CoolBreeze44 wrote:I just can't bring myself to complain about Thibs. What's going to come from it? He is going to be the coach for a long time. All I can personally do is hope he fixes what is going on.
I agree with your last two sentences, cool. Thibs is going to be around for a long time (barring a coronary :(), and I hope he is flexible enough to change his coaching style in order to fix what is going on.
longstrangetrip wrote:My opinion about the beginning of the Thibs' era is clear, but I'm still confused about the reasons many of you find him relatively blameless. I think we all would agree that the addition of Thibs and staff is far and away the biggest change from the situation last year when most of us thought this team was playing pretty good basketball. And I have demonstrated in a post above how much worse the first 14 games this year has been compared to last year...we have already blown more 10+ point leads this season than we did all of last season, and our only "good win" this year is the victory over Orlando (if you can even call a win over a non-playoff East team a "good win" ).
So, if it's not Thibs, what is it? The most frequent reason for our poor play that I have read here is that the players aren't working hard or are complacent after the good offseason press, but that doesn't jive with what I am seeing and really seems to be a stretch to me. Why don't we see this phenomenon in other young stars, like Anthony Davis...did Flip just happen to draft (or acquire) a unique group of prima donnas more subject to reading thier press clippings than others? And why didn't the same players collapse the last half of last season after all the accolades they got at the all star game...good lord, almost all the talk that weekend was about the promising young core here. And why do our complacent players regularly come out so strong in first halves...do they only remember all the press they are getting after half time?
Just doesn't make sense to me, guys. There has to be another reason that we are blowing big leads in the second half at a historic rate. Some of us have pinned the blame on a coach with a reputation for working his players way too hard on off days, and that seems to be a much more logical reason for their woeful second halves. Or we point to the difference in how the coach directs Wiggins and Rubio in the second half...using Ricky at the point less frequently after halftime leading to a much poorer offense.
Try one more time to explain the disgraceful second half collapses this season without implicating the new coaching staff.
Simple:
I just think that a doughy 55 year old guy on the sidelines has a lot less to do with what's happening on the court than the 21 and 22 year old guys on the court actually playing.
Every coach that comes through town gets ripped. And the players get absolved. Even though those coaches may have had much better success elsewhere. Are they forgetting how to coach when they get here? Or are they simply less important than we think they are?
Hmm...still not getting my answer, Abe. I get that you think it's not the coach, but I'm still not hearing any logical reasons why essentially the same players as last year are performing so much worse. Typically, NBA players take a big step forward in their 2nd-5th years, but our team instead has bucked that long-standing pattern and taken its game in a negative direction. So I ask again, what's different...if not the coaching, then what?
To offer an answer to your question about what happens to coaches when they get here, I'm not sure I can think of any that have underachieved to the degree Thibs is. I was frustrated with Rick Adelman's reluctance to play Rubio down the stretch and his reluctance to play Shabazz and Gorgui, but personally I had very little negative to say about Saunders and Mitchell...I thought they got about what I would expect from their rosters. But Thibs has really frustrated me. I think good coaches know that they need to adapt their coaching style to their rosters...they know that one size does not fit all. Thibs had great success in Chicago...well, at least regular season success...but he doesn't seem to recognize that his roster here is substantially different than what he had in Chicago. While his post-season press conferences after yet another stunning loss are more measured and less ebonic than Sam Mitchell's were, I never hear him take any responsibility for the horrible second half collapses...it's the players that aren't doing what they are supposed to do. It's offensive to me to not hear him say at least once "Maybe I have to do something different". But if the majority opinion on this board is that of the average fan, why would he take any responsibility? The public is telling him that his coaching is fine, and it's just the players that aren't performing. Keep doing what you're doing, thibs, and they'll come around! I think that's bullshit...Thibs needs to change his approach, or we are looking at another last season...and this one will hurt more than all the others because the conventional wisdom out there is that we have a roster poised for success.
]For all we know, Thibs is an ogre. Or, the players are entitled and coddled and lazy. Or it's simply an anomaly in a small sample size.
I dunno. Do you?
Call my answer lazy or a simpleton... but I won't apologize for thinking NBA players have more to do with wins and losses than coaches do. After all, I'd think the sport was pretty boring if the most important person was a 55 year old fat guy waddling around the sidelines. I'm not absolving Thibodeau of blame... I'm just unwilling to pin all of it on him.
