Next 8 Games...Fools Gold? Or Good Trading Opportunity?

[BigSlam]

It's DJ's fault.

[captaincrunk]

Battery, what the **** do you think coaches are for? This is a question. It's not rhetorical, what the **** do you think they're for? Are they there to make the players look less violent for the media? Are they there because of some conspiracy to kill whitey? Because clearly you don't think they're there to coach.

[Battery]

It's DJ's fault.

[fatlever]

battery - i wasnt make that post to gloat or anything because we won a game. like you said, outside of a fantastic run in the 2nd quarter, we kinda got our ass kicked. i dont expect silas to perform miracles. we both know the team lacks talent and can only go so far as currently constructed.

dj definitely was lacking confidence, but that was mainly a direct result of the abuse he took from larry brown. this is what i am referring to when i talk about larry not being able to manage people or adjust his style. larry knows one way to coach, which in dj's case was to ride djs ass relentlessly hoping that eventually his message would register and dj would play the way he wanted him to play. or, trash him enough and cry to the front office enough that they traded dj for someone else. once again, larry decided that his way was the only way and if a player cant handle his way then screw that player. it seems that larry just doesnt understand that you cant treat every player the exact same. the message and approach that worked for felton might not be the same message that works for dj.

personally i just dont agree with this type of approach towards managing people. i dont believe in a world where everything is black and white, especially when it comes to stuff like managing personalities. while it is not healthy to bend rules for certain players or to have blatant biases for or against people it is also not healthy to live in a world of absolutes and no exceptions. i would prefer to have a coach who could find a balance between these two philosophies, while still having enough basketball knowledge and motivational skills to make us a winner.

larry should have found a way to connect with dj in order to get the best out of him. larry should have realized that his approach wasnt working and it was simply making the situation worse. we can sit here and call dj a pussy because he couldnt handle larry and that may be true, but ultimately it was larry's job to get the best out of each of his players and i dont believe he achieved that goal with many of the players on the team this year.

[fatlever]

Battery, what the **** do you think coaches are for? This is a question. It's not rhetorical, what the **** do you think they're for? Are they there to make the players look less violent for the media? Are they there because of some conspiracy to kill whitey? Because clearly you don't think they're there to coach.

i am afraid that battery believe that the coaches job is simply to create plays, teach those plays to the players during practice and then decide which players and plays will be used during a course of a game. unfortunately that is only part of coaching. it completely ignores the human element of managing. while a coach must do those things, he also must act like a ceo and delegate to assistants, talk to press, communicate with gms/owners and manage people.

rarely does a coach excel at all phases of this. great coaches recognizes their weaknesses and surround themselves with people who can balance their weaknesses. phil jackson has never been a great x and o's guy. his strength is motivation and managing egos. but phil is also smart enough to surround himself with someone like tex winters who was the mastermind of the triangle.

this reminds me... i was watching the spurs the other day and they were talking about how popovich and his assistants realized this offseason that they were no longer the defensive team that used to be because of duncans decline. despite alway being a defensive guy, popovich knew he had to rebuild his team as an faster paced offensive team in order to succeed and hope that when it matters most the team can still get some stops. he changed his philosophy to match is rosters. he recognized the need for change and he made the change. what he didnt do was continue to be stubborn and stick to his old ways or start demanding massive roster changes. popovich was a larry disciple but obviously his willingness and ability to adapt and his ability to manage people is why 1) the spurs have the best record in the league this year playing a new style and 2) why he has been able to stay in the same place for this long.

popovich >>>> larry brown

all these ass kissers in basketball can talk about how great larry is, but when push comes to shove i guarantee you none of them would actually take larry over popovich, who in my opinion is the best all-around coach in the nba over the past 20 years.

[captaincrunk]

Battery, what the **** do you think coaches are for? This is a question. It's not rhetorical, what the **** do you think they're for? Are they there to make the players look less violent for the media? Are they there because of some conspiracy to kill whitey? Because clearly you don't think they're there to coach.

i am afraid that battery believe that the coaches job is simply to create plays, teach those plays to the players during practice and then decide which players and plays will be used during a course of a game.

Oh I get it. Basically, he lives in the world of "coach mode" in 2K11.

