Fire SMitch thread (Glen agrees, pg 71)

[Merc_Porto]

[Tweet]https://twitter.com/ZacharyBD/status/719960693127008256[/Tweet]

Simple question, Do you want Sam back ?

[Piecake]

I would rather have Mitchell than the following NBA coaches:

Scott, Bickerstaff, Hoiberg, Skiles, Donovan, Wittman, Rambis, B. Brown, T. Brown, Karl, Gentry, Watson, and Kidd.

(Wow there are a lot of bad NBA coaches)

What don't you like about Brett Brown?

I think he would be a great fit for the Wolves.

[wolves_89]

Rumors have had Dave Joerger on shaky ground with the Grizzlies this season, so I wonder if we can pry him away from Memphis. Since there is a good chance we'll get Houston's 2nd round pick this year (if the Rockets beat the Kings) the Wolves could use the pick to convince Memphis to let Joerger out of the last year of his contract. A couple of years ago it sounded like Joerger was on the verge of signing with the Wolves and that Flip and Taylor really wanted him, so I would think he is still well regarded by the Wolves decision makers. Getting the guy they originally wanted (before Flip took over coaching) would hopefully kill any consideration of Mitchell returning.

[Merc_Porto]

If the wolves can't get someone better is a bad excuse for everyone, even for Sam, why ?

1. This is BS, there are plenty of coachs out there, not getting one, just one, with the kind of talent we have in our roster it's because someone is incompetent.
2. Starting a new season with Sam with the excuse "We can't get someone better" is a clear sign that people dont believe in you.

Looking at past examples like OKC or Portland, we should be ready to at least hit the 40 wins mark next season, so, if we decide to keep Sam, resign with him already, dont do this "fake" search and at the end keep Sam, that is not going to help anyone.

[King Malta]

I'm not sure that Mitchell had much to do with Rubio, Wiggins, and Towns improvement. I think their growth is in spite of Mitchell rather than a result of anything Sam has done. I also don't know that Bjelica showed much growth. He started out great and I actually think the coaching made him worse by showing no confidence in him and never gave him the minutes to really get back on track (until the very end of the year).

You can't just write off the improvement of multiple players as having nothing to do with coach and happening purely in spite of him. This is the problem with trying to have a discussion with some on this board about Sam, no offense to you personally, but some people are so locked into this heavily anti-Mitchell perspective that they're not willing to entertain giving him credit for anything and anyone that does do so is labelled as basically being Mitchell's best mate and advocating a 10 year contract for him.

Would Rubio, Wiggins, and Towns be worse players this year with a different coach? There is little doubt in my mind that Rubio, Wiggins, and Towns would have shown at least as much development under almost any coach in the NBA and considerably more under many. No offense to you personally, but some people look at the natural evolution of young players and give way too much credit to a coach whose offensive and defensive systems provide a poor environment for players to learn in. I can understand people giving Mitchell credit for some of the player development this year, i.e. LaVine and Dieng, but I don't see his player development record as being anything above what most any coach could have achieved (there plenty of examples of players regressing or stagnating , i.e. Bjelica, Muhammad, and Payne).

3 players out of a 15 man roster is plenty? One of which was already seen by many as the worst player on the roster, I'm sure all of those players would gave stagnated under someone else, see what I did there? Just for the record too, this is Bellys rookie season, so stating he's stagnated/regressed is a bit of a reach.

The difference between my post and yours is that I'm looking at and operating with actual results and how the team and players have performed/improved this season, your entire argument is based on a completely unprovable assumption that those players would have improved and shown the same level of progress under almost anyone.

[wolves_89]

You can't just write off the improvement of multiple players as having nothing to do with coach and happening purely in spite of him. This is the problem with trying to have a discussion with some on this board about Sam, no offense to you personally, but some people are so locked into this heavily anti-Mitchell perspective that they're not willing to entertain giving him credit for anything and anyone that does do so is labelled as basically being Mitchell's best mate and advocating a 10 year contract for him.

Would Rubio, Wiggins, and Towns be worse players this year with a different coach? There is little doubt in my mind that Rubio, Wiggins, and Towns would have shown at least as much development under almost any coach in the NBA and considerably more under many. No offense to you personally, but some people look at the natural evolution of young players and give way too much credit to a coach whose offensive and defensive systems provide a poor environment for players to learn in. I can understand people giving Mitchell credit for some of the player development this year, i.e. LaVine and Dieng, but I don't see his player development record as being anything above what most any coach could have achieved (there plenty of examples of players regressing or stagnating , i.e. Bjelica, Muhammad, and Payne).

3 players out of a 15 man roster is plenty? One of which was already seen by many as the worst player on the roster, I'm sure all of those players would gave stagnated under someone else, see what I did there? Just for the record too, this is Bellys rookie season, so stating he's stagnated/regressed is a bit of a reach.