No, I definitely do not know. But based on my observation and Thibs' previous reputation, this is what I think. I've watched our young core closely last season and this, and other than occasional walkabouts by Wiggins, I don't see any evidence of entitlement or laziness. I see a group of guys with unusually high character compared to the typical NBA player who are enormously talented and driven to win. We often hear that our young guys are gym rats, and spend countless hours in the gym working on their games. What do I know about thibs? That he has been very successful in his 5 years as a head coach in Chicago, but that there was some grumbling about the duration and intensity of his in-season practices. We all noted that although there were rumors of Thibs wanting some of his veterans here, Noah, Deng and Gasol all went elsewhere. I see his manic sideline demeanor, and also note that KAT seems to be looking over his shoulder at Thibs a lot more than he did with Sam last year. And finally I see a Wolves team that looks much more tired in the second half then their opponents...something I never noted with the same group of guys last year...resulting in poorer shooting and matador defense. I put those observations together, and arrive at a logical conclusion that Thibs' in-game and off-day coaching style is not working with this roster. All conjecture, I know...but more well thought-out, I think than merely typing "Thibs is not the problem" 8 times ;) .
I get your point that this is a players' league, Abe. But I think you only have to look at a coach like Pop to see the positve impact a coach can have. Pop realized that a team built around Tim Duncan needs a different approach than a team built around Kawhi Leonard, and rather than trying to pound a square peg into a round hole, he adapted his coaching style to fit a different roster. Every year we marvel at second round picks that perform much better for the Spurs than they did in college...that's the impact of good coaching.
I've already stated why I'm not blaming the poor start on Thibs. LST, you're more than welcome to read it again. I'll post the link at the bottom. Let me know if it was thought-out enough for you.
sjm34 wrote:Clearly there is enough blame to go around on this horrific start to the season. My take is very simple, and it starts with the players and ends with the coach. If you don't want to throw away the third quarter, STOP taking 20+ foot jump shots. They are shooting themselves out of these games, and apparently many including Thibs can't seem to see this.
Maybe they are need to warm up more coming out of the intermission, or maybe they are already exhausted and don't have there legs. Either way, someone has to tell them to stop taking these long shots that they can't seem to make. That someone is Thibs, and if they don't listen they need to be benched.
As likeable, and hardworking as Gorgi is, he is a horrible fit in the starting lineup, and will never be worth the contract they gave him. Having Gorgi and KAT both playing 20 feet from the hoop is not helping the driving lanes for Wig, or Lavine, and the result is more 20 foot jumpers. One of them has to be down in the paint at all times.
Sorry to quibble... but isn't the point of having the big guys away from the hoop is to open up spacing for more drives and stuff?
No, its not. Most think that way, but the truth is when they can't hit from outside, the defender is left to double team the wing. If KAT is down low, his defender has to stay glued to him.
Thanks for the link in the preceding post, Cam...I just read it. I've also been happy with the way the Wolves have started games, but I'm not ready to attribute it to Thibs because I'm not convinced it's a big improvement over last year...remember, the Wolves had the 7th most efficient offense in the NBA after February 1 last year. Just like I attributed that to the natural maturation of some very talented high draft choices rather than attributing it to Sam Mitchell, I'm doing the same this year...this is a very offensively talented roster.
But what I don't see in your linked post is a logical explanation for the historic second half collapses the Wolves are consistently giving us this year. You and others attribute it to being a young team that just hasn't learned to win. I think that is a good explanation for why we shouldn't expect them to be a contender yet, but it doesn't explain why their second halves are so abysmal compared to last year. If anything, they should be better at holding leads this year because they are a year more experienced, but instead they have regressed horribly. Tired legs lead to poor shooting and lazy defense, and that is what we have seen in about half the games this year. And a young team like ours should not be looking more tired than their opponent at the end of every game. We'd be in complete denial to not question whether the intensity of the practices the day before might be impacting our play during games.
While I have concerns about Thibs as a coach right now, I think I have a more positive view of him as GM than you do so far. I know that you were unhappy with his selection of Kris Dunn, and while I might have preferred trading down, I saw Dunn as equal to 4 or 5 other possible picks at 3. In your linked post you are also critical of him not bringing in a more high-priced vet like an Al Horford. I agree that we would be a better team this year if Horford were in the starting lineup rather than Gorgui, but I like that Thibs took a longer view. He clearly saw that signing a max or near max player last summer would mean that at least one of his young Big Three would be "Hardened", and he preferred to keep his powder dry to be able to sign his studs down the road. So, so far I'm giving him a B as a PBO, and an incomplete as a coach (although if forced to give him a grade, the 4-10 start would force me to give him a D-).
It's year 1 under a new coach for the 4th straight year for this team/organization. I just don't understand why that fact is being glossed over and people think talent alone wins in this league. It took years of continuity for teams like SA, LAC and GS to hit their peaks. We have zero continuity because we've had a new coach for four straight years. You're (plural sense) expectations were just too high right out of the gate. If we're this bad the second half of the year then it makes sense to go after Thibs, but right now it's just not the time. Everyone was the same way with Sam last year and now we have people defending how this team played the second half of the season. Give Thibs that chance.
