Billy Donovan

[dougthonus]

After watching back every PNR possession from the Hawks, something further to which I thought was really good from McMillan — and maybe they already do this to get Trae open against any opponent — but they set a lot of double screens, some of which were out quite high.

Against a drop defense, and specifically against the Bulls who have someone like Coby, who just might be in the bottom five percentile of defenders and IQ players, stuff like that is going to murder a drop coverage.

The Bulls can’t switch to a more aggressive scheme because Vucevic can’t play that way. And we’ve also seen this team get owned the minute the defense gets in rotation, something that is far more likely to happen in a more aggressive scheme.

Donovan is running because, frankly, it’s probably the easiest and most basic PNR coverage, but some of these guys can’t even get that right.

Donovan deserves criticism of his rotations and lineups, but some of this stuff on defense really comes back to the players, and specifically those who were drafted at No. 7 in recent drafts...

Quite simply, the defense looked better last year IMO.

I said before people railed on Boylen a bit too much because he was a doofus in an interview. I also think his player relationships were awful, but as a tactical coach, I think he was pretty good on the defensive end.

[Stratmaster]

And... Billy let's another one get away.

Had to get Zach 53 seconds of extra rest while Coby was finding ways to give the game away. Instead of Lavine coming back into a 1 point game he comes back down 5.

Coby continues to lose games for the Bulls, and Billy just keeps running him out there.

Sent from my SM-G965U using RealGM mobile app

[Ice Man]

I said before people railed on Boylen a bit too much because he was a doofus in an interview. I also think his player relationships were awful, but as a tactical coach, I think he was pretty good on the defensive end.

1) Boylen was a doofus with the players, too. He wasn't respected by them when he coached in college at Utah, and they smirked at him from the Bulls' bench,

2) He did a lot better job with the Bulls defense than Billy has done.

[Leslie Forman]

I will always maintain that if Boylen was 20 years younger and looked and sounded like a Lloyd Pierce or Ryan Saunders, was good at selling himself through the media, and, of course, had any sort of emotional intelligence relating with players, he'd have been seen as some sort of convention-breaking defensive mastermind and would still be coach here.

As it is, he is basically the equivalent of a good defensive coordinator who has no business ever being a head coach.

All those people who thought the secret to unlocking Wendell's superstar potential was just letting him jack up long 2s sure seem to be quiet now too.

[Ice Man]

As it is, he is basically the equivalent of a good defensive coordinator who has no business ever being a head coach.

It's the nature of good assistant coaches to test the Peter Principle. I'm sure that Boylen still believes he is an excellent head coach, he just wasn't given enough time to prove it.

[FriedRise]

My bigger concern with Billy right now is rotations.

The Bull are in a highly compressed stretch right now. We know that fatigue impacts players, especially on back to backs but also when they simply don’t have time to recover.

That means you have to start going pretty deep into a rotation to reduce minutes, especially if you don’t plan on resting players.

But against Atlanta, 2nd night of a back to back, Billy only went 9 deep. No Archi, no Val, no Javonte Green or Aminu. None of those guys are world beaters, but all have their moments. Especially if you have a game where there is a stretch and the normal rotation just isn’t keeping up - using fresh legs to press a bit on defense, run on offense can swing momentum. Not a hockey sub, but maybe two guys mixed in with others to see if that helps.

But even outside those circumstances, you have to adjust to the schedule.

Yeah we're in a pretty rough stretch right now. By tonight this month, we would've played 7 games in 11 days. After tonight, we're about to get hit with 3 games in 4 nights followed by 5 games in 7 nights and then followed by a stretch of 4 games in 6 nights going into May.

I think you're right that we may need to dig way deeper into the bench to see if guys like Arch, Green, or Aminu can give you anything.

[MGB8]

After watching back every PNR possession from the Hawks, something further to which I thought was really good from McMillan — and maybe they already do this to get Trae open against any opponent — but they set a lot of double screens, some of which were out quite high.

