og15 wrote:MartinToVaught wrote:RingColluder wrote:He made adjustments in the 3-1 Warriors Cavs series.
LeBron made adjustments. Lue watched the games from the sidelines.
This is why being a coach of a LeBron team is generally pretty sucky. Failures are due to your inability to do this or that and success is due to LeBron's ability to make the necessary changes and perform. It's basically a lose/lose to some people as a coach of a LeBron team. You lose, it's your fault, you win, it was LeBron.
Spoelstra is universally recognized as an elite coach, and for good reason, because he gets the most out of his teams and has the humility to address his own flaws when the team falls short - like when he changed his entire offensive system after the 2011 Finals. His success both pre- and post-LeBron disproves this narrative. Vogel was also already praised as a coach pre-LeBron because of his success in Indiana (still the only coach who ever made Playoff P look good in the playoffs).
LeBron really has spent most of his career making terrible coaches look better than they are with his overall greatness, unparalleled floor-raising ability, and incredible BBIQ. When these coaches don't have the luxury of the GOAT carrying them, they get exposed. That's why Lue's record in Cleveland with "just" Kyrie and Love playing was so horrible. Two All-Stars in a weak East weren't enough for him, he needed the GOAT to win games for him.
Frank's whole approach to the coaching issue last offseason was baffling from start to finish. He was actually planning to keep Doc after last season's failure until Ballmer stepped in. The other candidates we interviewed were laughable (Mike Brown, really?) Then he decided to promote from within the same coaching staff that had just failed miserably. The whole thing felt very half-assed, like they were begrudgingly making a coaching change for the sake of optics.
I just don't see any real vision with Frank as POBO and the coaching search was a microcosm of that. He's loyal to the Doc tree because he was part of the Doc tree. He's obsessed with acquiring the Pistons' castoffs because he used to coach the Pistons. He doesn't set trends or keep up with the rest of the league, he sticks to what he knows. We can and should do better than this front office.