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No one has contributed to the Steve Clifford thread since June, so I am starting a new one. Head coaches are always important, but with so many new faces and so many missing players for the season opener, Mr. Clifford's job tonight becomes more than usually difficult.

I find it ironic that in a sport that thrives on the improvisational skills of the five players on the court, the Hornets have a coach that is set in his ways, changes slowly, and often fails to adapt to the flow of the individual game. We did see signs last season that he will let a hot player stay on the court. Since we have no idea who that might be--apart from Kemba Walker--lets hope that trend continues.

I have a feeling that some players are going to surprise us in a positive way. Will Coach Clifford be open-minded enough to reward them?

5% chance he survives this season. High payroll and a weak conference and he still cant make us a playoff contender?

He just doesn't get it. This team cannot score unless we start going much smaller.

He’s going to have to find a way to put the best combinations of players on the floor at the same time for us. It looks murky and it doesn’t seem easy to figure out what those best combinations are.

Chemistry is so important when you lack superstars. I think it’s there somewhere but he’s the head coach and needs to maximize the roster.

HoopsMalone wrote:5% chance he survives this season. High payroll and a weak conference and he still cant make us a playoff contender?

He just doesn't get it. This team cannot score unless we start going much smaller.

What scorers did he not play tonight?

I've already gone deep into how I think we should play. This isn't it.... we are in big trouble

Like...are you criticizing tonight's rotation?

We have the right to critique, especially when we lose to a team that’s a fringe playoff team like the Pistons.

I understand that there’s injuries but I watch teams like the Spurs beat teams without their top players all the time. We had our top player in Kemba and wine allegedly key rotation players like Dwight, Cody, and Frank.

We should’ve won tonight or at least not look like we were inferior.

I didn't say we can't critique, I was just curious what the criticism is. Was anyone unhappy with the rotation tonight?

HoopsMalone wrote:5% chance he survives this season. High payroll and a weak conference and he still cant make us a playoff contender?

He just doesn't get it. This team cannot score unless we start going much smaller.

Its going to take a lot for MJ to fire him. MJ loves his old school attitude and they both believe in the same 80's/90s basketball cliches.

Braggins wrote:

HoopsMalone wrote:5% chance he survives this season. High payroll and a weak conference and he still cant make us a playoff contender?

He just doesn't get it. This team cannot score unless we start going much smaller.

Its going to take a lot for MJ to fire him. MJ loves his old school attitude and they both believe in the same 80's/90s basketball cliches.

Cliff just isn't right for the league anymore or this roster. I feel the talent is here but he isn't the one to put it together in a competitive enough manner.

No idea who is out there as a possible replacement, though. Any ideas who you'd all like to see get a shot?

The sky is not falling, we were without 3 of the top 8 players on the team. Other guys were ice cold.
Clifford has the teams respect and until he doesn't he and the Hornets should be fine.

Eh. I'm glass half-empty with Cliff, but one game isn't enough of a sample size for this year.

Well for starters its apparent we need kemba/cody in the game together. And frank/cody had great numbers as a pair last season so I'd go with a Kemba/Monk/MKG/Frank/Cody starting lineup. That lineup should be a plus unit.

Then you put Lamb and Dwight on the 2nd unit together. That way Lamb can iso on offense and Dwight can attack the glass. Lamb doesn't need a bevy of talent around him because he's a 1 on 1 player anyway. Then Dwight gives that lineup enough defense to hopefully hang close to even.

This current lineup situation is gonna get us killed and dig us a deep early season hole.

HoopsMalone wrote:Well for starters its apparent we need kemba/cody in the game together. And frank/cody had great numbers as a pair last season so I'd go with a Kemba/Monk/MKG/Frank/Cody starting lineup.

The top 3-man lineup last season (to my surprise) was Walker-Kaminsky-Zeller with 400 minutes at +14.1 per game. Next was Walker-Bellinelli-Zeller with 371 minutes at +11.8. No other 3-man unit was close, although Walker-Batum-Zeller came in third with 1313 minutes at +7.3.

