Greatest One-Hit Wonder of a Season?

[dhsilv2]

I remember Armstrong playing good enough defense though and that '99 Orlando team might be Doc Rivers' greatest coaching job guiding a bunch of role players to a pretty good 41 wins.
Some decent players like Wahad, Mercer, Gatling, didn't play many games either, it was freaking Bo Outlaw with no offense, John Amaeche, Monty Williams, Atkins
and both Wallace and Maggette weren't good yet.

Doc was always good with weak/young rosters. He did a great job that year with the clippers post CP3 and Blake. Sadly the league somehow sees him as a vet coach which is where he's the worst.

I think his real problem is that he isn't an Xs and Os coach, and doesn't have a good set of assistants (or perhaps the ability to defer to them). He's a good people guy, and he did just fine with the 08 Celtics. But he needs to develop a set of assistants who can cover for his deficiencies, which is common enough.

Thibbs came off his bench and built a defense. I think it is deeper. Just don't know exactly where the issues are. But yeah I don't think he's a bad guy with personality.

[tsherkin]

Thibbs came off his bench and built a defense. I think it is deeper. Just don't know exactly where the issues are. But yeah I don't think he's a bad guy with personality.

Thibs isn't any good with offense, though, so he needed one more guy. Doc is an ego manager and motivator, that's his archetype. He doesn't have his Tex Winters, you know?

Oh, ok. Didn't look at it that way

Well, otherwise, it's just a random remark which didn't really have much to do with what I was writing, hey? Anyway, as you say, he had a nice month. Wasn't really a one-hit wonder though, because he averaged something similar to his performance on the season for most of the next decade.

[tamaraw08]

I remember Armstrong playing good enough defense though and that '99 Orlando team might be Doc Rivers' greatest coaching job guiding a bunch of role players to a pretty good 41 wins.
Some decent players like Wahad, Mercer, Gatling, didn't play many games either, it was freaking Bo Outlaw with no offense, John Amaeche, Monty Williams, Atkins
and both Wallace and Maggette weren't good yet.

Doc was always good with weak/young rosters. He did a great job that year with the clippers post CP3 and Blake. Sadly the league somehow sees him as a vet coach which is where he's the worst.

I think his real problem is that he isn't an Xs and Os coach, and doesn't have a good set of assistants (or perhaps the ability to defer to them). He's a good people guy, and he did just fine with the 08 Celtics. But he needs to develop a set of assistants who can cover for his deficiencies, which is common enough.

He had Ty Lue next to him with the Clippers.
When Paul George pretty much blamed him for the meltdown vs Denver, Doc said the whole coaching staff should have been blamed INCLUDING Lue because Ty was right there next to him too.
And going back to not being a good x and o coach, I still don't know how that Orlando team full of role players won 41 games though.

[tsherkin]

And going back to not being a good x and o coach, I still don't know how that Orlando team full of role players won 41 games though.

In 2000?

Well, for one, they were the 9th-best D in the league. That put them at a net rating 15th in the league. Bo Outlaw, Ron Mercer, Ben Wallace, Darrell Armstrong... they did all right in that department. It was ugly, but it worked.

[tamaraw08]

Thibbs came off his bench and built a defense. I think it is deeper. Just don't know exactly where the issues are. But yeah I don't think he's a bad guy with personality.

Thibs isn't any good with offense, though, so he needed one more guy. Doc is an ego manager and motivator, that's his archetype. He doesn't have his Tex Winters, you know?

You don't think Lawrence Frank is not good enough though? He was Doc's assistant for 2 years.
Not a few suggested that he was the brains behind the Nets' success when they went to the finals under Byron Scott.
Scott got fired and he took over and did pretty well for 3 years.

[tamaraw08]

And going back to not being a good x and o coach, I still don't know how that Orlando team full of role players won 41 games though.

In 2000?

Well, for one, they were the 9th-best D in the league. That put them at a net rating 15th in the league. Bo Outlaw, Ron Mercer, Ben Wallace, Darrell Armstrong... they did all right in that department. It was ugly, but it worked.

Mercer played 31 games while Wallace just played 24 mins/game, not yet a great defensive force IMO.
That team really lacked players who can score and should have ranked bottom 2 and still was better offensively than 7 other teams.

[tsherkin]

And going back to not being a good x and o coach, I still don't know how that Orlando team full of role players won 41 games though.

In 2000?

Well, for one, they were the 9th-best D in the league. That put them at a net rating 15th in the league. Bo Outlaw, Ron Mercer, Ben Wallace, Darrell Armstrong... they did all right in that department. It was ugly, but it worked.

Mercer played 31 games while Wallace just played 24 mins/game, not yet a great defensive force IMO.
That team really lacked players who can score and should have ranked bottom 2 and still was better offensively than 7 other teams.

They had defensive roleplayers throughout, was my point. And while he was only playing 24 mpg, that was an early example of Wallace's utility. They defended well, and they hit the O-boards well. That's what they did with the roster they had, and why they were able to reach .500.

You don't think Lawrence Frank is not good enough though? He was Doc's assistant for 2 years.
Not a few suggested that he was the brains behind the Nets' success when they went to the finals under Byron Scott.
Scott got fired and he took over and did pretty well for 3 years.

I'd actually forgotten Frank was with him in LA, to be honest; I didn't follow the Clippers run that much. And he was only in Boston in 2011. But yeah, Frank was good stuff, no doubt.

[dhsilv2]

Doc was always good with weak/young rosters. He did a great job that year with the clippers post CP3 and Blake. Sadly the league somehow sees him as a vet coach which is where he's the worst.

