OT Hockey: Chicago Blackhawks fire Luke Richardson

[CROBulls]

https://www.nhl.com/news/chicago-blackhawks-fire-coach-luke-richardson

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Another Chicago coach got canned. Thank God. If you were thinking that Eberflus was ruining Caleb Williams, you have no idea what Luke was doing to Bedard. Team was heavily underachiving, losing games. Ruining young prospects. Davidson had balls do it in season.

Have no idea about Sorensen but we have another interim for rest of year in Chicago.

[Michael Jackson]

Yeah the fact he is ruining Bedard is a big no no. Needed to shut that down.

[ShadyMoney]

3 coaches (6 if u include the interims) got fired this year for teams

The 2nd longest tenured coach is CC and he was hired 13 months ago

Lol

[CROBulls]

3 coaches (6 if u include the interims) got fired this year for teams

The 2nd longest tenured coach is CC and he was hired 13 months ago

Lol

Both Richardson and Flus deserved to be fired. Richardson if he wasnt fired now he would be fired in offseason. But Davidson was thinking it was detrimental to make change now, specially for future of Blackhawks. You cannot go ruining young talent.

Davidson likely saw Sharks and their youth development, all thriving, playing well modern hockey, while your coach is trying make generational talent into 3rd line grinder. This cannot happen. No coach is gonna survive no matter what he says, how nice he is and regardless how good he would be in certain scenario if you are basically destroying future HoFer and next big thing of hockey sport.

You do change just because that one thing. I want to clear myself here in what I am saying. Players and specifically Bedard didnt fire Luke Richardson. They didnt go out and demand changes. Luke Richardson fired himself. Nobody including Davidson expected Blackhawks to win games. He wasnt fired for that. He was fired for missmanaging talent on roster, which can ultimately lead to young development players not reaching their potential. And that's harmful if you are young rebuilding team.

[jc23]

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[ShouldaPaidBG]

This tournament is incredible

[MissileMike]

This tournament is incredible

The nba should be taking notes- it's a lot more fun than having an allstar game and other festivities.

[Jcool0]

This tournament is incredible

The nba should be taking notes- it's a lot more fun than having an allstar game and other festivities.

I think this sums it up well:

...The league is clearly still in the early stages of addressing these All-Star concerns. Silver hopes to turn the weekend into a "celebration of basketball," and pointed to the shootout between Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu as a possible model for the future. But let's be realistic. The All-Star Game is a major television property. It isn't going to disappear overnight, no matter how poorly the product is received. If the commissioner of the NBA openly says that Team USA vs. Team World is under consideration, the league is probably going to do everything in its power to make such an event viable. Nothing else has worked. It makes plenty of sense to try.

But it's also a logistical nightmare for one simple reason: how would you pick the players? It seems simple on the surface. Build the best-possible 12-man rosters you could among American-born players and internationally-born players. This is a lot simpler on-paper than it is in reality for a variety of reasons.

Roster makeup is the most readily noticeable. The overwhelming majority of All-Stars born outside of the United States are big men. There are 15 active players born outside of the United States that have made an All-Star Game. Here's how they break down:

Two of them, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Kyrie Irving, are traditionally guard-sized. Irving, however, has played for Team USA in the Olympics, so it is not clear which team he'd actually play for in this scenario.
Three of them, Luka Doncic, Andrew Wiggins and Ben Simmons, are high-usage perimeter players.
The remaining 10 are all most easily described as big men: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, Rudy Gobert, Al Horford, Nikola Jokic, Lauri Markkanen, Kristaps Porzingis, Domantas Sabonis, Pascal Siakam and Nikola Vucevic.

Obviously, more great international players are coming. The majority of them, headlined by Victor Wembanyama, tend to be big men. These are not all traditional big men, of course. This group represents some of the most versatile players in basketball, and there would be a fun novelty in seeing how these giant lineups interact. If it goes poorly, though, the event would not be sustainable.

There isn't an easy solution to this problem. The NBA could use a positional quota system similar to the one that currently exists, but with seemingly so few deserving international guards, you'd not only have unworthy players in the game, but you'd be leaving out players who could credibly be considered among the 24 best in the league in that particular season.

