The Official Chris Finch Thread

[Neeva]

So are they gonna try to win now? Hmmm

[slick21]

IMO, careful what you wish for. Finch actually has a winning record and 2 playoff appearances in his tenure as Wolves coach. I for one am tired of the constant coaching carousel that this team has gone through since Flip's firing in '05. 11 coaching changes in 18 years.

[urinesane]

Yeah, I don't really see much upside in changing out Finch (who the players seem to love) right now, even if it were for Nurse (who arguably is a better coach, though he's also had longer to learn as a HC).

He wasn't terrible this year, he just wasn't nearly as good as he was last season. I think part of that is that when it came to the roster last season, it was easier for him to help them find an identity and embrace their underdog status. This year not only did they have MASSIVE expectations, but they also had a roster build that hasn't really been done in the modern era (the twin towers idea would throw most coaches for a loop). The pressure to succeed was much higher this season AND the variables involved with the roster made it much more difficult (they basically had to change their entire system to try and accommodate Gobert, without even having a training camp to do so).

Add in the fact that they were trying something they couldn't be sure would work along with a MASSIVE increase in expectations (solely based on the previous year's overachieving AND the price they paid for Gobert). Then add on the fact that they were without their best player for most of the season and relied heavily on two players under 22 years old to carry the team and it's actually kind of impressive that they were a .500 team pretty much all season.

Any season previously without KAT for 52 games would have been a lottery bound roster with nothing to play for in March/April. That's a fact.

Again, it was a frustrating season for everyone involved, but it would have been MUCH worse nearly every other year I've been following this team (which sadly is over 25 years).

[Neeva]

Don’t care about the past. Finch is mediocre. Ant deserves better than a mediocre head coach. Is there a chance wolves could mess up and hire someone worse? Yes! But it’s worth to try and find better, nothing worse than playing it safe and sticking with mediocrity when you are in win mode.

[Note30]

Don’t care about the past. Finch is mediocre. Ant deserves better than a mediocre head coach. Is there a chance wolves could mess up and hire someone worse? Yes! But it’s worth to try and find better, nothing worse than playing it safe and sticking with mediocrity when you are in win mode.

Realistically, the Wolves would need a list of coaches that are actually better than Finch. I'm struggling with who those may be.

[younggunsmn]

I don't blame Finch for this season although there are things he definitely needs to get better at.
He took the mess Rosas left him and horribly unbalanced roster and won 46 games.
Then Connelly traded away all his depth, made him tear up the schemes he was using on both ends, and unbalanced the roster in the other direction, and he still made the playoffs even with a ton of adversity.
Even though the season ended in failure, the team played with a lot of grit and left everything out there on the floor in the playoffs.

He needs to come down harder on guys who aren't playing the right way, not just scrub bench guys like Nowell.
And he needs to playcall more and establish the pecking order on the offensive end, and enforce that.

That said, if we keep the current roster, he's doomed to failure.
There Isn't a coach alive who can make 2 bigs work when one of them has such a complete lack of skill and no apparent realization of that fact. And if Naz isn't back that's really going to hurt him too.

If we do eventually move on, I think we should give a really long look to Sam Cassell.
There are better coaches, but there are also many worse coaches out there.

[bluethunder0005]

Unless you have a guy like Spoelstra, Popp, or Kerr then I think most fans complain about their teams coach. Ty Lue is a bad coach but I've heard people on here say he's good. Carlisle used to be considered a top 5 coach and now he's viewed as average at best, Nurse was viewed as good and he just got fired. Several people say Jokic makes Malone look good and he'd be bad without him. Udoka was looked at like a top coach and now Mazzulla won 6 more games with virtually the same roster.

Maybe you get lucky and find an unknown gem out there that becomes a Spoelstra but I'd be willing to say that Finch is closer to being a top 10 coach than he is 20. He has things he needs to improve on but I'm not sure he should be let go this soon.