Against a drop defense, and specifically against the Bulls who have someone like Coby, who just might be in the bottom five percentile of defenders and IQ players, stuff like that is going to murder a drop coverage.

The Bulls can’t switch to a more aggressive scheme because Vucevic can’t play that way. And we’ve also seen this team get owned the minute the defense gets in rotation, something that is far more likely to happen in a more aggressive scheme.

Donovan is running because, frankly, it’s probably the easiest and most basic PNR coverage, but some of these guys can’t even get that right.

Donovan deserves criticism of his rotations and lineups, but some of this stuff on defense really comes back to the players, and specifically those who were drafted at No. 7 in recent drafts...

Quite simply, the defense looked better last year IMO.

I said before people railed on Boylen a bit too much because he was a doofus in an interview. I also think his player relationships were awful, but as a tactical coach, I think he was pretty good on the defensive end.

I don't really buy this. The defense looked better until other teams "turned it on" and then it was just like this year's, maybe worse.

Better stats, sure - but I also think teams took the Bulls less seriously and that had a lot to do with that.

I'm not sure that Donovan is a great coach --- but that just shows you exactly how bad a coach Boylen was.

[dougthonus]

I don't really buy this. The defense looked better until other teams "turned it on" and then it was just like this year's, maybe worse.

Better stats, sure - but I also think teams took the Bulls less seriously and that had a lot to do with that.

I'm not sure that Donovan is a great coach --- but that just shows you exactly how bad a coach Boylen was.

Separate out Boylen as a head coach, I agree, he was absolutely bottom five in the league and quite possibly worst in the league.

If you start from a position that Boylen had awful player relationships, poor buy in, and poor personnel, then the fact that he had the 14th best defense is a miracle and again gets back to tactically, I think he was solid at coaching defense. That makes you a good assistant coach though and a god awful head coach.

Overall, I'd certainly take Donovan over Boylen. There isn't even a doubt there, and I would place Donovan as a middle of the pack coach.

I've long said:
Strengths:
Player relationships
Teaching
Weaknesses:
In game tactics / adjustments

He's a good coach for a young / developing team which is what we were. Will be interesting if we make any more trades to go in a win-now direction, in which case that might not be who we are later.

[Wingy]

I've long said:
Strengths:
Player relationships
Teaching
Weaknesses:
In game tactics / adjustments

He's a good coach for a young / developing team which is what we were. Will be interesting if we make any more trades to go in a win-now direction, in which case that might not be who we are later.

Teaching. I've seen this highlighted by several posters, so not to single you out. Curious where we've reaped these benefits given all of our "7s" have at best flat-lined, and even regressed depending on one's opinion. Not sure what he's teaching Pat, though with the wild inconsistencies of a 19y/o - it's hard to tell if that's on the coach, on the player, or just an "it is what it is" with youth.

He gets credit for better using Thad's skillset, but I don't think he helped Thad get better. Same w/Zach...I think Zach hitting his prime, he was on his way to All Star ascension regardless.

Maybe there's some players that progressed on OKC we can point to? I don't know where it is w/our guys, but to be fair, it hasn't been that long either.

[nekorajo]

After watching back every PNR possession from the Hawks, something further to which I thought was really good from McMillan — and maybe they already do this to get Trae open against any opponent — but they set a lot of double screens, some of which were out quite high.

Against a drop defense, and specifically against the Bulls who have someone like Coby, who just might be in the bottom five percentile of defenders and IQ players, stuff like that is going to murder a drop coverage.

The Bulls can’t switch to a more aggressive scheme because Vucevic can’t play that way. And we’ve also seen this team get owned the minute the defense gets in rotation, something that is far more likely to happen in a more aggressive scheme.

Donovan is running because, frankly, it’s probably the easiest and most basic PNR coverage, but some of these guys can’t even get that right.

Donovan deserves criticism of his rotations and lineups, but some of this stuff on defense really comes back to the players, and specifically those who were drafted at No. 7 in recent drafts...

Quite simply, the defense looked better last year IMO.