The difference between my post and yours is that I'm looking at and operating with actual results and how the team and players have performed/improved this season, your entire argument is based on a completely unprovable assumption that those players would have improved under anyone.

For failed player development it's actually 3 out of 9, unless you think Garnett, Prince, Miller, Martin, Pekovic, and Rudez count as developmental players. As far as Bjelica, he is not a 20 year old rookie, he was a mature player in his prime coming off a Euro League MVP season. And from what he showed at the start of the year, I would say it's a pretty straight forward argument that he significantly regressed under Mitchell's tutelage.

Also, saying that the results prove your argument misses the whole point. It is unprovable that any improvement shown by the Wolves players wouldn't have been significantly better under a different coach, see what I did there? I firmly believe that while Mitchell wasn't terrible at player development, he was by no means anything special.

[Klomp]

For failed player development it's actually 3 out of 9, unless you think Garnett, Prince, Miller, Martin, Pekovic, and Rudez count as developmental players. As far as Bjelica, he is not a 20 year old rookie, he was a mature player in his prime coming off a Euro League MVP season. And from what he showed at the start of the year, I would say it's a pretty straight forward argument that he significantly regressed under Mitchell's tutelage.

Like you said, Bjelica is not a 20-year old rookie. So why did you lump him in with the others, except for the fact to make your number look better than it is? So your number just dropped from 3 of 9 (33%) to 2 of 8 (25%).

[Klomp]

Simple question, Do you want Sam back ?

I don't care either way.

[Krapinsky]

I would rather have Mitchell than the following NBA coaches:

Scott, Bickerstaff, Hoiberg, Skiles, Donovan, Wittman, Rambis, B. Brown, T. Brown, Karl, Gentry, Watson, and Kidd.

(Wow there are a lot of bad NBA coaches)

What don't you like about Brett Brown?

I think he would be a great fit for the Wolves.

I look at the track record and I don't see much of anything to like. His players are at times dysfunctional off the court (see Okafor + Noel) and I don't see a lot of improvement in terms of player development.

[King Malta]

Would Rubio, Wiggins, and Towns be worse players this year with a different coach? There is little doubt in my mind that Rubio, Wiggins, and Towns would have shown at least as much development under almost any coach in the NBA and considerably more under many. No offense to you personally, but some people look at the natural evolution of young players and give way too much credit to a coach whose offensive and defensive systems provide a poor environment for players to learn in. I can understand people giving Mitchell credit for some of the player development this year, i.e. LaVine and Dieng, but I don't see his player development record as being anything above what most any coach could have achieved (there plenty of examples of players regressing or stagnating , i.e. Bjelica, Muhammad, and Payne).

3 players out of a 15 man roster is plenty? One of which was already seen by many as the worst player on the roster, I'm sure all of those players would gave stagnated under someone else, see what I did there? Just for the record too, this is Bellys rookie season, so stating he's stagnated/regressed is a bit of a reach.

The difference between my post and yours is that I'm looking at and operating with actual results and how the team and players have performed/improved this season, your entire argument is based on a completely unprovable assumption that those players would have improved under anyone.

For failed player development it's actually 3 out of 9, unless you think Garnett, Prince, Miller, Martin, Pekovic, and Rudez count as developmental players. As far as Bjelica, he is not a 20 year old rookie, he was a mature player in his prime coming off a Euro League MVP season. And from what he showed at the start of the year, I would say it's a pretty straight forward argument that he significantly regressed under Mitchell's tutelage.

Also, saying that the results prove your argument misses the whole point. It is unprovable that any improvement shown by the Wolves players wouldn't have been significantly better under a different coach, see what I did there? I firmly believe that while Mitchell wasn't terrible at player development, he was by no means anything special.

You'll notice I never once claimed that they wouldn't have improved under someone else, I'm leaving those assumptions to you, I'm only dealing with facts, specifically the facts that a sizable chunk of our roster has improved under Smitch.

We've seen significant improvement from Zach, Wiggy, I'd say Rubio, and Dieng, those 4 guys are going to be a strong part of our core moving forward and therefore the development of those players and their improvement is crucial to what we want to do, so when you point out the regression of guy's like Payne and Belly, forgive me if I'm not stamping my feet over it. We've also seen KAT display an incredible rookie season, now, he's also neither improved nor regressed as we have no direct comparison to make as he's come out of college, but his production this year for a rookie has been incredible and Sam has been the coach for that period.

[King Malta]

For failed player development it's actually 3 out of 9, unless you think Garnett, Prince, Miller, Martin, Pekovic, and Rudez count as developmental players. As far as Bjelica, he is not a 20 year old rookie, he was a mature player in his prime coming off a Euro League MVP season. And from what he showed at the start of the year, I would say it's a pretty straight forward argument that he significantly regressed under Mitchell's tutelage.