[urinesane]

Don’t care about the past. Finch is mediocre. Ant deserves better than a mediocre head coach. Is there a chance wolves could mess up and hire someone worse? Yes! But it’s worth to try and find better, nothing worse than playing it safe and sticking with mediocrity when you are in win mode.

Please give us a list of coaches in the NBA you'd rather have (also some that you'd replace him with that are actually available).

Mediocre is a pretty funny statement imo, considering he's the 2nd most successful coach in Wolves history and has only been with them for 2.5 seasons (though that's more sad for the history of the franchise than anything).

[shrink]

Why Nurse would like to join "twin towers" experiment after "all wings experiment"?

Palate cleanser?

[urinesane]

Here's a list of head coaches from this season (I took out the guy with 2 games):

Billy Donovan
Chauncey Billups
Chris Finch
Darvin Ham
Doc Rivers
Dwane Casey
Erik Spoelstra
Gregg Popovich
J.B. Bickerstaff
Jacque Vaughn
Jamahl Mosley
Jason Kidd
Joe Mazzulla
Mark Daigneault
Mike Malone
Mike Brown
Mike Budenholzer
Monty Williams
Nate McMillan
Nick Nurse
Quin Snyder
Rick Carlisle
Stephen Silas
Steve Clifford
Steve Kerr
Steve Nash
Taylor Jenkins
Tom Thibodeau
Tyronn Lue
Wes Unseld
Will Hardy
Willie Green


Now one thing to keep in mind is what coach do you think would fit work well with what the Wolves have and not necessarily just assume they'd be better in this situation because they've had more success in other situations.

I also can't name 16 coaches from that list I would rather have than Finch (if Finch is infact mediocre).

[urinesane]

Why Nurse would like to join "twin towers" experiment after "all wings experiment"?

Palate cleanser?

Because he and Finch made a good team and have had to deal with some weird situations/rosters in the past?

[shrink]

Unless you have a guy like Spoelstra, Popp, or Kerr then I think most fans complain about their teams coach. Ty Lue is a bad coach but I've heard people on here say he's good. Carlisle used to be considered a top 5 coach and now he's viewed as average at best, Nurse was viewed as good and he just got fired. Several people say Jokic makes Malone look good and he'd be bad without him. Udoka was looked at like a top coach and now Mazzulla won 6 more games with virtually the same roster.

Maybe you get lucky and find an unknown gem out there that becomes a Spoelstra but I'd be willing to say that Finch is closer to being a top 10 coach than he is 20. He has things he needs to improve on but I'm not sure he should be let go this soon.

Good post. I think people are fans of players, so when a team has a big win, almost all the credit goes to the players that had a good game. And when a team has a bad loss, they drop most of that blame on the coach, and never on their favorite players having a bad game?

I am not so sure that the NBA doesn’t work the same way. Nurse won a ring and was Coach of the Year just two years ago - and suddenly he’s forgotten how to coach? Ditto for Finch, who most people loved for his first 1.5 years. Now, when the team doesn’t meet their (unfair, as it turned out) expectations, they put a lot of the blame on the coach. Did he forget how to coach too.

My belief is there is only one sure way to deservedly lose your job as a coach - when you lose the locker room. When multi-million dollar players stop listening or running what the coach asks, then you need a new voice. I’m even someone who accepted this as a legit reason to fire Flip Saunders. If that’s the standard, then Finch is a long long way from being fired. The team, especially Ant, love that guy, so I would be very surprised to see him get fired.

[shrink]

One last thing. Even if you hate Finch, you need to give him a piece of the credit for Ant’s development.

Ant can’t be the easiest guy to coach. He knows he’s great, so he has a natural inclination to disregard the coach’s plays (swing the ball!), and go one-on-one. These plays often can end up in a contested 18 footer, but because Ant makes many of these hard shots, as fans we give him a pass. Finch though has had to find that balance where he stays connected to Ant, but he still maintains the team’s respect, so the players with less talent don’t all go rogue as well.

