Do you honestly believe Mosley is an NBA caliber head coach?

[tiderulz]

Yes. The fact that NBA players play hard for him every night, I do believe he is an NBA coach.

As a championship head coach? Hard to say, but that is possible. Even before these injuries happened, Mosley has already contemplated using 3 7’0” in a lineup. It shows that he is innovative and open to ideas, and that’s a good trait to have.

do they? with two players getting 1 rebound each? rebounding is definitely a stat about playing hard. im not saying fire him, but unless some improvement happens regarding his coaching as the year goes on, his seat should be warm

[eyriq]

Pleased to see the yes's doubling up the no's so far. I said yes because I think he has put together some interesting rotations, has created a team identity during a tanking year (doesn't seem easy to do that though it does seem to be crumbling lately), has good body language, and I'm pleased with player development. Lets just say it out front, I don't really have any good criteria for measuring coaching quality lol.

[The-Stallion70]

We are also missing 8 rotation guys which you left out.

Both teams had guys out, we got our best two players on the floor for both games. Sixers had their top three players all out, they still smoked us by a combined 38 points in two games.

Doesn't look good for front office, coach or anybody in the organization to perform like this. After 10 years of tanking we are still doing this and blaming these kinds of performances on tanking/intentionally being bad. Fact is, we had our sixth pick in the loaded 2018 draft playing, we had our 2022 #1 pick playing, we had one of our 2021 lottery picks playing, we had our shooting guard free agent making eight figures a year whose shooting was supposed to help spacing, playing.

And we still performed like this against an even more depleted team.

Disappointing is the only word that comes to mind. I'm not necessarily calling for immediate firings but this just looks like more of the same that we've come to expect from the Magic.

[purpleswordfish]

If he didn't get hired with the Magic, he would surely have been hired elsewhere. I was shocked he didn't get the Mavericks job when that opened up that same summer. The Mavericks roster was full of guys vouching for him. So, that would be an argument that he's an NBA-caliber coach.

Additionally, you look at his background and it matches up with what the Magic are trying to accomplish presently. He was specifically given a player development role when he worked under George Karl with the Nuggets. He worked with young Cavs teams that included a developing Kyrie Irving.

I don't know if this board criticizes coaching so much out of boredom or from the standpoint of genuinely thinking it'll make a difference. This team could have mid-90's Phil Jackson and would finish in the lottery. The front office is mostly to blame since they've consistently handed out contracts to players that do not play and have ridiculous injury histories. I thought the Grant Hill contract was bad until Weltman and Hammond gave Isaac and Fultz giant extensions.

[pepe1991]

If he didn't get hired with the Magic, he would surely have been hired elsewhere. I was shocked he didn't get the Mavericks job when that opened up that same summer. The Mavericks roster was full of guys vouching for him. So, that would be an argument that he's an NBA-caliber coach.

Additionally, you look at his background and it matches up with what the Magic are trying to accomplish presently. He was specifically given a player development role when he worked under George Karl with the Nuggets. He worked with young Cavs teams that included a developing Kyrie Irving.

I don't know if this board criticizes coaching so much out of boredom or from the standpoint of genuinely thinking it'll make a difference. This team could have mid-90's Phil Jackson and would finish in the lottery. The front office is mostly to blame since they've consistently handed out contracts to players that do not play and have ridiculous injury histories. I thought the Grant Hill contract was bad until Weltman and Hammond gave Isaac and Fultz giant extensions.

Fun fact:
Dallas was definition of mediocre to awful defense for all years he was their defensive assistent coach.
Their defense skyrocketed in moment he was no longer defensive coach. Matter of fact they went from 10th worst to 6th best in matter of one season.

I think there is lot of stuff Mosley does that simply don't stick with current roster.
Switch everything makes sense if players are disciplined. Magic tend to switch where there is zero gain from a switch for them, it's gimmicky and comedy of error on most of nights since Wendell has been hurt.
Random 2-3 zone against elite nba teams is another "why?" thing that we see on regular bases for no particular reason.

ON offense it's just bad. I really don't know what to say. Pretty much nothing works. But it's hard to really hold that against him since he works with most incompetent guards in a League.

[VFX]

Probably not.

Then again, Orlando doesn't really need him to be right now.

I'll be surprised if he is still the coach when Orlando is a legitimate playoff team in 2-3 years.

I went with option C because I need to see what he does with a real roster.

[basketballRob]

Doc Rivers lost for 2 years in Boston before he started winning .

