JayTWill wrote:HEZI wrote:
If your roster is built a certain way you have to coach it a certain way. Yeah Kerr was able to help Warriors but he certainly wasn’t helping the Knicks and in fact he rejected Phil’s offer to join the Knicks. D’Antoni already failed trying that in New York so Kerr knew what he was going to be tasked with and said nah I’m good. We’ve been down this road before, we have seen many successful coaches fail in New York. What worked in one place isn’t guaranteed to work in another place. You need the right group of guys for it to come together. So whatever has worked for Kerr in GS isn’t guaranteed to work elsewhere. He’s not turning the Bucks into the Warriors, it’s just not happening.
This years Knicks play a different style than last years team, so that’s evidence that Thibs can and has adjusted to his roster. Not really sure what point you are trying to make with the Randle comment but it’s actually more evidence to help the case for Thibs than against him. TWolves have no clue what to do with Randle right now whereas Thibs at least knew how to get the best out of him. TWolves had no clue how to use Towns and Thibs has set him loose on the Association. We have one of the most efficient offenses in the league and are playing a free flowing unselfish brand of basketball. Isn’t that what you wanted? What you said Thibs is not capable of delivering? Well he’s doing it right now so what’s the problem? I think it’s just insecurity and past Knicks failures so a scapegoat is always needed. Now it’s Thibs so if anything was to go wrong we already have him on the front line.
Kerr was able to elevate the talent of the Warriors to a much higher level than the previous coach. Same players. Slightly more experienced but a level of dominance not shown under Jackson. You did not answer my question about what you think Thibs would have done with that talent since you seem to want to blame Thibs failures on the talent he has been given.
As far as this year we are 1 month into the season. The offense has obviously changed while the defense has struggled. I'm not going to form an opinion good or bad based on a small sample size where the team has only had success against terrible competition. The offense was incredibly free flowing against a terrible Pistons' defense and then the offense collapsed against the Rockets' physicality the next game. The defense hasn't been great overall. It's too early for me to make a true assessment of how I think the team will perform as the season goes along and into the playoffs based on this year's talent under Thibs.
And Randle is just an example of Thibs/New York hype imo. Using the "development/elevation" of such a flawed player like Randle as an example of Thibs greatness does not make sense to me. A defensive minded coach that constantly harps on defense and will yank a young player out of the game after one defensive breakdown allowed his "star" player to give absolutely no effort defensively whenever he chose to is not an example of great coaching.
Randle scoring a few more points with less efficiency in a role he probably should have never been given as a top 1/2 option isn't the greatest achievement. He is the same exact player in Minny as he has been in New York for the most part. He is a guy that can elevate your offense while dragging down your defense and can drag down both ends when he is one of those moods. He did the same thing under Thibs. Minnesota would probably prefer the 6th man/spot starter pre-New York version of Randle so they could start Reid and bring Randle off the bench instead of this "All-Star" version that Thibs has enabled for the last 4-5 years.
Minnesota fans are calling him the D'Angelo Russell of power forwards. I feel like calling Thibs the Julius Randle of coaches sometimes.
I feel like Randle and Thibs are 2 guys that may have been elevated to roles that are beyond their skillset to be truly great at. They both have picked regular season awards that are not an indicator of where they actually ranked among their peers. They both like to physically overwhelm their opponents in different ways but when they can't things can fall apart for them. Both of them have not matched their regular season success in the postseason. And both of them seem to have just enough emotional instability that the people around them seem to be afraid to point their obvious flaws even when it is clearly hurting the team.
Anyway, we have different opinions on Thibs. I'm just waiting to see how the team performs in bigger moments over a longer period of time before I change my opinion on him. He has his strengths and weaknesses. I just think his weaknesses have held him back more than you do. I'm still rooting for the team and his success. I'm just not willing to turn a blind eye to his flaws from the minutes distribution to the offensive and defensive strategies to the stubbornness at times to his grinding and emotional coaching style etc