I said before people railed on Boylen a bit too much because he was a doofus in an interview. I also think his player relationships were awful, but as a tactical coach, I think he was pretty good on the defensive end.

I think Dunn, Shaq and Arch defending the point would make Donovan look like a better defensive coach as well. Boylen was a lot of things, but he was not underrated. Boylen's defense was arguably slightly better, but it was frustrating to watch too.

[chefo]

I think Donovan tried, based on what he was TOLD, to make an omelet out of what he was given as a roster. All signs point to that.

* The WCJ experiment as a point C to open the season ("WCJ is a great passing big")--an unmitigated disaster
* Coby as PG and main ball-handler ("he had an awesome stretch as a lead guard to close last year")--unmitigated disaster
* The drop coverage ("The team is young and sucks at rotating")--an unmitigated disaster, because our guards are legit bottom of the league-type defenders
* Lauri sets ("Lauri needs the ball in motion")--worked, until Lauri hit a half-a-dozen cold stretch and got promptly benched
* Thad as a point C ("Thad is more experienced in the pocket")--worked, until the trade, not so much after

The problem is, virtually everything he's thrown at the wall as an idea about how to play on D, and much of how to play on O, hasn't stuck. I think now he's just slinging anything that comes to his mind, to see if anything works.

I've discussed that before, but I will never be critical if anything our coaching staff tries to pull off, so long as it makes sense, and passes the smell test of "I just conjured this up over lunch break, let's see if it works over the next dozen games."

I could have told you the Thad and Vuc pairing ain't gonna' work from the moment I heard they're replacing Lauri with Thad. Why? They said they need Thad's passing and defense. Well... with Vuc getting first option+ usage as a hub, what are you going to do with a non-shooting big like Thad out there? He can only be used as a cutter or a warm body. But in either case, that jams up the middle for Vuc and Zach, which is actually counter-productive for the O. He's anything but a good defender too, this year, and that's when he's fresh, which is only true for 2 5-minute stints a game. Shocking to write, but Lauri is better than him on D the last 20 games.

So, Thad jams the O, and can't help much, if any on D. Why is he starting again? Apart from simply trying stuff for the sake of trying stuff. Thadgic was dead, the moment they brought one of the highest usage bigs in the NBA in. His only hope of productive ball was when Vuc sits for 15 min/ game. That's it. Them starting together makes no sense.

We're back to Coby as a PG as well. What was Einstein's definition of insanity?

My solution has always been that no matter what you do, whether talent, or shooting, or size, or quickness, or D, you need to do it in overwhelming quantity to stand a chance to win in the NBA--otherwise you're just a middling going nowhere team. I don't think the NBA is about balance--I think it's about overwhelming "something".

We have great size, if we want to use it. Vuc is a big dude. Theis plays big and so does Thad when he's fresh. Lauri is the tallest of the bunch and you can actually play him as a SF because he can shoot at a high volume from deep.

Try to overwhelm teams with our size.

Zach
Sato
Lauri
Theis
Vuc

Bully effin' ball. Vuc first, then whomever has a mismatch. Old-school Knicks ball. Kill them until they adjust and then pick them apart once they do.

Or try overwhelming them with shooting firepower.

Zach
Coby (don't let him dribble)
Sato
Lauri
Vuc

That team will suck on D, but EVERYONE can shoot, 4 out of the 5 have quick triggers, and you have 4(!) 60%+ TS players in that lineup. If you can't defend anyways, might as well go balls to wall on O for 35-38 minutes / game.

Anyways, until you can get a bunch of two way players, of which the Bulls currently have NONE, you've got to try to out-do other teams at SOMETHING.

Anyways, it is what it is. I just know what we're doing doesn't work... because when you think about it, there's no reason why it should.