[GQCoolest]

Battery, what the **** do you think coaches are for? This is a question. It's not rhetorical, what the **** do you think they're for? Are they there to make the players look less violent for the media? Are they there because of some conspiracy to kill whitey? Because clearly you don't think they're there to coach.

i am afraid that battery believe that the coaches job is simply to create plays, teach those plays to the players during practice and then decide which players and plays will be used during a course of a game.

Oh I get it. Basically, he lives in the world of "coach mode" in 2K11.

Well, you still have to assign player roles... some would just watch player morale sink like a stone and wonder why the team wasn't playing as well.

[Bassman]

Let me just say (relative to the original starting post about "fools gold") that it is a very worthy topic of discussion. I also believe that this team needs some different players. MJ would only blow it up if we continued down the road of total crap, with more high loss totals to bad teams. I expected the team to get a great lift from Silas and they responded. I think the love train will continue, but I want to keep perspective. This is a great time to evaluate players in a different style, with a different set of eyes, and determine who's here for the future. I also believe MJ should make some surgical deals to improve weaknesses, retain some young potential, and seek to develop those players over the next several years. Silas may or may not be around next season, but his input on the players will be valued. MJ and Higgins already have their ideas, and have developed trade scenarios to use depending on their observations.

My bet is they wish to retain Crash & Tyrus, with all others in play. DJ is a wild card. If he proves to Silas that he can grow into a quality PG, who knows? But his trade value grows with games like last night. My point is this; don't fall in love with anybody during these games, cause that tickle you feel might be just what another team gets tempted by!

[BigSlam]

I think the love train will continue, but I want to keep perspective.

This is key.

Last night was fun and all and if we didn't have 23 turn overs (none from our two PG's funnily enough) leading to a third of the Pistons points we would have blown them out for the entire game, but that will count for nothing if the bubble bursts, the excitment vanishes and we just go back to slogging it out.

One thing is for sure though - everyone, and I mean EVERYONE looked like they were having fun last night.......................except for 1 person.

[ohara]

It is almost unfair to compare Popovich and Jackson to other NBA coaches. Those two are on an elite level which no other coach in the league is near. Doc Rivers is 3rd on my list, but still a good distance behind. And LB cannot hold their jocks. Those 3 get everything out of their players, know when to criticize them and when not to do so publicly, and they will defend their players when necessary. They can change their philosopy, make a player adapt to the coaches philosophy, are all pretty good with the X's and O's, and they all know how to manage their players, whether huge egos are involved or not. Those 3 have coaching skills. This is why they win. Let's not insult them by comparing LB to them. Oh, and Popovich is the only one of the three I like at all. They just all 3 have my respect and admiration for their abilities.

[captaincrunk]

One thing is for sure though - everyone, and I mean EVERYONE looked like they were having fun last night.......................except for 1 person.

It's Battery, isn't it? We should trade him to the Clippers.

[fatlever]

i'd love to see a poll done by current players where they had to rank the top 10 coaches in the league

[SWedd523]

Rivers doesn't deserve being 3rd on any coaching list. His teams sucked nuts until he got KG and Ray. Go figure.

[Battery]

Fats,

I understand everything you're saying. I always have regarding Brown and how he deals with players. But this isn't some mid-level college program, these players get paid a tremendous amount of money to perform at a high level no matter who the coach is. You can talk all you want about a coach who's great at managing personalities but if you look at all GREAT coaches in every sport, the one thing they all have in common is that they're VERY hard on their players.

If DJ was the point guard on San Antonio and he continuously blew defensive assignments I can guarantee you not only would Duncan call him out publicly but Pop would be all over him to. Actually DJ wouldn't last very long in San Antonio if he didn't grab his cajones man up and want to prove his coach wrong.

Gregg Popovich calling out Richard Jefferson, called him a dog...
http://larrybrownsports.com/basketball/gregg-popovich-guys-played-like-dogs-calling-out-richard-jefferson/16202

“That’s just a sloppy game, there’s no reason for that. So I was very disappointed in us not being very sharp and I think we’ve got to have a few more people step up and play worth a damn. I thought we had a lot of guys that played like dogs.”

Wow I could only imagine your response if LB said we played like dogs, but Pop according to you is a great motivator of men so he gets a pass.

Gregg Popovich commenting in 2007 after his team just won 13 straight games
http://larrybrownsports.com/basketball/spurs-have-won-13-straight-but-gregg-popovich-isnt-happy/230

The Spurs’ execution, Popovich said, was poor.