So when you are head coach and you are missing a key starter for the first two months of the season, you should go with what worked in the immediate past. I always thought starting Howard was a mistake. Start him if you must, but then pull him five or six minutes in for Zeller.

Yeah we need to be focusing on that Walker/Kaminsky/Zeller pairing. If you throw in Monk/MKG you have a great PNR pairing between Walker/Zeller and 2 shooters Monk/Kaminsky. One of whom is a good ballhandler, the other is a good passer. Then MKG is the offensive rebounder/cutter. That's a good offensive lineup.

Defensively, Zeller is mobile to defend the PNR and MKG can guard their best wing scorer. It's not a great defensive lineup by any means, but with those two it should be passable.

Then the Lamb/Howard pairing gives us just enough offense and just enough defense to throw our scrubs in around them (Marv, Graham, MCW, Bacon, etc) with maybe one or two starters.

We could really use Batum.... ugh

euphorbus wrote:

HoopsMalone wrote:Well for starters its apparent we need kemba/cody in the game together. And frank/cody had great numbers as a pair last season so I'd go with a Kemba/Monk/MKG/Frank/Cody starting lineup.

The top 3-man lineup last season (to my surprise) was Walker-Kaminsky-Zeller with 400 minutes at +14.1 per game. Next was Walker-Bellinelli-Zeller with 371 minutes at +11.8. No other 3-man unit was close, although Walker-Batum-Zeller came in third with 1313 minutes at +7.3.

So when you are head coach and you are missing a key starter for the first two months of the season, you should go with what worked in the immediate past. I always thought starting Howard was a mistake. Start him if you must, but then pull him five or six minutes in for Zeller.

We talked about this alot over summer. Granted, I feel like I flew solo in giving Marco his due cause off screen gravity isn't easily replaced but if memory serves correctly Braggins and LOJ were all over the Kemba lineups. Unfortunately thus far the 3-5 best things going for Kemba last season have been removed from Kemba and those things were adjacent skills.

Cody, Frank, Nic, and Marco have been Kemba's best compliments as a pro which should surprise exactly no one.

Mystical Apples wrote:

euphorbus wrote:

HoopsMalone wrote:Well for starters its apparent we need kemba/cody in the game together. And frank/cody had great numbers as a pair last season so I'd go with a Kemba/Monk/MKG/Frank/Cody starting lineup.

The top 3-man lineup last season (to my surprise) was Walker-Kaminsky-Zeller with 400 minutes at +14.1 per game. Next was Walker-Bellinelli-Zeller with 371 minutes at +11.8. No other 3-man unit was close, although Walker-Batum-Zeller came in third with 1313 minutes at +7.3.

So when you are head coach and you are missing a key starter for the first two months of the season, you should go with what worked in the immediate past. I always thought starting Howard was a mistake. Start him if you must, but then pull him five or six minutes in for Zeller.

We talked about this alot over summer. Granted, I flew solo in giving Marco his due cause off screen gravity isn't easily replaced but if memory serves correctly Braggins and LOJ were all over it. The 3-5 best things going for Kemba last season have been removed from Kemba. And those things were adjacent skills.

Cody, Frank, Nic, and Marco have been Kemba's best compliments as a pro which should surprise exactly no one.

Byron Mullens had a ton of gravity. You could tell when he jumped

That said I'm not gonna go revisionist. I agreed with the Dwight acquisition but I also believed he raised the floor and not the ceiling. Balancing near and long term objectives is on Clifford but IMO will be challenging given Dwight's personality.

Eh. The thing with Zeller is he can't take the wear and tear of 82 game season. So I'm fine with Dwight taking some of the wear. However Cody needs to play with Kemba to maximize both their effectiveness. The Batum injury really blows.

Cody needs to see more minutes with the starters. As much as I want him to start, it's not going to happen, but hopefully Clifford will start to stagger their minutes between lineups.

I wish we could have jumped in on the Nerlens Noel trade instead. Dallas essentially gave up a second rounder and then signed him to a one year, $4 million deal to be their backup center. But I guess teams were expecting him to get a huge deal or something.