sjm34 wrote:Hollins took a 20 something win team and won 40 games in his first full season, then got them into the PO's for the next three seasons including a trip to the conference finals last year. If Joerger was the difference, why is Memphis sucking wind this season?
Hollins is gone because he had a run in with Hollinger last season, and expressed his displeasure with some of the moves the front office made.
Is ESPN ever going to run a story about how horrible Hollinger is and prove his system useless?
A couple of things:
1. The "dispute" they had was over Hetero. Hollins was in love with Hetero, Hollinger not so much. How many more times does he need to be dumped before maybe you admit Hollinger got that one? I can't wait to see what SAC gives PHX, CLE, PHI, ORL or UTA to take him so they can afford to resign Isiah Thomas.
2. MEM is in the spot they're in because Gasol has been out and they play in a BRUTAL division (SAS and HOU, not to mention DAL). Now think about MIN without Love, or trying to win the Northwest Division in the late 90's/early aughts against SEA, POR and UTA without Garnett. Not pretty.
sjm34 wrote:Hollins took a 20 something win team and won 40 games in his first full season, then got them into the PO's for the next three seasons including a trip to the conference finals last year. If Joerger was the difference, why is Memphis sucking wind this season?
Hollins is gone because he had a run in with Hollinger last season, and expressed his displeasure with some of the moves the front office made.
Is ESPN ever going to run a story about how horrible Hollinger is and prove his system useless?
Do we need more proof than his power ranking system having the wolves at #6 right now ahead of Portland!
Yeah, no question that Portland is the superior team right now. Hollinger's power rankings basically consist of two elements, I believe: point differential and strength of schedule. The Wolves are only 1.8 points behind Portland in differential after playing a much tougher schedule, hence the ranking. Flawed to say the least, but still favorable when you analyze what the Wolves have done to date with all their road games and BTBs. What Hollinger misses, though, is that the Wolves have won a lot of blowouts but lost all their close games. That gives them a great point differential, but a serious weakness they need to correct.
By any number of measures, the Wolves are a very good team. It's been our inability to win close games, as everyone knows, that has killed us. I think part of that is due to the fact we don't have an elite PG or wing that can handle the ball and score in crunch time; part of it is just poor decisions on our players or coaches part; and part of it is just plain bad luck. I happen to think the last two reasons carry more weight than the "lack of a shot creator" argument. The reason we lost at the Clippers wasn't because we lacked a go-to scorer in crunch time. Kevin Martin just flat out screwed up by not holding onto the ball and forcing them to foul.
Look at the most recent Portland-Miami loss. Here Portland has all their weapons healthy and playing at home. They have won a ton of close games thanks to heroics by Lillard and Aldridge. Miami is without their best player, yet manage to win on a last second shot by Chris Bosh. So even the great Portland Trailblazers lose close ones sometimes!