Their focus? “Poor.”

Attention to detail? “Poor.”

“We blew an opportunity to progress and get better,” Popovich said, matter-of-factly. “That’s the goal, to get better every practice and every game, and we wasted that tonight … It doesn’t mean a damn thing. What means something is getting better.”

“I don’t think we took a step backward … We might have taken one to the side a little bit, but it’s a win. We just move on to the next one.”

And this is what I'm talking about, Pop and Duncan commenting about Tony Parker...

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70866

Parker joined the Spurs as a 19-year-old and played like one. Often out of control on the court and not driven to work hard off it, he was such an enigma that Duncan barely talked to him his rookie season. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich spent most of Parker's first three years yelling at him.

"I was 19, so it was a little like father and son," Parker says of Popovich. "He was always hard on me. He always screamed at me and always tried to push me because I'm a little bit nonchalant sometimes in practice and a little bit lazy."

In his second year, Parker won his first ring with the 2002-03 Spurs. But Speedy Claxton spelled him much of the Finals against the Nets and Kidd, whom the Spurs pursued as a free agent that summer. Duncan even drove Kidd around town, but Kidd chose to stay with the Nets.

Parker says the courtship bothered him, but only that summer: "It's a business. It just made me want to improve."

He did. Quickly.

"He's been through hell and back," says Duncan, who now says Parker is a "gift to my career."

And there you go, if this was DJ under Pop what do you think would have happened? How long would DJ last if he sulked and played as if he were wearing a dress? Uh not long my friend.

Here are some Pat Riley quotes from a few years back...

Just a lack of effort and a horrible attitude, the attitude they showed, I should write a check to each season-ticket holder. I should write the check and not even them, because I can’t get them to play hard.”
…
“The season’s over for them, that’s how they’re playing, some of them,” he said, stopping short of naming names. “There’s just an apathetic approach of ours. It’s so unprofessional, it’s ridiculous.”

‘I’m not going to give him a pass,” Riley said of Wade. “He did not do the job defensively that he had to do. And we just have to face that fact.”

Wade commenting about Riley's expectations of him...

”Coach [Pat Riley] expects the world out of me,” Wade said Sunday. “He expects more out of me than anybody probably ever expected.’

Point is, ALL GREAT COACHES in EVERY sport are incredibly hard on their players and call them out both in public and also in practice when they aren't meeting their high standards. Phil Jackson did it to Kobe and back in his Bulls days with Pippen, Bill Parcells always called out his players publicly, Pat Riley always did it with the Lakers, Knicks and the Heat. Thats what happens in professional sports when you have great coaches who are trying to get their players to always maintain a high level of play and not to settle for mediocrity. The moment you let up is when the players start to relax and get comfortable, then you no longer have players who strive to be great. We just don't have a good overall team here so little things like how a coach motivates his players get magnified, but in reality, this is how great coaches motivate their players to become great, not just in the NBA but in all sports. And in all sports you need talent plus coachable players to win. And it also helps when you have veterans who understand all of this and lead by example. Instead here we had that pr*ck Nazr undermining Larry's coaching relationship with DJ and the rest of the team. These types of players need to go, can't build a team with them. Nazr pulled this same crap under Popovich and so they dumped his lame team polluting ass.

Also, coddling players does not work. You need to break them down when they aren't meeting expectations in order to get at their very core which is their competitiveness, pride and wanting to always prove to everyone how great they are. All pro athletes were great players growing up, but what happens to most of them when they turn pro is they lose that inner strength and drive which made them great at one time. When a coach challenges them, it goes back to when they were going growing up and for the player that means constantly having to prove people wrong. It's what drives players to be great and it's what keeps players like Kobe who has everything already to constantly maintain that competitive fire. Some players are naturally gifted self motivators but for the majority they aren't so you need to a coach to constantly stoke those flames. Nicey nice does not work in the pro sports. Nicey nice is settling for mediocrity. Thats what you want you here. If we had Pop, you can bet your ass he'd kick a few more than a few here, provided this same cast of clowns would even last more than a week under him.

[countryboi]

Popovich is better than jackson in my opinion.....popovich never had rosters half as talented as some of the teams jackson as coached

[SWedd523]

Let's put the blame on the players.


ALL of the players.