Like you said, Bjelica is not a 20-year old rookie. So why did you lump him in with the others, except for the fact to make your number look better than it is? So your number just dropped from 3 of 9 (33%) to 2 of 8 (25%).

If you had of posted at the start of the season that our current coach was going to oversee individual improvement from 75% of the young players on our roster I think most people would have been absolutely psyched.

[Piecake]

I would rather have Mitchell than the following NBA coaches:

Scott, Bickerstaff, Hoiberg, Skiles, Donovan, Wittman, Rambis, B. Brown, T. Brown, Karl, Gentry, Watson, and Kidd.

(Wow there are a lot of bad NBA coaches)

What don't you like about Brett Brown?

I think he would be a great fit for the Wolves.

I look at the track record and I don't see much of anything to like. His players are at times dysfunctional off the court (see Okafor + Noel) and I don't see a lot of improvement in terms of player development.

I look at that as more of a product of the front office than anything. His teams simply aren't constructed well at all and arent constructed to win anything. I'm impressed that he has won at all with basically D league talent.

As for improvement, I think the non-all star players like Covington and the like have improved. As for Noel, that to me is again more of a product of a bad situation thanks to the front office.

[wolves_89]

For failed player development it's actually 3 out of 9, unless you think Garnett, Prince, Miller, Martin, Pekovic, and Rudez count as developmental players. As far as Bjelica, he is not a 20 year old rookie, he was a mature player in his prime coming off a Euro League MVP season. And from what he showed at the start of the year, I would say it's a pretty straight forward argument that he significantly regressed under Mitchell's tutelage.

Like you said, Bjelica is not a 20-year old rookie. So why did you lump him in with the others, except for the fact to make your number look better than it is? So your number just dropped from 3 of 9 (33%) to 2 of 8 (25%).

Man this argument has gotten lost in the weeds. For me it basically comes down to whether or not Mitchell has done a better development job than what other coaches could have done, and for me the answer is no. If others don't agree that's fine, it's not unreasonable go give Mitchell credit for developing players, it's just I haven't seen anything to convince me he has done better than what any of the potential alternatives could do.

[Klomp]

A couple of coaches I would probably consider along with Mitchell are Dave Joerger (if let go) and David Blatt. I'm not real fond of the other candidates, but those two I'd give a leg up to in the race. Thibodeau is TBD, but at this point I'd lean no.

[Krapinsky]

What don't you like about Brett Brown?

I think he would be a great fit for the Wolves.

I look at the track record and I don't see much of anything to like. His players are at times dysfunctional off the court (see Okafor + Noel) and I don't see a lot of improvement in terms of player development.

I look at that as more of a product of the front office than anything. His teams simply aren't constructed well at all and arent constructed to win anything. I'm impressed that he has won at all with basically D league talent.

As for improvement, I think the non-all star players like Covington and the like have improved. As for Noel, that to me is again more of a product of a bad situation thanks to the front office.

His team also has the worst winning % by far in close games.

Covington's stats are worse this year, compared to last year. If he's improved since he got to Phili, it hasn't shown up in anything that is quantifiable.

[NewWolvesOrder]

Brett Brown is better than Smitch and it's not really close. Brett whooped Flip twice with inferior roster. His team that year played solid defense. This year he was dealt with Stauskas and Jokafor and it went south.

[Murphs56]

[Tweet]https://twitter.com/ZacharyBD/status/719960693127008256[/Tweet]

to be fair to Wiggins i'm pretty sure every answer to any question he's ever been asked is "Definitely"

[C.lupus]

[Tweet]https://twitter.com/ZacharyBD/status/719960693127008256[/Tweet]

to be fair to Wiggins i'm pretty sure every answer to any question he's ever been asked is "Definitely"

Definitely.

[Krapinsky]

Brett Brown is better than Smitch and it's not really close. Brett whooped Flip twice with inferior roster. His team that year played solid defense. This year he was dealt with Stauskas and Jokafor and it went south.

Not close? C'mon man. His teams' record has gone down three straight years from 19 to 18 to 10, which is historically awful. His teams have been the worst offensive team in the league 3 years running. He had one blip of good defense in 2014-15 when he played three defensive first players big minutes - Noel, Moute, and Covington. Mitchell has coached two playoff teams and has a 47 win season on his resume.To say he's better than Sam and it's not close just shows your unabashed hatred for the man.

2013-14
W-L = 19-63
ORTG = 99.4 (30 of 30)
DRTG = 109.9 (26 of 30)

2014-15
W-L = 18-64
ORTG = 95.5 (30 of 30)
DRTG = 104.8 (13 of 30)

2015-16
W-L = 10-70
ORTG = 98.6 (30 of 30)
DRTG = 108.8 (24 of 30)

[NewWolvesOrder]

Smitch would have done worse with that Philly roster mess. No doubt.