Ryan Wolstat: If Valanciunas can

[vado]

Why would we play JV in the 4th when we're going for the FLINT MICHIGAN MEGA BOWL!?

[WeTheNorth77]

JV needs to be put out there in the 4th so he learns from it. Not by sitting on the bench. How will he develop those skills if your gonna put him on the bench.

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[Joker]

If you're going to let Jonas play the fourth but not get him the ball, then it is probably best just to sit him. But if you actually run your offense through him in the fourth and if he's scoring or drawing fouls when he gets a touch, the good could far outweigh the bad.

[Boogie_Smooth]

I agree with a lot of the sentiments on this thread, Casey is so focused on wins and losses that he doesn't want to risk putting JV out there in the fourth so he can learn during crunch time. If I were JV I would be angry, kind of like a running back that gets you down the field and the coach pulls you at the 1 yard line so someone else can get the touchdown.

[dacrusha]

Hello strawman,

His impact on winshares isn't quantifiable when looking at whether it is coaching, or just the team winning by themselves. Conversely, every single thing I listed is a fact set in stone.


Bye.

His loss shares aren't quantifiable either.

In fact, the only thing quantifiable here are the number of your **** posts.

Wow reading comprehension is fun.

I listed a set of his mistakes and through your own special snowflake conjecture you took that as meaning loss shares. What I listed were a set of his decisions that directly impacted the games negatively.

Please get angrier.

In the spirit of your ridiculous posts mixing causation with correlation, here's a list of casey's decisions that directly impacted games positively:

vs. Detroit - Kept Amir and PP on the floor in the 4th to preserve a victory
vs. 76ers - Allowed Klow to play hero-ball to single handedly destroy the Sixers in the fourth for a win
vs. Bucks - Brought Ross of the bench to play extended minutes and provide critical plays to beat the Bucks
vs. Celtics - provided defensive adjustments to shut down Celtics in 2nd and 3rd quarters to stifle any comeback efforts
vs. Clippers - Vasquez gets extended minutes in the 3rd and 4th to kill Clips with 2-guard attack.

... I'm sure I can come up with 24 more examples of how Casey 'won' games for us.

[Joker]

Also, the fourth quarter was the only quarter detroit outscored us. It was toronto's lowest scoring quarter, and detroit's highest scoring quarter.

[Boogie_Smooth]

it's to the point that if Casey really doesn't like what JV brings during late game scenarios then one of them really has to go, either Casey or JV.

[Joker]

If I were JV I would be angry, kind of like a running back that gets you down the field and the coach pulls you at the 1 yard line so someone else can get the touchdown.

[ontnut]

I find it funny that we have the same complaints about our coaches/management/team whether we have a 15-29 record or a 29-15 record. If there's one thing I know, it's that Toronto sports fans will never be a group that can support a team from start to finish of any season. I mean, we've booed the team already, and yet, we're still sporting basically the best record ever in our history. We laugh at Leafs fans throwing their jerseys on the ice, and their generally unfortunate nature, but if many of the people here got their way, we'd be throwing Casey (if he had one) Ross and Vasquez jerseys onto the court. What does that say about us as fans?

I enjoy overanalyzing the team the same as everyone else here, but why does it always need to turn into a negative discussion, as if nothing is going right with this team? By all preseason accounts, we are doing better than most experts and fans could have predicted, much of which can be attributed to the coach, since much of the team is carried over from a few years back. But now that we've had a taste of a modicum of success, we suddenly expect our coach to be Popovich-level (who btw, benched Duncan for a pretty important possession in the playoffs - was that also fire-worthy?) and never make mistakes?

To win 29 games out of 44, some things have to had been done right by the team as a whole, including the coahces. Don't tell me that it's all because of Lowry. He's basically the only player to not catch any flak or trade requests from this fan base (actually, he probably has...) Is Casey perfect? No. Are his rotations amazing? No. Does he have room for improvement on play calling and substitutions and team management? Yes. But you can say that about 29 other head coaches too (ok maybe 28, I love you Pop). We already know the team hears and feeds off of our online fan presence. This has been a great year for Raptors fans, let's try to look at things positively, and support the team as a whole - especially on Twitter etc. Let's not ruin this for ourselves.

/endrant.