Sent from my SM-G950U using RealGM mobile app

[Bergmaniac]

He'll most likely get a new job on a tanking team pretty easily if we fire him, he is a perfect tanking coach - he follows the orders of the front office and keeps his mouth shut and so far has a good record of developing players.

Whether he'll do well when he is asked to actually win games - who knows, this hasn't happened yet in his head coaching career.

[jonbob17]

Yes, because coaching doesn't matter much until the playoffs. Mosley hasn't coached a full roster since he has been here let alone a playoff ready roster. I don't care who is coaching until this team is complete. Blaming the coach for anything so far this season is silly, as this feels like the most obvious tanking early in the season that I have seen since The Process. Player availability has been ridiculous, and sure the injuries are real, but the recovery times have seemed absurd, outside of Suggs. It wouldn't matter if prime Phil Jackson was coaching this team. I don't know maybe Clifford could have wrung a little extra sweat out on the floor and won another game.

[NavalAviator94]

If he didn't get hired with the Magic, he would surely have been hired elsewhere. I was shocked he didn't get the Mavericks job when that opened up that same summer. The Mavericks roster was full of guys vouching for him. So, that would be an argument that he's an NBA-caliber coach.

Additionally, you look at his background and it matches up with what the Magic are trying to accomplish presently. He was specifically given a player development role when he worked under George Karl with the Nuggets. He worked with young Cavs teams that included a developing Kyrie Irving.

I don't know if this board criticizes coaching so much out of boredom or from the standpoint of genuinely thinking it'll make a difference. This team could have mid-90's Phil Jackson and would finish in the lottery. The front office is mostly to blame since they've consistently handed out contracts to players that do not play and have ridiculous injury histories. I thought the Grant Hill contract was bad until Weltman and Hammond gave Isaac and Fultz giant extensions.

Fun fact:
Dallas was definition of mediocre to awful defense for all years he was their defensive assistent coach.
Their defense skyrocketed in moment he was no longer defensive coach. Matter of fact they went from 10th worst to 6th best in matter of one season.

I think there is lot of stuff Mosley does that simply don't stick with current roster.
Switch everything makes sense if players are disciplined. Magic tend to switch where there is zero gain from a switch for them, it's gimmicky and comedy of error on most of nights since Wendell has been hurt.
Random 2-3 zone against elite nba teams is another "why?" thing that we see on regular bases for no particular reason.

ON offense it's just bad. I really don't know what to say. Pretty much nothing works. But it's hard to really hold that against him since he works with most incompetent guards in a League.

Speaking of the switch everything commentary that KnightPro, you and others have mentioned. Here's an interesting article last year from Kenyon Martin on the subject.

https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/the-nbas-obsession-with-switching-on-defense-is-foolish

[PrimeThyme]

I've been hard on him, but the more retrospection I do, the more leeway I'm willing to give him.

I don't think Phil Jackson or even Pat Riley in their coaching primes could win 30-plus games in the situation Mosley is in. A basketball operations that has no desire to provide a coach with 7 plus NBA-level rotational players at any point, is not one at all concerned with winning or growing a culture/environment conducive for doing so.

Until Weltman decides to flip the switch, it's almost impossible for me to judge him fairly.

[SOUL]

Yes. The fact that NBA players play hard for him every night, I do believe he is an NBA coach.

As a championship head coach? Hard to say, but that is possible. Even before these injuries happened, Mosley has already contemplated using 3 7’0” in a lineup. It shows that he is innovative and open to ideas, and that’s a good trait to have.

do they? with two players getting 1 rebound each? rebounding is definitely a stat about playing hard. im not saying fire him, but unless some improvement happens regarding his coaching as the year goes on, his seat should be warm

We've been a good rebounding team all year though. More than half of our team is out. What does that even mean? How about the onus being on the players to just man up and get some rebounds? I don't understand how that's on the coach. Like, does having another coach mean we rebound better tonight? You can tell even Mosley was frustrated with the availability situation.

Both teams had guys out, we got our best two players on the floor for both games. Sixers had their top three players all out, they still smoked us by a combined 38 points in two games.

They had a bunch of vets that know their roles though, we had EIGHT, repeat, EIGHT rotation guys out. Like I said earlier, it doesn't matter who our best players are because they're 20-21 years old and they don't affect winning like that. I don't care if their best guys are out, they still had enough vets and people who know their roles to know what they had to do to win. Should it have been more competitive? Of course, but people suddenly acting like we weren't competitive every game before this week and focusing in on these specific games which are dealing with a by far league leading amount of injuries rub me the wrong way.

[The-Stallion70]

Yes. The fact that NBA players play hard for him every night, I do believe he is an NBA coach.

