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In my opinion he is the worst coach on the NBA. No excusses for him

I'm curious to see what his plans are with Stromile Swift. The possiblity remains that Pau Gasol might be removed from the lineup of the Grizzlies can't win with Stromile in the doghouse.

I'm probably being hopelessly optimistic...

Benching Gasol for Swift would be a pretty drastic move and I really doubt he'll do it. If Gasol and Miller continue to get big minutes and continue to lose ballgames he should be fired.

You guys are way better than your record. too much talent to be losing so many games so yes he should

I don't know but the fact that Chris Wallace keeps saying that he like the talent on this team may lead one to believe that he expects a better result and since he does not feel compelled to make a trade maybe his thinking is Iavaroni is on a short leash. Remember Iavaroni was hired prior to Chris Wallace so how much authority he has for such a move is the question. Furthermore Michael Heisley is going to go Benoit on someone if he has to pay someone else money to sit and do nothing.

After weighing all of these it would seem Iavaroni is not going anywhere.

Too early to fire him, but his ability is now in question. For sure.

This could be a Scott Skiles type situation. Skiles didn't work out in his first job in Phoenix but did well in Chicago.

No --- a few months, that's not enough time to evaluate him.
Give the guy a chance.
New coach, new system, changed team make-up --- all needs time to shake down.
Look at what happened in Toronto --- a Sports Illustrated player poll named Sam Mitchell the worst coach in the league, and the following season he won the Best Coach award. I don't agree with either of those evaluations, but it just goes to show how opinions change with changing team circumstances.
I think Iavaroni brings good experience and skills and attitude to the job. In the book "Seven Seconds Or Less" he is shown to have made a great contribution to coaching in Phoenix. I certainly wouldn't fire him on the basis of how he has been able to apply these things in the first three months on the job here.
Let's do some deep breathing, and let the season unfold.

Obviously, something isn't right with this team and it seems to me there are three possible options - make a coaching change, make personnel changes, or do nothing substantial on either front and hope that it fixes itself (whatever it is). In reality, I think the Grizz will go for the third option until the end of the season at least.

As for me, I never liked the idea of making personnel moves to fit a coach's style - but the problems this team has are inherent in the personnel IMO (i.e. weak defensively at almost every position and throughout the bench, weak on the boards, no leadership, a lack of consistancy from night to night in almost every aspect of the game); and I don't think any change in coaching could fix them (but in all fairness, maybe some of these problems can be attributed to a young roster lacking substantial NBA experience). So, again referring to my three options, I think the only choice is a substantial change in personnel if the organization wants to change the results it's seeing on the floor (and which affects the results the business-side sees in the stands).

In short, it's not time to fire the coach IMO.

Those are all good points jefe. Until these problems are address with the team. These weaknesses the Grizzlies have will not go away by themselves. It's like waiting on a bullet wound to stop bleeding by itself w/o any medical help.

The Browns had Bill Belichick as a coach, but felt like he too was under performing. It's hard to be a coach because look at Doc Rivers last year, many wanted his head but now he's great? Sure the Grizz have lots of talent but one it's young talent, and two it's not his fault that the best players on the team can't play great defense. If you look at the times that we actually did play D against the Kings, it was great. We got the stop which led to easy buckets which is what Marc's been preaching, and is Marc's fault when the team misses open jumpers? Because i've seen so many open shots missed which is something he can't control. All he can do is come up with the plays that get the shots open. And would you really want Rudy and others to go through 4 coaches in 2 years?

the reason why doc rivers sucked last year and he looks great now is one and the same: he doesn

in other words: kevin garnett for coach of the year.

and about rudy gay: two wrongs don

I don't think a change in coaches will magically allow Rudy to play defense. But why isn't Marc getting any credit for the improvement in Rudy's game? Last year under Fratello and Barone he was up and down ALL year and since Marc's come he's improved greatly, no credit to him for that?

Grizzfan4liphe wrote:I don't think a change in coaches will magically allow Rudy to play defense. But why isn't Marc getting any credit for the improvement in Rudy's game? Last year under Fratello and Barone he was up and down ALL year and since Marc's come he's improved greatly, no credit to him for that?

Good point about the blossoming of Rudy this year, but to me coach Iavaroni hasn't done enough to hold the entire team equally accountable for poor defensive play.

Rudy has been far better defensively than Mike Miller has. Miller, when caught under the basket on rotation, probably gets scored on at least 80% of the time, and Miller is also terrible in transition defense. If Miller is our only guy back defensively it's almost a guaranteed layup for the opposition. Coach Iavaroni needs to hold him accountable for giving up easy baskets on defense and not fouling.

Stromile's defensive play hasn't been given enough value. Coach Iavaroni said publicly that he valued Stromile's defense and liked having it in the starting lineup, yet Stromile has not been in the starting lineup more than just a couple times this season, and the Griz did ok in all those games.