[Joker]

People can look at the end result and say the strategy paid off. But if the 4th quarter strategy was actually effective, we not only would've won the game, but we would've also outscored them that quarter, instead they won the quarter 31-25. Luckily we had enough of a cushion to absorb it, but had we gone into the fourth quarter tied, they easily could've won.

I'd be interested to know how many games we've won with JV sitting on the bench in the fourth, but where they actually outscored us in the fourth, and we won because we had a large enough buffer.

[mcgrady_1]

It might be more discussion-worthy had we lost. It's funny that the players don't seem to have any ego about who plays when and who gets touches on this team, but the media and fans all seem to think these are crucial issues.

"But we won" is the most tired, pathetic excuse of an argument to defend every stupid decision/play this team makes.

And ripping a coach no matter what he does is a pathetic excuse for a preconceived bias. Casey is not perfect but some of you act as though he does nothing wrong and every bad move is magnified 10 times over.


The point is since he's been here we've been a hard working team which is good cause if you were here watching the lazy Bargs years that alone is a positive. Players are developing, we're winning and have slowly gotten better every year. But hey, CASEY SUCKS, FIRE HIM, right?

I think thats the point here though. There is no Bargs or Jose here. We have one of the better back courts in the league and a good supporting staff. We have a more talented roster that is winning because we are better than most teams, not because of coaching.

Put Budenholzer on this team and it would be significantly different in a good way. I bet no head coach except for the really dumb ones like Byron Scott would run this team like Casey.

[Joker]

I think it's unfair to JV to say we're winning games with him being benched in the fourth, when we're often going into the fourth quarter with a double-digit point buffer (that he helped build, no less)

[HeartBreaking]

hes slow

[Boogie_Smooth]

we suddenly expect our coach to be Popovich-level (who btw, benched Duncan for a pretty important possession in the playoffs - was that also fire-worthy?) and never make mistakes? /end rant.

What Pop did was a strategic offense/defense play in a NBA finals game that obviously didn't pay off. The problem I have with not playing JV in the fourth is that this is a regular season game with very little on the line. The regular season is where JV has to learn what to do and not to do in late game scenarios and by telling him that he can't be trusted when he's in his third year in the league, we either have to conclude that JV might never get there or Casey just prefers the security of a vet versus making younger players better.

[dTox]

What people fail to understand is that it's not simply a matter of Casey not liking JV, its more so the defensive system that is set in place at the moment that isn't catered towards a 7 foot big who isn't quick on his feet, many other bigs with JV's mobility would suffer in this system including the likes of Marc Gasol, because it requires someone to quickly switch and jump out to the middle and being quick enough to also recover back into the paint, its not a matter of Casey deciding to sub Jonas back in, but more so changing the overall defensive scheme in place, and one of Casey's flaws is changing things on the fly, he definitely won't be doing this mid way through the season so expect the same to continue. The best thing to do is to just accept it, maybe hope Val is either traded for a more suitable piece or Casey changing his approach during the off season, my hope lies in the latter because I value JV much more than I do Casey.

[bape_lovers]

Thats bc both Ed and Acy are bad...both of them been bonuce around...you are saying like both are all stars which is not true

Casey has been terrible at developing our prospects. Davis and Acy gone because they rode the pine, Ross is looking like crap and barely developed and Jonas is like a dog in a cage. I dont see Bruno or Bebe developing into something useful under Casey. Everyone else on the team that plays developed elsewhere not under Casey. Casey likes to ride vets, hell or high water.

[ontnut]

I think thats the point here though. There is no Bargs or Jose here. We have one of the better back courts in the league and a good supporting staff. We have a more talented roster that is winning because we are better than most teams, not because of coaching.

Put Budenholzer on this team and it would be significantly different in a good way. I bet no head coach except for the really dumb ones like Byron Scott would run this team like Casey.

Are you saying the Hawks have a 37-8 record because of Budenholzer and that no average coach could've done that? Do you really think we would have a 37-8 record if we had Budenholzer coaching us? Or maybe, it's possibly because the Hawks also have a very talented roster that is winning because they are better than most teams, not just because of coaching? They are arguably better than us at every single starting position, and their bench is very good, but no - it must be all Budenholzer

Look at the list of head coaches, and tell us, who are the really dumb ones, and who are the ones who would run this team objectively better than Casey. I bet you the ones you say who can run it objectively better than Casey, are also the top 5-10 coaches in the league, the type of coach that you can't just sign up after you fire your own.