[MrSparkle]

Hard to quantify my assertion here, but the league was plain worse last year. There were 6-9 tank jobs out the gate last season (Cavs, Hawks, Pistons, Knicks, Hornets, Wizards, Wolves, Warriors, us). Several underachievers: Suns, Rockets, Blazers. Pretty much no Durant and Kyrie at all, along with Curry. Of course this season has been crazy with the COVID protocols and missing players,

This year's early tank jobs were actually trying to win, somewhat competitive (Thunder, Cavs, Pistons - until recently). The Raptors, Pacers, Heat and Celtics got plain worse, but they're obviously not tank-job push-overs, as their competitiveness depends on their stars' availability. We've been catching them on and off.

The mid-season trade changed the team entirely from a fast-pace run-and-gun team to a 180 opposite low-post offense, and if you do the simple math, we lost 5 of the best defenders: Otto, Carter, Dunn, Shaq and the irrelevant Hutchison. Also, by going bigger at SF & PF, I still think Thad & Pat became worse defenders (which may or may not have been anticipated).

Boylen had Dunn, Carter, Sato. The schedule was less condensed. There was obviously a long and enthusiastic post-season (wrestling belts, anybody?). Donovan had 1 week of training camp and pre-season; many guys were out with COVID.

This post-trade performance has been uglier than I expected, but ... I really think it's a waste of time harbingering Donovan's defensive coaching... lamenting the loss of Boylen's defensive training...

In fact, it's absurd!

Artunas made a point to ditch the 1-way defensive guys, in favor of keeping/developing the 1-way offensive guys. The long-term move was to make this a successful offensive team, as opposed to a blue-chip scrapper with a bunch of brick-layers. Unfortunately, right now the team looks more like the Washington Generals about 60% of the time. It looks ugly, but I think it's fair to give it more than 10 games, and another off-season of personnel adjustments. The one thing I'll say for sure is that having multiple big men who each need minutes is a modern NBA coach's nightmare, cause you're just gonna lose about 90% of the time you play two of them together. Horford and Embiid, anybody?

FWIW, Boylen had accolades and history in the league. He could run a defensive system. Sure. I just think it's a waste of time comparing these situations. He turned the entire roster into deadweight- period.

Seems everyone's solutions to these games involve things like starting Lauri at SF, starting Lauri at PF, starting Theis at C, entirely removing Coby and Valentine from the rotation, playing Sato 40 mpg, playing Pat at PG (that one was a chuckle), playing Troy 40 mpg, and a whole slew of other ideas that seem like they'll work about as long as the long-anticipated Sato/Thad promotion to the starting line-up.

[dougthonus]

This post-trade performance has been uglier than I expected, but ... I really think it's a waste of time harbingering Donovan's defensive coaching... lamenting the loss of Boylen's defensive training...

I don't think anyone is lamenting the loss of Boylen, only using it as a reference point. No one thinks Boylen was any good, but even this guy who was awful coached a better defense.

I do think it is worth noting that Donovan's defense looks awful.

[chefo]

Boylen's D ONLY made sense if you had scrub, super high-energy bigs, and well-rotating everybody else. It was a gimmick D that any prepared team could pick apart, like what happened every 4th quarter when the game was on the line.

Drop D, BTW, by design gives up certain shots--P&P and long jumpers. Any team that practices it has to live with that. What it's not supposed to give up is 8 feet floaters and offensive rebounds. So, we have something that is both poorly structured for our personnel and poorly executed to boot. Fail all around when it comes to D.

[MrSparkle]

This post-trade performance has been uglier than I expected, but ... I really think it's a waste of time harbingering Donovan's defensive coaching... lamenting the loss of Boylen's defensive training...

I don't think anyone is lamenting the loss of Boylen, only using it as a reference point. No one thinks Boylen was any good, but even this guy who was awful coached a better defense.

I do think it is worth noting that Donovan's defense looks awful.

Well, and Hoiberg coached Butler, Lopez and company to a 6th best defensive rating. Does that make Hoiberg's defensive coaching better than Donovan and Boylen? Cause that might be news to most of the coaching association. The year later, Hoiberg had a 24th defensive rating. The 14/15 Thibodeau team had some of the most brutal defensive nights we had seen since the 2003 Bulls. I was witness to the January slaughter by the Jazz; healthy Bulls line-ups with Noah, Butler, Rose, Dunleavy, Gasol, Taj, Hinrich. The whole team. It was an offensive massacre.

