Evaluating Corbin

[retiredcoach]

I moved this post from another thread and gave it own thread because it's a different take on things. You guys give coaches way too much credit or at other times not nearly enough. Coaches aren't only about doing one thing well. Coaching is a complicated and diverse activity.

Coaching has many aspects to it. Here are a few.

1. Recruiting (or in the case of the NBA, drafting and trading (not only coaches decision)
2. Selection of assistant coaches
3. Designing an offensive and defensive system that works well for the players on the team and that can win given the competition. Coaches can redesign the systems to fit the players or they can go out and get players that fit within the system.
4. X's and O's ( how many effective plays within an offensive scheme does a team have)
5. Practice management
6. Teaching ability
7. Competition analysis and breakdown
8. Bench coaching (knowing who to change when and why, switching offensive and defensive schemes, managing officials)
9. Game management (starting lineups, time outs, clock management etc) Game management can be included in bench coaching, but I separate them because some coaches don't use time outs effectively, etc.)
10 Player management

There are other issues like managing outside distractions which include agents, sponsors, media, and administration.

Not all coaches are good at all of these. For example, I know coaches who were excellent at recruiting, but only fair to pretty good at X's and O's. Some understood that and compensated for it by keeping schemes simple or having assistant coaches who fill in the weak areas. Others didn't. I also knew coaches who had less talented players but created offensive and defensive schemes that allowed lesser talent to thrive and win a lot.

So how do I grade Corbin based on my experience and personal opinion.

1. A Players with lots of potential. This is one sweet group on many levels.

2. B Corbin's assistant coaches are okay but don't bring anything special to the party such as defensive expertise.

3. B From my point of view Corbin's offense doesn't appear optimal for this group. I like the fact that it's offense by committee. Smart. But often the offensive sets don't seem to be designed for the players. For example, Hayward's been told to create for himself and others. That's okay because Hayward can do that, but he doesn't do it as well from the SF as he does from the SG. So I think the offense is less effective than it could be and gets off to a slower start. It's going to take a long time to get Corbin's new defensive system to work well. The Jazz now have inside shot blockers so in my opinion, forcing the defenders down the middle would have been more effective this than it was last year. David Locke says Corbin spent most of training camp on pick and roll defense, and that it seems to be working. Well, if that's true, that's a good thing. But it's really too early in the season to tell how effective the Jazz are going to be against the pick and roll, or forcing ball handlers toward baseline. I don't think this was the season for major changes given all the problems including very little training camp. But the success of offensive and defensive changes won't be known for 20 more games.

4. B+ Corbin understands the X's and O's as well as any coach

5. B- Corbin may have overemphasized competition in practice. Often that works out badly. What happens is players come out of practice thinking too much about their stats and how to keep, or get, their starting role rather than how to win games. Despite the shortened training camp and preseason, Corbin installed new offensive and new defensive schemes. That is hard to do with normal practice time, and was a real reach in the present situation. I wasn't at practice so I don't know how well the practices went, so I'm evaluating this one in the blind. I number 3 above Locke says a lot of practice time went into defending the pick and roll. I can't argue with that.

6. A- I think Corbin can teach and wants to teach. So does Hornacek. I don't know about the other coaches.

7. A- Corbin and his staff know all of the competition and the other players. It's hard to keep up with all the quick trades and team composition changes that have occurred but they're doing it pretty well. It will take a lot more games to assess how well Corbin adjusts the components of the team to match up.

8. B In my opinion, Corbin is a pretty good bench coach. He seems to have a feel for the game. But his vision is sometimes clouded by bias for CJ and Bell. I'm not sure what's going on there, but it needs to change in one big hurry. A good bench coach can't compensate for the wrong combination of players.

9. B- Game Management is one area where I think Corbin is both good and bad. If I were picking lineups it would be Harris/Watson, Hayward/ Bell/ Burks, Howard/Miles, Millsap/Favors, Jefferson/Kanter with Burks replacing Bell later in the season. Why? Because I think this lineup creates the most offense early in games. I also think that the bench unit is almost as strong as the starters so that makes for a strong bench punch. I would have gone with this lineup almost out of the gate and stopped talking about changing it constantly. Maybe Corbin thinks that talking about changing the lineup keeps players competitive. I don't believe that. His clock management is good, even with CJ working against him. His feel for timeouts seems fairly good, but not game changing, and he's average to above average in most all of these areas.

