Minnesota Sports Forum

thedoper wrote:Anyone listen to Van Gundy on the Lowe post yesterday? I love the way he talked about D. Very much coming from the philosophy that D is effort and not talent based. I think he already said no to us but I would love him. I give Flip a good deal of credit for targeting Joeger. That ilk of tough nose grind it out ball I think fits into the characters on this team and the culture of the twin cities.

Remember both JVG and Flip said that Flip called JVG about the job but he told Flip he thought he was the guy for the job. So for JVG to want the job he would have to want the job and think Flip wasn't the guy to keep doing it right? lol I think people forget Flip has quite the network of coaching peeps around the league. With the NBA you never know who will be available in a few months.

The idea of a defensive mentality is something we can all agree with. I think if the Wolves could bring in a true defensive mind like Malone Flip might be fine as a coach for the near future till the long term guy comes along one way or another. I also think we need to have a coach willing to play with some sort of uptempo pace with the guys we have.

Unfortunately, something Abe frequently mentions: why would Flip give up coaching at this time? The probability of the Wolves having a significant turn around is pretty darn high. Like any coach, Flip has a big ego. Why wouldn't HE want to be the ONE running the show as the team finally heads in the right direction.

For better or worse, Flip will be our head coach next season. The only intriguing aspect on the Wolves coaching front is what happens in the assistant coach ranks...

60WinTim wrote:Unfortunately, something Abe frequently mentions: why would Flip give up coaching at this time? The probability of the Wolves having a significant turn around is pretty darn high. Like any coach, Flip has a big ego. Why wouldn't HE want to be the ONE running the show as the team finally heads in the right direction.

For better or worse, Flip will be our head coach next season. The only intriguing aspect on the Wolves coaching front is what happens in the assistant coach ranks...

I don't have a huge problem with that right now. In the future maybe. But I can't really say that Flip grossly misused anyone last year since the shelf was so bare. Could another coach have taken the same horses and won 22 games? Maybe. I agree that Flip probably doesn't deserve his position as GM/Coach. And there will always be systems based issues that can be concerning with Flip but the bottom line for me for coaching is how many wins is he extracting out of the talent pool he has. Last year he did what any coach would have done with the talent that was available.

thedoper wrote:

60WinTim wrote:Unfortunately, something Abe frequently mentions: why would Flip give up coaching at this time? The probability of the Wolves having a significant turn around is pretty darn high. Like any coach, Flip has a big ego. Why wouldn't HE want to be the ONE running the show as the team finally heads in the right direction.

For better or worse, Flip will be our head coach next season. The only intriguing aspect on the Wolves coaching front is what happens in the assistant coach ranks...

I don't have a huge problem with that right now. In the future maybe. But I can't really say that Flip grossly misused anyone last year since the shelf was so bare. Could another coach have taken the same horses and won 22 games? Maybe. I agree that Flip probably doesn't deserve his position as GM/Coach. And there will always be systems based issues that can be concerning with Flip but the bottom line for me for coaching is how many wins is he extracting out of the talent pool he has. Last year he did what any coach would have done with the talent that was available.

The team was gonna be bad with just about anyone. Worst in the league bad with two "superstars in waiting" playing 35+ minutes? That's debatable. But the Wolves had some serious issues.

The thing is that some of it was Flip the GM's doing. So who is going to hold either Flip accountable? Taylor hasn't really shown capable of being that guy very often. Do we trust him to change now when it needs to be done?

I wasn't a fan of JVG's thoughts on coaches. He deflects blame from coaches who fail doing the same thing over and over without changing. He seems to think coaches should be one of the last ones to get blamed like they have no input on the players that end up on their teams and if any player struggles it is solely on the player and the coach has no part in that struggle. He defended Brooks' playing of Perk just because we don't "know" that the Thunder could have performed better with less Perk because Brooks never tried it like there isn't lineup data available that tells a coach what his best lineups are and who he should play more and who they should play with. Coaches have the most influence in how a team performs because they have input on player acquisition either via the draft or trade/FA and the coach gets to coach the players to play how he wants them to by establishing his system. There are times where coaches lack the talent they need to win, but in year 3, 4, 5 there are no excuses because that is their team by that point. They've OK'd all the players on the roster and established their system they expect the players to carry out. I was disappointed in how he deflected accountability from coaches to other areas of the organization for tenured coaches like Monty and Brooks who were with their teams for at least 5 years.

I'm less concerned with Flip's actual coaching ability and more-so concerned with him doing two jobs. That Payne trade scares the shit outta me moving forward. If he wasn't the coach, I'd like to think he wouldn't make that deal... because it was a really stupid deal.

Abe - nailed it with Flip the GM failures:

#1 - I didn't mind releasing JJ Barea, but not finding a suitable 3rd PG to take his place was poor GMing, especially after Rubio went down.

#2 - Turiaf was hurt early in pre-season. So we started the season with just two centers: Pek and Dieng. And only two undersized power forwards: Young and Bennett (Hummel is a SF who can spot you a few minutes at PF). And he did nothing to shore things up when Pek went down. Again, that is frickin' poor GMing.

Well, poor GMing, or just plain tanking...

Camden wrote:No Hoiberg, no Thibs, no Izzo. I'll take Bickerstaff and be happy.

Jesus Christ

khans2k5 wrote:I wasn't a fan of JVG's thoughts on coaches. He deflects blame from coaches who fail doing the same thing over and over without changing. He seems to think coaches should be one of the last ones to get blamed like they have no input on the players that end up on their teams and if any player struggles it is solely on the player and the coach has no part in that struggle. He defended Brooks' playing of Perk just because we don't "know" that the Thunder could have performed better with less Perk because Brooks never tried it like there isn't lineup data available that tells a coach what his best lineups are and who he should play more and who they should play with. Coaches have the most influence in how a team performs because they have input on player acquisition either via the draft or trade/FA and the coach gets to coach the players to play how he wants them to by establishing his system. There are times where coaches lack the talent they need to win, but in year 3, 4, 5 there are no excuses because that is their team by that point. They've OK'd all the players on the roster and established their system they expect the players to carry out. I was disappointed in how he deflected accountability from coaches to other areas of the organization for tenured coaches like Monty and Brooks who were with their teams for at least 5 years.

Don't know if I agree with his specifics either khans, but think he provides great insight. I loved his line that "no one wants to be next in David Blatt's role as the human pinata." And I think that insight is great, players get the glory in wins, coach generally gets the blame in losses. It made me think of Riley and the patience he showed with Spoelstra and really how unique that has been. I remember when everyone just assumed Riley would push Eric aside when the Heat lost to the Mavs. They didn't and now Spoelstra is well respected for his unique approach he took with lineups with the Heat. Basically I agreed with JVG's simple assessment that not everyone will have the improvement that the Warriors have shown when attempt a similar coaching change.

The coach/GM combo was something that was talked about generally in the JVG podcast. Lowe brought up that this was better job security and may factor into high-profile coaching decisions in the future. Was just curious that since we are one of the teams that is in this unique situation, how much time is appropriate to make a fair judgement on the success of the operation?

Clearly Flip had struggles this year in his coaching record. The GM abilities have been given a mixed bag of evaluations.

Basically do you automatically get 5 years in this role? Because GMs rarely get fired after 1 year. It is tougher to evaluate in my eyes. What is the type of improvement this team needs next year to get a good evaluation?