As a championship head coach? Hard to say, but that is possible. Even before these injuries happened, Mosley has already contemplated using 3 7’0” in a lineup. It shows that he is innovative and open to ideas, and that’s a good trait to have.

do they? with two players getting 1 rebound each? rebounding is definitely a stat about playing hard. im not saying fire him, but unless some improvement happens regarding his coaching as the year goes on, his seat should be warm

We've been a good rebounding team all year though. More than half of our team is out. What does that even mean? How about the onus being on the players to just man up and get some rebounds? I don't understand how that's on the coach. Like, does having another coach mean we rebound better tonight? You can tell even Mosley was frustrated with the availability situation.

Both teams had guys out, we got our best two players on the floor for both games. Sixers had their top three players all out, they still smoked us by a combined 38 points in two games.

They had a bunch of vets that know their roles though, we had EIGHT, repeat, EIGHT rotation guys out. Like I said earlier, it doesn't matter who our best players are because they're 20-21 years old and they don't affect winning like that. I don't care if their best guys are out, they still had enough vets and people who know their roles to know what they had to do to win. Should it have been more competitive? Of course, but people suddenly acting like we weren't competitive every game before this week and focusing in on these specific games which are dealing with a by far league leading amount of injuries rub me the wrong way.

To me there is definitely nothing positive to take away from this game. We lost to a star heavy team without it's stars, and we had our two best players playing. We lost by thirty to a team that has two Super max guarantees on its salary cap, a very star reliant team, without its stars and their young stud Maxey.

And sorry but making a blanket statement like 'young guys don't help you win no matter how talented they are' is cryptic and nonsensical to me. I would need to see some stats/proof behind that statement or else it just seems you're railing against young players.

[anothermagicfan]

This is a really tough question to answer given what the situation in orlando has been. For me he and the team got a total pass because we were tanking with intent. The games where horrendous last year but if you watched for individual improvements it could be tolerable. The guys last year seemed to hold there heads high and keep trying even when they were getting their asses handed to them. I don't like to see that. I want to see them frustrated and mad when there down by 25. But again free pass because of the tank for improvement.

This season is infuriating. We've wasted the first quarter in what should have been the time to try. How can we figure put which players stay and which ones go if they never play? How can we create good winning habits and a winning culture if we aren't trying to win? To me it looks like the players are still having fun buy they look more frustrated with the losing this year than last year. I think that's a good thing as long as we give them a team and a chance otherwise pb and Franz will become the next Shaq, tmac, and Dwight to say screw this place I want a trade.

That's all the philosophical stuff and until that gets figured put it's hard to judge the xs and os. As for the switch everything defense- with the right group of guys on the court I think they could be really good with that. It's hard to find 5 players that can switch everything and have enough defensive versatility to do it successfully. Remember good defense is not necessarily a block or a steal- it's simply regaining possession of the basketball without giving up points. One thing for absolute certainty is the switch everything defense will expose weak defenders. That could very well be a teaching tactic.

Overall I think mose is okay but really hard to judge him so far. I'd love the opportunity to see how he does with a fully healthy roster trying to win.

[SOUL]

And sorry but making a blanket statement like 'young guys don't help you win no matter how talented they are' is cryptic and nonsensical to me. I would need to see some stats/proof behind that statement or else it just seems you're railing against young players.

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm

It's just basic advanced stats. Banchero is actually in a decent spot here (55th) .. and still behind Tobias Harris. Wagner is in the 100s. Not terrible spots, but it's not like they're guys driving you to wins just because they're young and talented. It's also a reason why we sucked when we had AG + Dipo + Vuc + Fournier + Harris but it would be a solid team years later because of them literally just having experience.

LeBron's career VORP

https://i.imgur.com/7nVrDEB.png

Durant's career VORP

https://i.imgur.com/g57ITPS.png

Or just take these, VORP and other advanced stats. VORP is their value over a replacement player (who are -2.0) - look at their rookie years and see how much less TOP 10 ALL TIME GREATS, the most extreme example I can find, affect the game compared to a few years into their career. Bron goes from 2.9 to 11, Durant 1.3 to 9.6 .. these are huge leaps.

Bachero is at 0.1 and Franz is at 0.2, meaning they aren't actively hurting the team but it's not like they're affecting the game in any meaningful ways. LeBron, in his most washed year ever, is at 0.6 still. It's early on but there's more name value in these guys currently even if we know they are good and they are playing well, it can still have similar impact to just solid veterans that nobody gets excited about because they do their job each night and can score efficiently and know their spots.