[fatlever]

good points battery.

i definitely agree that coaches need to hold players accountable and occasionally rip then in the media to get a point across. but there is a big difference between knowing when to rip a player vs what larry was doing where he ripped them after every game for 2 months straight.

but anyway...

let me ask you this... have any of the other great nba coaches ever had a team quit on them? i honestly cant ever remember a season where a team quit on jackson, popovich or sloan. but for larry, it seems to be a reoccurring theme. why is that?

[ohara]

Battery, if you had taken the time to read my post, I said that they know when to criticize players and when not to do it publicly. Sometimes it takes a public ripping. Larry Brown just takes it too far and rips his players ALL the time. So you can ride Larry Brown's jock all you want, but the man still is an a$$.

[BigSlam]

let me ask you this... have any of the other great nba coaches ever had a team quit on them? i honestly cant ever remember a season where a team quit on jackson, popovich or sloan. but for larry, it seems to be a reoccurring theme. why is that?

Because the only thing bigger than his ego is his insistance that it's still 1965.

[Battery]

good points battery.

i definitely agree that coaches need to hold players accountable and occasionally rip then in the media to get a point across. but there is a big difference between knowing when to rip a player vs what larry was doing where he ripped them after every game for 2 months straight.

but anyway...

let me ask you this... have any of the other great nba coaches ever had a team quit on them? i honestly cant ever remember a season where a team quit on jackson, popovich or sloan. but for larry, it seems to be a reoccurring theme. why is that?

Completely different situations and teams. We do not have a Deron Williams, Kobe, Tim Duncan, Ginobilli, Parker, John Stockton, Karl Malone etc. etc. players that can will a team to victory when their team is having an off night or even when their going through rough stretches of the season. You need those tough players to pull you out of those times when things aren't clicking and when everyone isn't on the same page. It's just that when those teams with those types of players go through those stretches they don't last as long because of the great players. So "quitting" to those teams is a few more losses whereas with us where we're not that talented to begin with, 9-19 comes across like the team has "quit" on Larry. But in actuality ALL teams go through these rough stretches but we just don't have the type of players this season who can pull us out of the tough times.

The Lakers right now are a perfect example. They seem like a team in turmoil, has anyone suggested the players have quit on Phil? No and it's because they have someone like Kobe who gets them wins on days where it seems like the rest of the team has laid down like dogs. But if they didn't have Kobe, what would their record be? Probably under .500 with the way the rest of that team has played. And then the questions about Phil's coaching skills would start to pop up.

Last night DJ and the rest of this bunch had almost a week to ponder what went wrong. I can bet all of them to a man took stock in their own play, which I'm sure made them feel embarrassed and struck at their very inner core which I described in my earlier post. That is what motivated them last night, their pride and embarrassment and wanting to prove they aren't a bunch of chumps.

Now the trick is to keep it up. LB can't get fired after every game and Silas will be here at least to the end of the season. So it will be up to the players to continue with that inner strength and determination of ALWAYS wanting to prove everyone wrong. A coaches system is not going to change hustle, effort and desire to be great, it's going to be coaches and players themselves challenging one another to ALWAYS strive for excellence and not to settle for mediocrity. Thats how you become a good player in the Pro's and how you become a good team. You cannot let up, players or coaches, otherwise someone has to go and it's usually the head coach because you can't fire all the players.

About Raymond. What do you think made him become a better player this season? Mike D'Antoni? Hogwash. He hasn't been there long enough. What made Raymond become much better was Michael Jordan not resigning him this summer. That struck at Ray's inner core and it's made him want to prove everyone wrong EVERY TIME he steps on the basketball court. Because of that rejection, Ray took stock in himself and what LB taught him the past two years about ALWAYS giving 110% effort in practice and in games, this has translated into more focus, determination and a tremendous amount of leadership which he's passed onto his teammates.

Getting back to the lakers, kobe just made the comment about some players on his team being satisfied with two rings and not giving an all out effort every time they step on the court. Obviously this was a shot at Pau Gasol. He was challenging him at his very core, saying he's basically half-assing it this season. Maybe he's right maybe he's wrong, but Kobe is striking at the heart of what every good player has always relied on and that is pride in their ability to always give 110% effort even on days when they might not be contributing on the stat sheet. This is why Larry always said you cannot coach hustle and effort and you can only tell a player in so many ways that he's not giving 110% effort at all times before you say enough is enough. And in our case it took LB getting fired for the players to realize they just weren't giving that good team effort at all times.