to wonder why we're even in the NBA. Doesn't seem like some of our fans think there is any chance to be competitive. If I'm the owner reading this I'm wondering why I shouldn't just pay the absolute minimum to put a team with a slight pulse on the court in Portland because there aren't any expectations to actually do anything. And we're so petrified of taking a chance on being great that we've become overly comfortable being slightly above average every year and treading water.
     
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  6. Tince

    Tince Well-Known Member

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    Talented players are far more important to team success than the coach. We can agree on that, right?
     
  7. Minstrel

    Minstrel Top Of The Pops Global Moderator

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    I don't particularly care if Stotts remains coach or not. I guess like Tince, I've seen that every time the Blazers fall short on talent, people talk about how the coach is substandard. And if I'm being brutally honest, it sounds a lot like sports radio call-ins. I know everyone here fancies themselves a basketball expert, but being a big basketball fan doesn't necessarily make you an expert. Coaches are just the easiest change to make, so that's what fans latch on to. The obvious issue is lack of talent, but you can't just change that with the snap of one's fingers. You can fire the coach just like that.

    As I said, Stotts in no way was holding back the 2014-15 team that had a lot of talent and looked elite before injuries derailed them. And since then, he's had a pretty weak hand to play. I don't think Stotts is clearly a below average coach and I don't honestly think either of you are capable of making such a determination either, at least in a convincing manner.

    I'm not going to mourn if Stotts is fired--and if the Blazers have a conviction about some unproven, intriguing coaching prospect, sure, they should pull the trigger. But for every Phil Jackson or Nick Nurse plucked from relative obscurity, there's a hundred Tim Floyds. I'm against firing Stotts just to "make a change." That's a terrible reason. You fire a coach because you've found someone you believe to be better.
     
  8. Tince

    Tince Well-Known Member

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    How about this. Look at "Similar" players according to basketball reference. How many of these players won a title w/out another all-star as a teammate? How many never even made it to the finals?

    upload_2020-8-24_22-42-23.png

    Looks like a mixed bag to me. Most made it to the conference finals. I'd say half weren't even the best player on their team.
     
  9. brooklynballer

    brooklynballer Well-Known Member

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    Absolutely not. Yes you need talent (which Portland has - three current players in the Top 100) but you also need a good coach who can maximize the attributes and skills of the talent. Stotts doesn’t do that. Players have to fit Stotts’ system not the other way around. If a player is incapable of making a standstill three while his two guards fuck around with the ball, then this team loses, and loses bad. That’s on the coach, not the talent.
     
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  10. TBpup

    TBpup Writing Team

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    @Tince....I agree about Dame not having an all-star running mate. But then why do so many people get so worked up about moving some of our players for the opportunity to upgrade and combine Dame with an all-star?
     
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  11. Minstrel

    Minstrel Top Of The Pops Global Moderator

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    No, but they probably had some kind of conviction about those guys when they made the decision. I doubt their process was "Our coach isn't brilliant, so let's just fire him and then see what happens."

    As I said, I'm perfectly fine with the Blazers firing Stotts and hiring someone else if they find someone they see something special in. Or, as I put it before, have a conviction about. That's great and healthy. I've largely been against the viewpoint I see a lot (not imputing this to you, specifically) of "I'm upset that my team isn't great, let's fire the coach because whatever we're doing now isn't working."
     
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  12. Tince

    Tince Well-Known Member

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    3 in the Top 100? There are 30 teams in the league, so that means more teams than not should have 3, top 100 players. You're basically pointing out there Portland has below average talent, but had made the playoffs 7 years in a row.
     
  13. Tince

    Tince Well-Known Member

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    I think this is a FANTASTIC point! We saw most people did not want to trade CJ for Luka because CJ was a known commodity.
     
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  14. PCmor7

    PCmor7 Generational Poster

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    That almost never happens.

    You fire a coach because you don't like the direction the team is going in. You do a search and find a candidate you think has the chance to do best. Or you fire a coach because your superstar player can't co-exist with the current coach.

    Very rarely is a somewhat successful coach fired because the GM or owner finds an intriguing assistant on a rival and thinks they're the next Red Auerbach.
     
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  15. Tince

    Tince Well-Known Member

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    This is also a great point.

    I do think in the case of Toronto, they probably knew Nurse was something special and didn't want to lose him. The Oregon Ducks kindly asked the most successful football coach in the history of the univeristy to step aside because they thought Chip Kelly was special. If we have some mad genius in our organization that nobody knows about, I would hope we would make the move.
     
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  16. Minstrel

    Minstrel Top Of The Pops Global Moderator

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    I agree that teams rarely think that an assistant they could hire is the next Red Auerbach.
     
  17. PCmor7

    PCmor7 Generational Poster

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    Nurse might be a rarity in that he actually had been a Raptors assistant for five years before he was hired. The vast majority of these coaching changes don't work that way.
     
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  18. Tince

    Tince Well-Known Member

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    It also looks to me that Magic is the only person on this list you would say was the best player on a championship team. But you could easily argue Kareem was their best player and they had another All-Star (Worthy) on the team as well. These "similar" players couldn't do it on their own.
     
  19. Buffalo Custard

    Buffalo Custard Well-Known Member

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    Does that mean you are unimpressed with our GM?

    Why does this have to be an either/or question? If someone wants to make a case against Olshey, surely there are better ways to do it than to over-inflate the value of Stotts?
     
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  20. PCmor7

    PCmor7 Generational Poster

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    Except that's not what I wrote, Minstrel. I was addressing your contention that coaches are being fired because GMs already see someone elsewhere they have in mind to put into place.

    The vast majority of coaching changes are done -- rightly or wrongly -- because the GM or owner or star player aren't happy with that coach.
     
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