Prokorov wrote:MrDollarBills wrote:ecuhus1981 wrote:"Interesting", as in curious how our illustrious coaching staff couldn't do the same? Yup, same.
It's going to be annoying to see this Milwaukee team that gave us such a fight look utterly punchless against Atlanta. We were their finish line.
Exactly. They forced the Bucks into playing Giannis at center. They did this while still having Capella on the floor!!!!
Had we attacked Lopez relentlessly from Game 3 on, even regardless of our injury situation, forcing the Bucks to play small would have been the end for them. Instead Nash didn't utilize this strategy until the 2nd half of game 5 and all of game 7.
Having an actual coach who put in the time and study work in charge over a neophyte who leap frogged others due to nepotism and privilege makes a huge difference. Nate MacMillan probably watched tape of the Bucks defense and immediately saw the huge glaring hole in it whereas Nash...what the **** was this guy looking at!!!!!!?
A dozen Black coaches and a couple female coaches got bypassed for a white dude with no experience because his white boss let him skip the line. Including the incumbent black head coach, who got demoted in this process.
The Nets were supposed to be better then this. sad. I know Kyrie wasnt really on board, and KD seemed indifferent. Wished they would have pressured more for a black/female coach... maybe they did.
Qualifications, time spent perfecting your craft and merit matter. Vaughn gets demoted, we pass on other candidates. The team suffered as a result.
Honestly, this is basically a microcosm of how rewarding privilege over hard work is harmful in general, lets take ethnicity and gender out of it for a second, despite the fact that you are 100% right to point to how this is white privilege/the good old boys club at work to the team's detriment.
How many work environments have you been in where you see people who are
complete **** ups are elevated to positions of authority because of who they know or their connections over people on the ground floor who put in the work, offer new ideas, and know the ins and outs of the business? I've seen it so many times I've lost count. See it all the time at the company I work for. You wonder how in the hell did someone land a job making nearly six figures and they don't know the basics of xyz. Can't tell the back of their ass from the front, but they know how to set up an out of office message every Friday.
While in hindsight, our situation was not sustainable, we still could have beaten Milwaukee had Nash been able to figure things out way quicker. We're better off right now sitting this one out. But it still stings, and I have not much confidence in Steve Nash. Even less now as his coaching staff gets poached.
Now, does all of this make Sean Marks a bad guy? No. Not at all. I honestly think that he was being tone deaf at worst here because the optics looked terrible regarding Vaughn getting leapfrogged. I don't think he even realized it until it became a public issue last year...that's the problem with white privilege and systemic racism in general, it's so engrained into our society that it's difficult for people not on the outside looking in to see what's wrong, or how they are helping to perpetuate it, until it slaps them in the face.
Please consider donating blood:
https://www.nybc.org/2025-2026 Indiana Pacers C: J. Valanciunas/C. Castleton
PF: K. Kuzma/J. Robinson-Earl
SF: T. Evbuomwan/J. Howard
SG: T. Hardaway Jr./C. Williams
PG: C. Payne/J. Springer
