Minnesota Sports Forum

Sam Mitchell is an average assistant coach. I shuddered the day Flip brought him in here, and my worst fears were confirmed when he eventually got the head gig by circumstance. As a Wolves fan I should have expected it, but it still sucked that it worked out that way. He is the worst thing that could have happened to our young players, who are not developing as they should. I just hope the damage isn't so great that we can't recover for the long term. There are so many bright basketball minds out there, it's just embarrassing that Sam is running our NBA franchise. If you can't see that we are outcoached on a nightly basis, you can't be paying attention.

Just an uninspired effort. I gotta wonder if the players realize yet that they are battling uphill nightly from a coaching aspect.

To Sam's credit, he has emphasized defense which I like. I know we are not there, but its good that players know they are accountable on both ends if they want more minutes. Sam's like the drill sergeant (which I think the team needed to grow up) and I suspect we'll find a good field marshall soon to lead the team to its potential.

TeamRicky wrote:To Sam's credit, he has emphasized defense which I like. I know we are not there, but its good that players know they are accountable on both ends if they want more minutes. Sam's like the drill sergeant (which I think the team needed to grow up) and I suspect we'll find a good field marshall soon to lead the team to its potential.

Yup, that's where I'm sort of torn on Sam. I actually think his general approach is the right one for this squad. I've also always liked his "defensive tone" starting lineup, which not only plays good defense, but also gives Wiggins and Towns a bunch of touches because they are the two main scoring threats.

He's also gradually done a lot of the things many folks here have wanted: Martin is nearly out of the picture, Zach is playing more SG, Tyus is backing up Rubio. These are thing we wanted, right? Sam ultimately made these decisions, right?

Still....If the team isn't improving and has actually regressed since the beginning of the year - despite being very healthy - than ultimately the buck stops with Sam. It's the reality of being a head coach.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Sam Mitchell is an average assistant coach. I shuddered the day Flip brought him in here, and my worst fears were confirmed when he eventually got the head gig by circumstance. As a Wolves fan I should have expected it, but it still sucked that it worked out that way. He is the worst thing that could have happened to our young players, who are not developing as they should. I just hope the damage isn't so great that we can't recover for the long term. There are so many bright basketball minds out there, it's just embarrassing that Sam is running our NBA franchise. If you can't see that we are outcoached on a nightly basis, you can't be paying attention.

Cool, who would you like us to go after in the offseason? I'm a JVG fan myself, but the Lakers job is more attractive to him as I'm sure it will be open next year.

BizarroJerry wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Sam Mitchell is an average assistant coach. I shuddered the day Flip brought him in here, and my worst fears were confirmed when he eventually got the head gig by circumstance. As a Wolves fan I should have expected it, but it still sucked that it worked out that way. He is the worst thing that could have happened to our young players, who are not developing as they should. I just hope the damage isn't so great that we can't recover for the long term. There are so many bright basketball minds out there, it's just embarrassing that Sam is running our NBA franchise. If you can't see that we are outcoached on a nightly basis, you can't be paying attention.

Cool, who would you like us to go after in the offseason? I'm a JVG fan myself, but the Lakers job is more attractive to him as I'm sure it will be open next year.

I'll float a few names for you: Sam Cassell, Shaka Smart, Tyronn Lue, Alex Jensen, Jim Boylen, Bill Self, Kevin Ollie.

Yeah Sam actually strikes me as a guy who might make an excellent college coach: gets in guys faces, preaches the basics, rah rah, high energy, etc. But at this level he's simply playing checkers while his opposing coaches are playing chess.

It's not on him, however, he was forced to take over a bad situation and is trying to make the best of it.

I think it comes down to this though: if the right coach is out there now, would Taylor have the sack to make a change mid-season? I'm guessing no, which at the end of the day is probably ok. Then it's just back to the lottery one more time, and maybe even another high pick...sigh.

Mstermisty wrote:Yeah Sam actually strikes me as a guy who might make an excellent college coach: gets in guys faces, preaches the basics, rah rah, high energy, etc. But at this level he's simply playing checkers while his opposing coaches are playing chess.

It's not on him, however, he was forced to take over a bad situation and is trying to make the best of it.

I think it comes down to this though: if the right coach is out there now, would Taylor have the sack to make a change mid-season? I'm guessing no, which at the end of the day is probably ok. Then it's just back to the lottery one more time, and maybe even another high pick...sigh.

I read this a lot, both here and over at rubechat...and it strikes me as "conventional wisdom" that has become fact without really anything supporting it. I recognize it's only an opinion, but I'm curious as to how you have arrived at it. One if the specific criticisms I have heard about Sam is that he changes his mind about Zach's position, about rotations, etc. I would argue that he has a much more difficult coaching job than teams with established veterans at every position...it's pretty easy to coach like Pop when you can just put Duncan, LMA, Leonard, Green and Parker out there every night, and bring Manu, Diaw, Mills and West off the bench. I could coach that roster! Sam, on the other hand, has had to experiment with a bunch of guys not yet old enough to vote in an effort to try combinations that work. And Kevin Martin's ineptitude hasn't made it any easier on him...he wanted to count on him as his only reliable 3-point option which necessitated playing Zach at PG, but Martin wasn't up to the task, forcing Sam to adjust his rotations.

Objective data to evaluate a coach's performance isn't readily available, but there are a couple areas we can turn to:

1) Success out of time outs: One of the times a team (and especially a young, inexperienced team) is doing exactly what a coach tells them to do is when they execute a designed play out of a time out, so success after timeouts seems to be a valuable piece of data to rate a coach. And as someone posted here a couple weeks ago, the Wolves ranks in the top five (along with the Warriors and the Spurs) in scoring out of a timeout. At least coming out of timeouts, Sam is playing chess and the other coaches are playing checkers.

2) Wins and losses: This is a muddier stat, but as I said before, it's difficult to find data to rate coaches. Sam has coached this year's team to 12 wins in their first 33 games, a huge improvement over last year's 5 wins in the first 33 games. Yes, there are several factors here, but Sam's emphasis on defense is one of the factors in the improvement.

Help me out here...what is the source of all the criticism of Sam's coaching. Is there anything objective here, or is it just the "vibe of the thing"?

LST, While I'm not one of Sam's biggest critics, clearly you can find some flaws in his offensive sets he runs.

He might be one of the only coaches left in the NBA that runs pin-down screens in order to free up guys for long 2's. Seriously, he has designed plays to free up guys for the most inefficient shot in basketball. This has Flip's fingerprints all over it, but the fact that Mitchell retained that play in his playbook shows a total lack of understanding in what makes for an efficient shot.

The other play is the pick and drift 20-footer that Rubio runs all the time with KAT. Once again, it's a play specifically designed to give a player the most inefficient shot in basketball. Obviously KAT has been making a bunch of these, but if you are willing to allow him to take that shot, why not back it up by 3 feet and get 50% more points out of the deal?

Those two plays aren't even checkers - it's more like rock, paper, scissors.

Interesting list cool. I like shaka too but I don't think he's ready yet, and he just took the Texas job.