I just feel like the board keeps falling into the trap of blaming the irrelevant factor. I listed the factors going on. Boylen had the full punching-in-the-clock off-season to instill his system, and he started his best defenders and had them for a good portion of the season until it was cut short anyway. Also at the expense of a bottom-rated offense which was starting 2 offensive players with defensive liabilities and heavily involved a 3rd off the bench (Coby), which is simply strange. Coach Nick had a good video describing how Boylen's sets were putting every single guy in his worst offensive position.

Donovan had no chance before the season to install the defensive system. And we keep beating the bush, but this personnel is a defensive nightmare. The defensive personnel clearly got even worse after the trade. There is literally nothing to be done here with this roster, other than starting Troy and Pat, which would cause some political ruffles. We can all agree there are reasons for starting Pat even if he underperforms (but obviously if he plays himself out of the job with 010 nights, you have to consider it). But there are going to be repercussions to such a starting line-up. It's not like the bench combos of Coby/Lauri/Theis/Thad are going to match brilliantly, nor will they be happy.

Not sure I'm sold on starting Theis; he should get more minutes, but I feel like we’d be let down as the roulette continues. He’ll largely mirror Thad’s issues. You also can't keep changing starting line-ups every 5 games this late in the season and not expect major chemistry issues.

Last night, the offense looked miserable from the jump-ball. The careless turnovers and tentative cuts. I'd say whatever Donovan is (not) saying/yelling is failing on that end. And this roster just needs another 5-man transformation (two bigs out, deep scrubs out, two wings and PG in)

[dougthonus]

Well, and Hoiberg coached Butler, Lopez and company to a 6th best defensive rating. Does that make Hoiberg's defensive coaching better than Donovan and Boylen? Cause that might be news to most of the coaching association. The year later, Hoiberg had a 24th defensive rating. The 14/15 Thibodeau team had some of the most brutal defensive nights we had seen since the 2003 Bulls. I was witness to the January slaughter by the Jazz; healthy Bulls line-ups with Noah, Butler, Rose, Dunleavy, Gasol, Taj, Hinrich. The whole team. It was an offensive massacre.

I just feel like the board keeps falling into the trap of blaming the irrelevant factor. I listed the factors going on. Boylen had the full punching-in-the-clock off-season to instill his system, and he started his best defenders and had them for a good portion of the season until it was cut short anyway. Also at the expense of a bottom-rated offense which was starting 2 offensive players with defensive liabilities and heavily involved a 3rd off the bench (Coby), which is simply strange. Coach Nick had a good video describing how Boylen's sets were putting every single guy in his worst offensive position.

Donovan had no chance before the season to install the defensive system. And we keep beating the bush, but this personnel is a defensive nightmare. The defensive personnel clearly got even worse after the trade. There is literally nothing to be done here with this roster, other than starting Troy and Theis. And I think we can all agree there were reasons for wanting Pat to start at all costs, but obviously as he plays himself out of the job, you have to consider it. Not sure I'm sold on Troy; he should get more minutes, but I just feel like we're gonna be let down as the roulette continues. You can't just keep changing starting line-ups every 5 games this late in the season and not expect major chemistry issues. Especially promoting the new young guy (Troy), while Pat/Coby/Lauri watch from the bench. I'm not saying they should be coddled, but what will happen is as demotions and trial promotions continue, these guys are just gonna all play worse as morale drops.

Last night, the offense looked miserable from the jump-ball. The careless turnovers and tentative cuts. I'd say whatever Donovan is (not) saying/yelling is failing on that end. And this roster just needs another 5-man transformation.

If you want to come up with all the reasons in the world why Donovan doesn't deserve blame for his awful defense, feel free.

I think the system in theoretical principle is far worse. I think it fits our personnel worse. I think it is executed poorly. I think all of those things are laid at the feet of the coaching staff.