The main point I'm trying to make is that despite their best players being out, the fact that we have so many non-NBA players taking up 8 roster spots while they just have a bunch of solid vets.. actually does make a huge difference. We still should've played them closer, but it's not some insta-win either.

[magickingdom]

Doc Rivers lost for 2 years in Boston before he started winning .

Sent from my SM-G950U using RealGM mobile app

Doc Rivers sucked and the fans wanted him fired, until the big 3 got there. Then he became this great coach?
Yes Mosley will be a good coach.
We’re missing our starters and playing our 3rd string guys, plus 2 2way players and we’re still winning or playing competitively.
Let’s get everyone back and on the same page and see what we got and what we can do.
Only then will we know how good a coach he is.

[Skybox]

Doc Rivers lost for 2 years in Boston before he started winning .

Sent from my SM-G950U using RealGM mobile app

Doc Rivers sucked and the fans wanted him fired, until the big 3 got there. Then he became this great coach?
Yes Mosley will be a good coach.
We’re missing our starters and playing our 3rd string guys, plus 2 2way players and we’re still winning or playing competitively.
Let’s get everyone back and on the same page and see what we got and what we can do.
Only then will we know how good a coach he is.

anyone remember Doc Rivers killing the first major tank job in NBA? Rookie coach taking castoffs to a .500 record with trades happening weekly. Can't take that away from him.

[fendilim]

Yes. The fact that NBA players play hard for him every night, I do believe he is an NBA coach.

As a championship head coach? Hard to say, but that is possible. Even before these injuries happened, Mosley has already contemplated using 3 7’0” in a lineup. It shows that he is innovative and open to ideas, and that’s a good trait to have.

do they? with two players getting 1 rebound each? rebounding is definitely a stat about playing hard. im not saying fire him, but unless some improvement happens regarding his coaching as the year goes on, his seat should be warm

The team is actually a good rebounding team. And the players still listen to the coach. And play for every possession.

Except for the effort they showed during the Sixers game, which happens like every… twice or thrice a year maybe? Which happens to the best teams anyway.

Which isnt really bad considering that we are in reality tanking and our players still dive or fight for loose balls. Our players are still passionate about trying to win games.

[MagicManMike]

I believe he is a good soldier. Putting guys in the position to work on skills that haven’t fully developed yet. Making our bigs run the offense will at the very least increase the IQ and understanding how the NBA offense needs to flow. I give him an incomplete until we all know it’s time to push for the playoffs. PB and Franz will be our horses. They are not ready to run the race yet full out. They are still getting trained

[drsd]

And sorry but making a blanket statement like 'young guys don't help you win no matter how talented they are' is cryptic and nonsensical to me. I would need to see some stats/proof behind that statement or else it just seems you're railing against young players.

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm

It's just basic advanced stats. Banchero is actually in a decent spot here (55th) .. and still behind Tobias Harris. Wagner is in the 100s. Not terrible spots, but it's not like they're guys driving you to wins just because they're young and talented. It's also a reason why we sucked when we had AG + Dipo + Vuc + Fournier + Harris but it would be a solid team years later because of them literally just having experience.

LeBron's career VORP

https://i.imgur.com/7nVrDEB.png

Durant's career VORP

https://i.imgur.com/g57ITPS.png

Or just take these, VORP and other advanced stats. VORP is their value over a replacement player (who are -2.0) - look at their rookie years and see how much less TOP 10 ALL TIME GREATS, the most extreme example I can find, affect the game compared to a few years into their career. Bron goes from 2.9 to 11, Durant 1.3 to 9.6 .. these are huge leaps.

Bachero is at 0.1 and Franz is at 0.2, meaning they aren't actively hurting the team but it's not like they're affecting the game in any meaningful ways. LeBron, in his most washed year ever, is at 0.6 still. It's early on but there's more name value in these guys currently even if we know they are good and they are playing well, it can still have similar impact to just solid veterans that nobody gets excited about because they do their job each night and can score efficiently and know their spots.

The main point I'm trying to make is that despite their best players being out, the fact that we have so many non-NBA players taking up 8 roster spots while they just have a bunch of solid vets.. actually does make a huge difference. We still should've played them closer, but it's not some insta-win either.

For fun I looked up Hezonja's VORP. In four years, he had a negative number. He had only one year with a positive score and that maxed out to 0.6.

Bamba in contrast has hovered between the zeros and the 1s, but was never negative.

In conclusion: these two players suck.
p.s. Bamba's VORP for this year is 0.2 (second worst of his career only behind his rookie year). Sad.


..