lipoli390 wrote:longstrangetrip wrote:BizarroJerry wrote:60WinTim wrote:Going back to Sam and his coaching staff. I am sure they are good at certain aspects of coaching and teaching. But they are simply out of their league up at the NBA level. Here is one example that bugged me at the end of the Clipper game. Up by 3, Doc chose to intentionally foul us to prevent a 3-pointer. But we could have turned the tables by having someone foul Deandre Jordan on the rebound attempt of the 2nd free throw (even though we made it). This would have given us the 2 points and put Jordan at the FT line which is way better than fouling whoever received the ball on the inbound attempt.
I think I saw Miami do it early this year, and Doc used it to beat Detroit in OT last week. But this tactic completely escaped Mitchell and his staff. They are out of their league.
Yep, and for LST and others who point to him winning coach of the year 10 years ago, so what? I was a lot better at many things 10 years ago too. He's gotta go after this year.
I would argue that coaching a basketball team is different than sexual performance (that is what you were referring to, right :) )...coaching skills shouldn't fall off a cliff between 42 and 52 like other things might. Sam's style of coaching is all about hard work and defense, and those things are relevant in any era... and he managed to overachieve with a horrible roster in Toronto applying those principles. Unless he has suffered a stroke in the past decade that hasn't been disclosed, he's the same coach at 52 that he was at 42...and that coach was considered the best coach in basketball that year.
Sam was fired the year after winning coach of the year. There are things called flukes. That's how I see his one good season with the Raptors.
Flip had a track record of multiple seasons overachieving and getting plus 50-win seasons, yet last year many questioned his ability to coach in today's NBA. Sam had one 48-win season 20 years ago and was fired the next season. That's a pretty week case for Sam. I think getting canned the season after his good (not great) season is telling.
Sam's so-called strength - defense - doesn't hold up as a credible defense given this team's epically poor defense over the last 2+ weeks.
I get the concept of a fluke, but I find it a stretch to label an entire season a fluke! Just nine years ago, Sam won 47 games and COY honors with these five guys playing the most minutes:
22-year-old Chris Bosh
Anthony Parker
TJ Ford
Jorge Garbajosa
Rasho Nesterovic
It's difficult for me to imagine that lineup winning 15 games, much less 47. I think it does Mitchell a huge disservice to label that performance a "fluke"... "extraordinary overachieving" would be a much fairer and accurate description. And just to get an idea about his competition that year, let's look at the team that Pat Riley won 44 games with:
Dwyane Wade
Udonis Haslem
Jason Wiliams
Eddie Jones
Shaquille O'Neal
(and Gary Peyton and Alonzo Mourning on the bench!)
Now honestly, which of those squads do you think had more talent? And yet Sam won 3 more games.
Yes, Sam got fired two years later, but we all know that story...it had little to do with winning, and more to do with the knuckleheads on that roster that didn't like Sam questioning their toughness. And how did firing Sam work out for the Raptors? Well, they were 8-9 at the time of Sam's firing, and went 25-40 the rest of the way...more evidence that Sam gets his players to overachieve. I suspect the same thing will happen here if Glen listens to the anti-Sam crowd and hires his fourth head coach in 4 years...that's not how to create a stable environment for our young studs.
Now, I'm hearing support for firing Sam and hiring a guy who is about to be fired for underachieving with the Memphis Grizzlies. Mitchell has made this unbalanced roster of 20 and 40 year olds competitive in every game this year except last night's Denver game (we even got within 5 of Golden State late in the game). In contrast, Joerger's team has been blown out by double digits 11 times this year (no wonder he's about to be fired!). You win with players in the NBA, and while the Wolves roster has as much long-term potential as any in the league, there's a reason Vegas pegged them for 26 wins this year...they're clearly not ready yet. The hatred and irrational criticism of almost every move Sam makes is a phenomenon that I really struggle to understand. Maybe if we had 11 double digit losses like Memphis does I could understand it, but we have 4! I honestly don't get it.