I think your factors ignore lots of positives in Donovan's favor. Our schedule has been an absolute joke. More than half our games against good teams were when they were missing their best players or half the roster whereas our own injuries / covid misses have been minimal in comparison.

People point to the roster being worse in terms of defensive talent, but on a pro-rate basis Temple has played as many minutes as Dunn/Harrison combined and is just as good a defender. Boylen was missing far more people than Donovan has been throughout his season, but again, it isn't about Boylen.

It is about Donovan's staff coaching an awful defense this year. If all of those other factors in terms of practice and things made it hard to implement, then it was still his decision to implement the one defense in teh league that is about as opposite as possible from what we were doing and implement it with all players that are young, less experienced, need to learn it, and don't fit into it.

He still made that choice, no one forced him to implement drop coverage.

[MGB8]

This post-trade performance has been uglier than I expected, but ... I really think it's a waste of time harbingering Donovan's defensive coaching... lamenting the loss of Boylen's defensive training...

I don't think anyone is lamenting the loss of Boylen, only using it as a reference point. No one thinks Boylen was any good, but even this guy who was awful coached a better defense.

I do think it is worth noting that Donovan's defense looks awful.

Well, and Hoiberg coached Butler, Lopez and company to a 6th best defensive rating. Does that make Hoiberg's defensive coaching better than Donovan and Boylen? Cause that might be news to most of the coaching association. The year later, Hoiberg had a 24th defensive rating. The 14/15 Thibodeau team had some of the most brutal defensive nights we had seen since the 2003 Bulls. I was witness to the January slaughter by the Jazz; healthy Bulls line-ups with Noah, Butler, Rose, Dunleavy, Gasol, Taj, Hinrich. The whole team. It was an offensive massacre.

I just feel like the board keeps falling into the trap of blaming the irrelevant factor. I listed the factors going on. Boylen had the full punching-in-the-clock off-season to instill his system, and he started his best defenders and had them for a good portion of the season until it was cut short anyway. Also at the expense of a bottom-rated offense which was starting 2 offensive players with defensive liabilities and heavily involved a 3rd off the bench (Coby), which is simply strange. Coach Nick had a good video describing how Boylen's sets were putting every single guy in his worst offensive position.

Donovan had no chance before the season to install the defensive system. And we keep beating the bush, but this personnel is a defensive nightmare. The defensive personnel clearly got even worse after the trade. There is literally nothing to be done here with this roster, other than starting Troy and Pat (or Theis). And I think we can all agree there were reasons for wanting Pat to start at all costs, but obviously as he plays himself out of the job, you have to consider it. But there are going to be repercussions to such a starting line-up. It's not like the bench combos of Coby/Pat/Lauri/Theis/Thad are going to get the job done.

Not sure I'm sold on Troy; he should get more minutes, but I just feel like we're gonna be let down as the roulette continues. You can't just keep changing starting line-ups every 5 games this late in the season and not expect major chemistry issues. Especially promoting the new young guy (Troy), while Pat/Coby/Lauri watch from the bench. I'm not saying they should be coddled, but what will happen is as demotions and trial promotions continue, these guys are just gonna all play worse as morale drops.

Last night, the offense looked miserable from the jump-ball. The careless turnovers and tentative cuts. I'd say whatever Donovan is (not) saying/yelling is failing on that end. And this roster just needs another 5-man transformation.

The last bit of this post IMO touches on the advantage of "one-primary distributor" offenses as opposed to "team motion" offenses.

A team motion offense is at the mercy of not just one player, but pretty much every player. If each player doesn't do their part, then it doesn't really work.

A "one-man-is-primary-distributor" offense, on the other hand, while impacted by team play, is most impact by the play of the one guy who is the distributor - and how his play motivates other players to move ("if you do this, I'll reward you; if you do that, you aren't seeing the ball").