Here I'll do it for you.

Definitely better based on career success or prior coaching history or current team performance:
Budenholzer (rookie head coach, possibly a product of his team)
Thibs
Carlisle
SVG (if he stayed retired, that's one less coach up here)
Mchale
Rivers
Joerger
Popovich


Not clearly better, based on team construction, team performance, career success:
Stevens
Hollins
Clifford
Blatt
Shaw
Kerr (rookie coach, GSW success mostly due to the quality of their players)
Vogel (Everyone was riding him, but look at Indy. They lost George and Lance, but to go from 1st to a 16-30 record?)
Scott
Spoelstra
Kidd
Saunders
Williams
Fisher
Brooks
Vaughn
Brown
Hornacek (maybe better)
Stotts
Corbin
Snyder
Wittman

And here's the thing. A lot of the coaches in the "definitely better" category are there partly because of team performance. Spoelstra was a unanimous top 5 coach the past few years for coaching the Heat. Now, minus Lebron, but still with Bosh, Wade, Deng etc., they have a 20-24 record. Is he still a top 5 coach that would immediately make our team better?

Given this, it's not too hard to argue that Casey is candidate to be a top 10-15 coach in this league. That's average to above average. If you're willing to part with 2 1st pics to get a Doc Rivers, then by all means...go for it. But it's not like these top level coaches are just growing on trees.

[UcanUwill]

Thats bc both Ed and Acy are bad...both of them been bonuce around...you are saying like both are all stars which is not true

Casey has been terrible at developing our prospects. Davis and Acy gone because they rode the pine, Ross is looking like crap and barely developed and Jonas is like a dog in a cage. I dont see Bruno or Bebe developing into something useful under Casey. Everyone else on the team that plays developed elsewhere not under Casey. Casey likes to ride vets, hell or high water.

Well, maybe they would be better today if they were developed better in the past? I think you kinda proving his point here.

[Jstock12]

What people fail to understand is that it's not simply a matter of Casey not liking JV, its more so the defensive system that is set in place at the moment that isn't catered towards a 7 foot big who isn't quick on his feet, many other bigs with JV's mobility would suffer in this system including the likes of Marc Gasol, because it requires someone to quickly switch and jump out to the middle and being quick enough to also recover back into the paint, its not a matter of Casey deciding to sub Jonas back in, but more so changing the overall defensive scheme in place, and one of Casey's flaws is changing things on the fly, he definitely won't be doing this mid way through the season so expect the same to continue. The best thing to do is to just accept it, maybe hope Val is either traded for a more suitable piece or Casey changing his approach during the off season, my hope lies in the latter because I value JV much more than I do Casey.

This makes sense. My question though - why would Casey design such a defensive system if he really knows his personnel well? Wouldn't it make more sense to design a defense that fits your young future piece (JV)? Is Casey too caught up in the WIN-NOW mode?

[Local_NG_Idiot]

we suddenly expect our coach to be Popovich-level (who btw, benched Duncan for a pretty important possession in the playoffs - was that also fire-worthy?) and never make mistakes? /end rant.

What Pop did was a strategic offense/defense play in a NBA finals game that obviously didn't pay off. The problem I have with not playing JV in the fourth is that this is a regular season game with very little on the line. The regular season is where JV has to learn what to do and not to do in late game scenarios and by telling him that he can't be trusted when he's in his third year in the league, we either have to conclude that JV might never get there or Casey just prefers the security of a vet versus making younger players better.

Right, because JV doesn't get any playing time during the game to work out his defensive deficiencies? You don't think the Raps coaching staff isn't going through his hours of game tape with him and sportsview data with the tracking system they internally developed of where he should be in certain offensive scenarios in order to help him increase his read/react abilities?

This is the real world, where there are no absolutes like "it's either Casey or JV" or "he can only learn if he plays in the 4th".

Casey has to weigh the risks vs the rewards of having JV play in the 4th every game based upon a multitude of factors and because it is such a dynamic game, anyone can be critical of any coaches decisions after the known outcome of those decisions.