Moreover, everyone says that Finch coaches Ant harder than anyone, and to Ant’s credit, he listens and appreciates it. But think about this. In the NBA, if there was ever a squabble between Finch and Ant, who do you think would be gone? I credit Finch for having the cojones to coach a budding superstar hard, even if it might cost him his job, and Ant’s ascendency has come under that coaching philosophy. It sounds like Ant recognizes this too, and gives Finch credit.

[wolves_89]

I don't see much of a chance that the Wolves replace Finch this offseason. With that said, I do think that next season is likely to be critical for Finch's career. There are pretty clear areas that Finch has struggled with that will need to be addressed. The biggest of those being the team's ability to beat lesser teams consistently. A second concern would be with the slow starts that characterize Finch led teams. Other problem areas include poor defensive rebounding, better fitting the offensive scheme with the personnel, and Rudy trying to do more than his skillset allows on offense.

[TimberKat]

One last thing. Even if you hate Finch, you need to give him a piece of the credit for Ant’s development.

Ant can’t be the easiest guy to coach. He knows he’s great, so he has a natural inclination to disregard the coach’s plays (swing the ball!), and go one-on-one. These plays often can end up in a contested 18 footer, but because Ant makes many of these hard shots, as fans we give him a pass. Finch though has had to find that balance where he stays connected to Ant, but he still maintains the team’s respect, so the players with less talent don’t all go rogue as well.

Moreover, everyone says that Finch coaches Ant harder than anyone, and to Ant’s credit, he listens and appreciates it. But think about this. In the NBA, if there was ever a squabble between Finch and Ant, who do you think would be gone? I credit Finch for having the cojones to coach a budding superstar hard, even if it might cost him his job, and Ant’s ascendency has come under that coaching philosophy. It sounds like Ant recognizes this too, and gives Finch credit.

Should we give Finch some credit for Ant throw chairs at people? I suppose that is better than breaking his hand with a chair. Finch should get 5 bags of Chester's hot fire and chow-down with Ant while watching game films 4 hours a day over the summer.

[Guest84]

I don't blame Finch for this season although there are things he definitely needs to get better at.
He took the mess Rosas left him and horribly unbalanced roster and won 46 games.
Then Connelly traded away all his depth, made him tear up the schemes he was using on both ends, and unbalanced the roster in the other direction, and he still made the playoffs even with a ton of adversity.
Even though the season ended in failure, the team played with a lot of grit and left everything out there on the floor in the playoffs.

He needs to come down harder on guys who aren't playing the right way, not just scrub bench guys like Nowell.
And he needs to playcall more and establish the pecking order on the offensive end, and enforce that.

In regards to the pecking order, I heard something before from previous players, one of them I believe was Arenas. He said the pecking order is typically established by the players. The coach can try establish it but it’s ultimately the players that decide.

Considering this, I believe this year was the beginning of the shift from Kat to Ant. Especially after the playoffs.

Also, the more I think about it I see the team running it back with mostly the same roster. Minor tweaks included

[Baseline81]

Also, the more I think about it I see the team running it back with mostly the same roster. Minor tweaks included

As much as I do not want this to happen, it's what more likely does. They have a built in excuse of Towns' injury.

Of course, those who watched the team could see there were issues beyond that, which is why you have some posters calling for Finch's head and others wanting to trade either Gobert or Towns.

[Klomp]

Also, the more I think about it I see the team running it back with mostly the same roster. Minor tweaks included

As much as I do not want this to happen, it's what more likely does. They have a built in excuse of Towns' injury.

Of course, those who watched the team could see there were issues beyond that, which is why you have some posters calling for Finch's head and others wanting to trade either Gobert or Towns.

Running it back would be a 100% no-brainer lock with Glen Taylor running the show. But with the influence of Lore and Rodriguez, I think the likelihood of one significant move improves (I don't think there would be multiple big changes).

[Baseline81]

You think, Chris?

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[younggunsmn]

Nurse and Budenholzer out, two guys who won rings for their mid-market cities, is crazy.
Only thing that makes any sense is that Giannis must have wanted him gone.

I think Finch is safe for this year, but if we run it back and things turn out like this year he is probably gone after the season.
And we might regret that later.