[MrSparkle]

Well, and Hoiberg coached Butler, Lopez and company to a 6th best defensive rating. Does that make Hoiberg's defensive coaching better than Donovan and Boylen? Cause that might be news to most of the coaching association. The year later, Hoiberg had a 24th defensive rating. The 14/15 Thibodeau team had some of the most brutal defensive nights we had seen since the 2003 Bulls. I was witness to the January slaughter by the Jazz; healthy Bulls line-ups with Noah, Butler, Rose, Dunleavy, Gasol, Taj, Hinrich. The whole team. It was an offensive massacre.

I just feel like the board keeps falling into the trap of blaming the irrelevant factor. I listed the factors going on. Boylen had the full punching-in-the-clock off-season to instill his system, and he started his best defenders and had them for a good portion of the season until it was cut short anyway. Also at the expense of a bottom-rated offense which was starting 2 offensive players with defensive liabilities and heavily involved a 3rd off the bench (Coby), which is simply strange. Coach Nick had a good video describing how Boylen's sets were putting every single guy in his worst offensive position.

Donovan had no chance before the season to install the defensive system. And we keep beating the bush, but this personnel is a defensive nightmare. The defensive personnel clearly got even worse after the trade. There is literally nothing to be done here with this roster, other than starting Troy and Theis. And I think we can all agree there were reasons for wanting Pat to start at all costs, but obviously as he plays himself out of the job, you have to consider it. Not sure I'm sold on Troy; he should get more minutes, but I just feel like we're gonna be let down as the roulette continues. You can't just keep changing starting line-ups every 5 games this late in the season and not expect major chemistry issues. Especially promoting the new young guy (Troy), while Pat/Coby/Lauri watch from the bench. I'm not saying they should be coddled, but what will happen is as demotions and trial promotions continue, these guys are just gonna all play worse as morale drops.

Last night, the offense looked miserable from the jump-ball. The careless turnovers and tentative cuts. I'd say whatever Donovan is (not) saying/yelling is failing on that end. And this roster just needs another 5-man transformation.

If you want to come up with all the reasons in the world why Donovan doesn't deserve blame for his awful defense, feel free.

I think the system in theoretical principle is far worse. I think it fits our personnel worse. I think it is executed poorly. I think all of those things are laid at the feet of the coaching staff.

I think your factors ignore lots of positives in Donovan's favor. Our schedule has been an absolute joke. More than half our games against good teams were when they were missing their best players or half the roster whereas our own injuries / covid misses have been minimal in comparison.

People point to the roster being worse in terms of defensive talent, but on a pro-rate basis Temple has played as many minutes as Dunn/Harrison combined and is just as good a defender. Boylen was missing far more people than Donovan has been throughout his season, but again, it isn't about Boylen.

It is about Donovan's staff coaching an awful defense this year. If all of those other factors in terms of practice and things made it hard to implement, then it was still his decision to implement the one defense in teh league that is about as opposite as possible from what we were doing and implement it with all players that are young, less experienced, need to learn it, and don't fit into it.

He still made that choice, no one forced him to implement drop coverage.

I still think it was the right choice, when weighing the big picture. This year we are 1st in defensive rebounding. Last year we were 23rd. Another disaster as a result of Boylen's gimmick defense, and a benefit of drop coverage.

The gimmick blitz worked in games until it didn't. A couple of nice steals and fast-breaks in the 1st Q looked good, but we were a notoriously awful 3rd Q team. All it took was a half-time pow-wow to really put that system into detention. I know you're not defending Boylen, merely comparing. I'm just affirming my belief that it was pure retrograde, especially since the guys benefitting the most from it were basically irrelevant to the future, if not goners (Dunn and Wendell, not to mention the deep-deep bench).

Chris Paul had a quote where he said Boylen Bulls were unique in running that defense relentlessly. But eventually came adjustments, the defense was more a floundering joke than causing turnovers as PGs like CP3 calmly passed out the traps. Bulls gave up one of the worst %s in the paint, I believe; which is a problem in the 4th Q, typically when 3P shots stop going in as effortlessly as they do with fresh legs. Especially as slow bigs like Lauri, Wendell and Kornet were the blitzers.