10. B As far as player management goes, Corbin is well liked, but being liked isn't really the issue. The issue is getting players to buy into a system and to shape their game to fit within the system while learning to win. Coaches never get players to disregard stat lines, and players have ulterior motives for the way they play they seldom disclose. That can't be helped, but getting players to buy in is more about getting them to believe that whatever their particular needs are those needs will be met by playing within the system and winning. I don't think Corbin has accomplished that yet, especially with certain players like CJ. (Bell is another issue completely.)

10 (cont) I sometimes think I'm seeing confusion with some players as to what their particular role is and how they should perform. Sometimes that's caused by less than effective communication. For example, a coach may say that defense is the most important thing, or that assists make everyone better so look to pass the ball, etc. Some players hear those words and become committed to carrying out those instructions. Other players ignore almost everything that's said because they have their own agendas, say it's a contract year. Then during the games, one player is scoring high double digit points but doesn't pass, doesn't look to get assists and plays little to no defense, yet the coach says or does nothing with that. That causes confusion with the other players who are sacrificing their point total for assists and defense. My view is simply you say what you mean, mean what you say, enforce it and be consistent with it. The fact is very few players, even at the pro level, want to make a career on defense. They believe that almost all of the rewards come from scoring--and they are partially right. The problem is some players are naturally gifted offensively and some are naturally gifted defensively. Getting them to develop and exploit what they do well while effectively managing what they don't do well but are focused on is very tricky business. I see some of this on the Jazz. Only time will tell how well Corbin manages it.

Coaches don't add that much to win/loss records from the bench. Over the course of a season, a coach only influences the outcome of maybe 3 or 4 games a year with bench coaching. So in that sense coaches don't have much impact on how the game plays out on the court.

The number one thing is having the right players. If a coach has the right players, they don't even need to teach X's and O's or do much else. With the right group of players, if there is a ball on the court, a referee and another team to play, they will go out and whip 60% of them cold from the toss without ever having had a single practice or knowing the names of the other people on their team. This is particularly true in college. Pro sports is more complex. Coaches have less control over who they wind up with on the team. They have a lower level of authority. They can't take away a guy's contract or even fine them much. Sprewell tries to strangle Carlesimo and all he gets is suspended for 68 games costing him $6.4 million. If he had done the same thing away from the arena, he would have been charged with attempted murder and done time. If he had done that in college, he would have lost his scholarship and been expelled and maybe charged. So how much authority does a coach have in the Pro's? What would I have done if I were commissioner? I would have banned Sprewell from ever playing pro-ball again.

I think Corbin has some player mismatches on this team. Most pro teams do, and I think he might not have taken the best approach to preseason. But he's going to be around for a couple of years at least. Sometime around mid-season, I think this group of guys is going to become hard to beat, but it's not going to be pleasant getting there. Corbin is on his own learning curve which is running parallel to the players. That kind of learning curve hurts and can go either way, but it's too early to tell.

When I look at Corbin, I don't see a good coach or a bad coach. I see a coach that is good at some parts of coaching, isn't so good at some and is trying to learn. How that will work out in the long run isn't known. I think he's got at least 2 years, if not 3, to make it work.

Anyway, I know people on the forums don't like to read long posts, but (TS) there it is anyway. There is no audio version or cliff notes. My opinions are my own and don't reflect those of management, morons or local fans who have never played or coached a thing and think because they have watched 500 games on TV, they're experts.

Buckle up boys and girls because it's going to be a volatile ride this season.

[maxec72]

Great job! Analysis of personality Corbin, his tactics and methods of work impressive. For me the best post I read recently in this forum. And not to long post for me;-)

[kamazilla]

Thanks coach. Your analysis is always welcome and appreciated.

[HolyToledo]

I have been pleasantly surprised by Corbin. He has used the work ethic demanded by Sloan, but added aspects that were missing specifically alot more running of the ball and much better defense stressed.

[The59Sound]

Disregarding the unnecessarily surly delivery and the fact that I don't agree with everything you said (I'm just one of the many morons/fans who's watched 500 games on TV, after all), that was a good read, as most of your posts are, RC.

[UTJazzFan_Echo1]

Here are my thoughts... and my response.

Right now, the Jazz are running a very simplified offense. They probably only use 3 or 4 offensive sets for the entire game and rarely deviate for those.

They're pounding the ball inside every time down the floor, which makes sense considering we have the advantage in the post almost every night but I would really like to see more plays drawn up for guys like Josh Howard and Gordon Hayward on the perimeter/mid-range. They're more often than not tasked with creating off the dribble or the pick and roll when they can't force the ball down low and only as a last option. I believe that they would be much better utilized if the Jazz started mixing in more of the curls they use to run for Korver and Harpring to free them up for open jumpers.