This raises yet another concern. In just about every direction, whittling down the field becomes something of a collective bargaining nightmare. While All-Star berths are not tied to super-max eligibility like All-NBA selections are, they carry undeniable weight in contract negotiations.

Here's a perfect example: in 2019, D'Angelo Russell made an All-Star team averaging 21.1 points and seven assists on 43.4% shooting from the floor and 36.9% shooting from behind the arc. He proceeded to earn a full, four-year max contract in free agency. Across that contract, he averaged... 19.2 points and 6.4 assists on 43.5% shooting from the floor and 37% shooting from deep. The numbers were nearly identical, but he didn't make an All-Star Team. His next contract was a two-year, $36 million pact with the Lakers that nearly cut his salary in half. There were other factors involved there, but the basic point stands: making an All-Star team helps get players paid.

The NBA announced before the season that 125 total international players were on opening night rosters. NBA rosters include 15 full-time slots and two two-way slots for a total of 510 roster spots, meaning international players represented around 24.5% of the total player pool. That's an impressive number, but hardly a fair one from an All-Star perspective. International players would be competing against a smaller pool of total players for the same number of slots, and would therefore have easier access to the intangible financial value of making an All-Star Team.

Even as the union diversifies, it is still primarily made up of American players. It's hard to imagine the NBPA accepting a format that makes it harder for the majority of its constituents to earn All-Star selections. The obvious solution to this would be to expand All-Star rosters in order to guarantee a certain number of selections on both sides. Frankly, 15-man All-Star rosters are overdue. They are a closer reflection of actual NBA rosters today, and they would more closely align with All-NBA as a full-season honor. If there are 30 All-Stars and 15 All-NBA players, we can broadly call an All-NBA selection twice as meaningful. But Silver said during All-Star Weekend that the league does not plan to expand rosters for the game.

All of this is to say that actually building a traditional, 12-on-12 All-Star Game featuring half American players and half international would be a far more difficult task to pull off than it might seem....

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/nba-considering-pivot-to-usa-vs-world-all-star-game-format-but-it-would-be-a-complicated-switch/

[bledredwine]

This tournament is incredible

The nba should be taking notes- it's a lot more fun than having an allstar game and other festivities.

... so I'm not crazy. Hockey is the only mainstream US sport that I find fun/competitive to watch (and boxing, of course, but I don't count that as mainstream)

[jc23]

Hockey needs to learn from the NBA and market their stars better. Its a sport with alot of potential for growth. Coming from someone who rarely watches it. When i have watched i normally enjoy myself.

[ThisGuyFawkes]

How is the NHL package compared to the NBA league pass? I'd probably rather watch hockey next season since the Bulls should be terrible again.

[ShouldaPaidBG]

How is the NHL package compared to the NBA league pass? I'd probably rather watch hockey next season since the Bulls should be terrible again.

Idk I watch streams but I'm pretty sure the Hawks are also in Chicago sports network hell

[ThisGuyFawkes]

How is the NHL package compared to the NBA league pass? I'd probably rather watch hockey next season since the Bulls should be terrible again.

Idk I watch streams but I'm pretty sure the Hawks are also in Chicago sports network hell

Okay. I was paying $12/mo through Amazon for the Bulls league pass. I was hoping the Blackhawks might have something similar. I’m certainly not paying whatever ridiculous amount the Chicago network is charging.

[Dominator83]

What a great trade they made. An overpaid player that didn't wanna be here anymore for a 23 year old stud Goaltender

[CROBulls]

KD is doing great job. get rid of Seth Jones (paycheck guy) and getting 1st and young former 1st round goalie who actually plays like he wants to play for this franchise is nothing but pure success.

Now what actually Davidson needs to do is, go find coach. Someone who already win it all, someone who knows what needs to be done. Someone who coached guys like Crosby and are willing to coach your superstar properly (Bedard) and whoever we draft this year. So when things get tough he can give you advice and what to do.


Someone who young guys will listen and will tell them what they need to do and how to play. A real coach who is willing tell Bedard hey you made mistake didn’t follow plan you gonna get cut minutes next game. And gonna do same to vets. No favorables. Because vets on this team make mistakes and keep getting minutes, Reichel make mistake and sit on bench next game. That’s no coach. Getting coach this summer is key how good this franchise is gonna be and their players they already drafted and those who they will draft.