Zones seem to (sometimes) work with athletic teams like Hornets and Raptors. Nurse in general probably runs more different defensive schemes than any coach I could think of, however, he does have key leftovers from a championship team. And that's basically his calling card; zany defensive schemes with excellent defensive personnel, and multiple all-star ball-handlers who can run a good system offense in their sleep.

I still think the whole decision to go drop was to boost Lauri's and Wendell's stats and morale; make them more offensive minded and simplify their job to challenging the paint. And in that sense, I think it was the right move. Right now, I think he's unable to really make something work with this current crew, and installing a new system with 10 games in 15 days and 5 new players just seems far-fetched, is all I'm saying.

I guess philosophically there are the people saying we should've dumped Coby, Lauri and/or Wendell (last off-season) for the first best offer, and I wasn't entirely opposed (particularly the latter 2; certainly against trading Coby after 1y for a late FRP). I think it was important to see them perform in a normal system; let them get a variety of offensive looks as ball-handlers, and play one of the most conventional defenses in today's NBA. It didn't work out; that's the break, and the picks are the work of the prior FO. Zero starter prospects (let alone star) from three #7 picks in a row. Coby and Lauri being utter failures in drop coverage makes it easier for me to move on from either guy, knowing that whatever offensive potential they keep teasing and missing, is further tainted by such a poor defensive floor. They can't man up, they can't switch, they can't fight a screen, they can't drop and defend the drive.

I also doubt that Donovan comes back next year with the same defensive look for 82 games. If he has a full off-season and a sorted depth chart, yeah - it'll be very disappointing to see Vucevic dropping and getting scored on, all over again.

[Stratmaster]

I've long said:
Strengths:
Player relationships
Teaching
Weaknesses:
In game tactics / adjustments

He's a good coach for a young / developing team which is what we were. Will be interesting if we make any more trades to go in a win-now direction, in which case that might not be who we are later.

Teaching. I've seen this highlighted by several posters, so not to single you out. Curious where we've reaped these benefits given all of our "7s" have at best flat-lined, and even regressed depending on one's opinion. Not sure what he's teaching Pat, though with the wild inconsistencies of a 19y/o - it's hard to tell if that's on the coach, on the player, or just an "it is what it is" with youth.

He gets credit for better using Thad's skillset, but I don't think he helped Thad get better. Same w/Zach...I think Zach hitting his prime, he was on his way to All Star ascension regardless.

Maybe there's some players that progressed on OKC we can point to? I don't know where it is w/our guys, but to be fair, it hasn't been that long either.

This.

Haven't seen a single case of player development due to coaching.

But he is a nice guy and everybody likes each other... so who cares if he loses us games wth his in game coaching.

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[Stratmaster]

After watching back every PNR possession from the Hawks, something further to which I thought was really good from McMillan — and maybe they already do this to get Trae open against any opponent — but they set a lot of double screens, some of which were out quite high.

Against a drop defense, and specifically against the Bulls who have someone like Coby, who just might be in the bottom five percentile of defenders and IQ players, stuff like that is going to murder a drop coverage.

The Bulls can’t switch to a more aggressive scheme because Vucevic can’t play that way. And we’ve also seen this team get owned the minute the defense gets in rotation, something that is far more likely to happen in a more aggressive scheme.

Donovan is running because, frankly, it’s probably the easiest and most basic PNR coverage, but some of these guys can’t even get that right.

Donovan deserves criticism of his rotations and lineups, but some of this stuff on defense really comes back to the players, and specifically those who were drafted at No. 7 in recent drafts...

Quite simply, the defense looked better last year IMO.

I said before people railed on Boylen a bit too much because he was a doofus in an interview. I also think his player relationships were awful, but as a tactical coach, I think he was pretty good on the defensive end.

I think Dunn, Shaq and Arch defending the point would make Donovan look like a better defensive coach as well. Boylen was a lot of things, but he was not underrated. Boylen's defense was arguably slightly better, but it was frustrating to watch too.

Well... arch is still there... he just doesn't play him. Brown and Theis are supposed to be good defenders.

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