They still run those curls but they're designed more to get the ball down low than to actually score off of them. Just watch when Raja, CJ or Hayward come off the down screens; rarely are they looking to take the jumper. More often than not, they will pull the ball out and dish it down into the post.

I don't mind the simplicity of the offense right now, especially because they had a shortened training camp, but I'm really hoping Corbin can expand the perimeter aspect of the offensive sets a bit more sometime in the near future. Right now, our offense is just too one dimensional. There has been multiple times in these first few games when the Jazz literally ran the same offensive set 6 or 7 times in a row and only went to the first option (Jefferson in the post).

The old Jazz offense use to have the mid-range curls, guard post-ups, pick and pop, base-line pick and roll, etc. etc. Perhaps some of the limitations on the offensive end is due to personnel limitations but regardless, I think our offense needs to become more dynamic.

That's the biggest thing I'm looking for with Corbin but I also agree that his line-up and game management needs to improve. His line-ups/rotations have been rather odd and frankly questionable so I'd like to see him develop something more consistent and... logical. I think a lot of the players' confusion over their roles stems from the inconsistent line-up and rotation management so once he figures that out, I feel like things will start to run much more smoothly for everyone.

I do however really like his teaching abilities and I think his assistants are great. I think hiring a skills coach to work with the bigs along with having Hornacek on the staff to help with the guards is going to pay off big down the road.

[retiredcoach]

The59Sound on Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:47 pm
Disregarding the unnecessarily surly delivery and the fact that I don't agree with everything you said (I'm just one of the many morons/fans who's watched 500 games on TV, after all), that was a good read, as most of your posts are, RC.

Sound, I guess surly is part of getting old. I don't even notice it, if it's there. I certainly wouldn't expect you to agree with a lot of what I said. In general, I'm probably off on 50% of it, but it's what I'm seeing right now.

Certainly not all fans who watch 500 games and have opinions are morons. Just a couple that seem to sit by me. The problem I have is when fans insist they are right when they don't know squadouche about what they are talking about. I used to sit in the stands on the visitors side a couple of times a year to let the assistant coaches handle the game. Doing that gave me a different perspective on the team, etc and on the fans watching. Every once in awhile a fan would talk about a play, a foul or something else, and I would say to them, that's an interesting take on it, but here's what I think it was. Nine out of ten times I got told I didn't know what I was talking about. What!

So I apologize if I seem skeptical of fans. I married one who has been to every game for 30 years and still gets it wrong half the time. (I hope she don't read this!)

[ColdBlue]

^ 99% of fans have their head up their arse. This forum is only about 80%.

As far as my take on Corbin... not enough time has passed to make a good evaluation. Right now it is knee jerk. One thing I do know is that Raja is hurting our team.

[babyjax13]

I pretty much agree with ColdBlue. I don't like the starting lineup, but his rotations - generally speaking - have been OK. We'll see with more time; I'm trying to with-hold judgement until 10-15 games into the season, but sometimes it's pretty hard not to get excited/angry about some of the things we're seeing.

[Neon Black]

I'm no expert, but I've liked Corbin from the beginning, despite the peripheral turbulence on the team. Some of the "fire corbin" threads on this board had me questioning if I wanted to post here anymore. Not because I disagreed, but simply because I think it's ridiculous how much we, as fans, expect from our coaches and players....we want it all and we want it NOW. Any sign of failure or struggle and we cue the same old self-entitled "fire dverybody" tapes. Well failure is a necessary step on the road to success. Coebin is learning, this rag-tag grouo if players is adjusting, and so far (to me) the coaching staff seems to be implementing the right mix of player and system management. I like his passion...I loved the shot of him sweating on the sidelines, heavily breathing as he pulled at his tight shirt collar after pushing his team to a win vs. Memphis. I like that he's been just flexible enough with rotations and playing time...i like that, despite his struggles, he continues to give Raja a vote of confidence by letting him start, and I also like that he's not scared to limit Raja or Cj's playing time when they're hurting the team, Or when Alec Burks is making an impact (how much would Burks/Kanter have played this year under Sloan?).

More than anything, I realize how limited and fallible I can be as a fan...we don't see nearly as much as we'd need to to really KNOW what we claim to 75% of the time. I could be wrong about Corbin or anyone else. But I'll at least give them a shot.

Hell, I'll give them hundreds of shots. Cus heaven knows I've missed my fair amount in life, too.

[Neon Black]

Please forgive the atrocious spelling above. You can only type so fast on a smartphone.