I think his real problem is that he isn't an Xs and Os coach, and doesn't have a good set of assistants (or perhaps the ability to defer to them). He's a good people guy, and he did just fine with the 08 Celtics. But he needs to develop a set of assistants who can cover for his deficiencies, which is common enough.

He had Ty Lue next to him with the Clippers.
When Paul George pretty much blamed him for the meltdown vs Denver, Doc said the whole coaching staff should have been blamed INCLUDING Lue because Ty was right there next to him too.
And going back to not being a good x and o coach, I still don't know how that Orlando team full of role players won 41 games though.

Cause "role player" just means you aren't asked to score on this team.

But mostly effort. Half the league could score 20 a game if asked to shoot more and take on the scoring role. That's really not the skill bad teams lack. It's effort, defense, decision making, passing, and shooting. Someone to score 20 is rarely ever the issue.

[f4p]

Jeremy Lin at peak of insanity was a top 6-10 player in the league. Dude was held back real quick by coach mchale in houston pandering to harden.

Was he?

In 2012, who was better than Jeremy Lin for 14 games in February? Well, Lebron, KD, Dwight, Westbrook, Kevin Love, Dirk, Deron, Blake Griffin, Chris Paul at a minimum. Nash was still better, as well.

Paul Pierce was at worst comparable. That was also Andrew Bynum's 19/12, AS, All-NBA season.

Lin was good, but like, it's been over a dozen years, we can pump the brakes on the hyperbole.

I don't know. Linsanity was annoying to me when it happened but if we limit it to those first 9 games.

The Knicks were 8-15. Then Lin averaged 25.ppg and 9 apg (6 TOs, lol) and the team went 8-1 with Lin sporting a +11.8 on and -14.0 off for a nice +26 on/off. And he threw in a dagger game winner at the absolute peak of it in the 7th game. I don't remember what Paul Pierce was doing exactly those few weeks but I bet it wasn't better than that.

[floppymoose]

I just saw this thread and came to post Linsanity. But i see its already going so i’ll just add a pic:

[Mr Loggins]

Richard Dumas, suns 1992 or 1993

My stupid brother bought like 20 of his rookie cards

[bkkrh]

Dana Barros was mostly a bench warmer for the Sonics, then suddenly got to play 41 minutes per game in Philadelphia and won MIP and was an All-Star averaging more than 20. Never averaged more than 13 before. Brings me to Michael Carter-Williams, who peaked in his very first game.

Was also the first player I thought of. He also became an All Star that season and had some insane shooting averages. Actually ordered a Boston Dana Barros jersey that never arrived, thought he´d gonna be a star in Boston.

[MrBigShot]

Devin Harris in his lone all star season looked pretty good. Average 9 FTs a game.

[JRoy]

Richard Dumas, suns 1992 or 1993

My stupid brother bought like 20 of his rookie cards

He looked like he was on his way to a great career.

[HMFFL]

Erick Dampier's contract year with GSW. which made Mark Cuban lust for him as a possible Shaq stopper. Mavs picked him up & gave him a lucrative deal.. ha ha.

It was a frustrating time. I remember on the Mavs board mentioning he's a good pickup but he's not the answer at the 5. Cuban committed to Damp for six years. To Cubans credit his options had been limited and Cuban was content with winning in the regular season.

[gavran]

Bobby Simmons deserves a mention.

[-MK-]

Sure, the injury's part of the story. But it's still both extremely unusual for a starter to spend 4 years as decent and then become a star, and for one injury to mean that player never comes remotely close to being that level of guy again afterwards. His leap on both ends at that time in his career, and the severity of the drop-off after it, are what's worth noting here.

Also the 'botched surgery' part is a kind of a podcast legend. Oladipo just brought it up in the past year or two, and the story he told is that one doctor once told him that it looked like a surgery he had three years earlier wasn't the right type of surgery. That's the extent of the medical opinions here. Not saying he's wrong but also not about to etch this into the history books as the story of Victor Oladipo.

I often hear this, "it was the injury". /.../ Guys don't typically blow up after 5 years in the league.

I agree, his rise was definitely atypical. I was simply trying to find a reasonable explanation why his drop-off was so severe and comeback(s) unsuccessful. Sure, it's possible the botched surgery part is bogus and there was some other reason why his knee never(?) fully healed. But the fact remains that he had a major knee injury.

/.../ However, the season he got injured, in the early part of the season, he was not trending the right way. His play seemed to have reverted back the mean. Other than this assist and rebounding per game, which increased marginally, his numbers across the board decreased back to what they were in Orlando. From this peak year to the year to the year he got injured (prior to injury), his PGs per game fell from 23 to 18, his FGA fell from .477 to .422, his TS% fell from .577 to .522. The guy wasn't maintaining his play from the year prior even when heathy. /.../

He also had another knee injury earlier that season that forced him to miss 11 games.
In 15 games before that injury, he averaged 22.7ppg / 4.6apg / 6.9rpg / 44.2fg% on 19.5fga
In 19 games between the injuries, he averaged 17.3ppg / 5.8apg / 4.9rpg / 40.5fg% on 15.3fga

[JayMKE]

Idk if one-hit-wonder is the best description but I remember thinking John Salmons looked like an allstar the second half of 09-10 after he got traded to the Bucks. He secured the bag and fell off immediately.

[sashaturiaf]

Id say the bubble. It wasn't a real season

[Michael Jackson]

Does Austin Croshere count? I believe he was in a contract year, played well in the finals in 2000 so Indy gave him a 46 million dollar contract. Was not very good after the finals.

He instantly came to mind for me. He got paid for that playoff run and wasn't good before and disappeared after. He took the money and ran. Granted he was good during that run though.