My point is this.
The GM's Job is to draft, trade, and Sign FA. He builds the team. He doesn't coach the team, UNLESS, he takes the bench himself.
What if to facilitate trades, judge the existing talent, build for the future, or to successfully perform other functions of his job your GM needs to have certain players see the court?
Would your GM not have the right to make sure someone he hires goes along with his vision to help him do the job. The GM is the boss of the coach. The GM needs to set the direction of the franchise. The GM may need to see different things on the team to decide how to do all of the things that fall into the job responsibilities you outlined.
It would follow that the GM would then have the power to direct the coaches in such a way as to make these things happen. We're not talking about installing schemes, running practices, managing timeouts, or managing specific rotations here.
As an owner I would trust that I have hired the right GM to run my team. If my GM isn't the coach, and he is going to the media stating who should play, that is telling them how to coach.
What if he's not going to the media? What if he just tells the coach I think I need to decide how to best give this team a chance to win next year, in order to do that, we need to see our recent draftees on the court to see if they can get the job done or to see if we need to shop them?
If the GM has to tell the coach how to coach, then you don't have the right coach in place, and this is on the GM.
Telling a coach to put a certain player in the game for a certain amount of time isn't telling him how to coach. It's not controlling the scheme, it's not controlling the overall rotations, combination of players, the practices or anything else. It's setting the guidelines under which the coach has to operate.
This would be similar to an owner telling a GM, you can't go over the luxury tax. Why would an owner do that? It's the GM's responsibility to sign players and manage payroll isn't it? Oh wait, the owner is a level above the GM and is allowed to place restrictions on what the GM can and can not do.
I would look at this as a major sign of trouble ahead.
It certainly was major trouble for Toronto who ended a long playoff drought and has their coach win the coach of the year award.
THis is my opinion. You obviously disagree. I talked to a couple of coach's since, (granted all at the HS level) and asked them if their athletic director (basically the same role as a NBA GM) told them who to play, or dictated to the paper how many minutes he thought players should get, that would be very unhappy, and would not feel secure enough in their job.
How is this even remotely the same thing? I mean how is it even in the ball park? Do HS coaches have to deal with free agency? The draft? Trades? All of the reasons a GM might want to see a guy on the court other than generating wins do not exist in High School. Not a single reason I mentioned overlaps, thus this parallel has zero baring on what I'm discussing. To take it a step further, high school coaches are not being paid millions of dollars with only 30 opportunities in existence for a job.
The GM has to support their coach to be able to allow them to make the right decisions game in and game out. When the GM feels that the coach has lost his team, or if he isn't using the players that the GM has put in place in the proper mannor, then it is on the GM to get a new coach....not tell that coach how to coach because frankly that would be a waste of time.
It's like you are deciding to just ignore the way the NBA works or any of the ancillary reasons that GMs do exactly what I'm discussing. The NBA is a business, and there are business goals as well as win/loss goals. The GM needs to step in and make sure the coach's philosophy helps fit in on the business side. There are times when teams need to play people when there is no coaching reason to do so.
Coach's each have a system. No matter the coach, each coach a game a specific way. In college, if you hire dick bennett, you then don't tell him that you want to run a fast paced offense. You hire him because you want to play that type of ball, and the players you have will fit that system.
I agree for the most part, and have never suggested Paxson try to change Boylan's schemes.
Now. If the GM comes to the coach and says that he is in the process of making a trade, then they have to work together to figure out how they want to go about this.
Is this common place for a winning team? Depends. But if we knew that we were going to work very hard, and take basically any deal for player A, that would change how the coach uses this player. BUT the GM shouldn't demand minutes for a different player.
Only because you think so. You've created this arbitrary rule based on your feelings that doesn't exist in the real world of the NBA. The GM has every right to place ANY RESTRICTION HE WANTS on the coach. He hires the coach, and can fire the coach, and if the coach is unhappy with the restrictions placed upon him then he can quit and go try to find one of the other 29 jobs in the NBA as head coach for millions of dollars.
The coach and GM should alway be able to have an understanding of the goals for the team. Both be working toward the same thing.
Right now, it is obvious that Pax and Jim are not. Pax is saying one thing, Jim doing another.
Tell me how well this works? Sounds like we need a different coach that is more of a coach that believes in what pax wants to do.
I don't think there is discord yet between Paxson and Boylan. Paxson has said he has two goals. To win, and to see the kids play more. The quote from this article was specifically something like "I'm going to let this go for awhile, but if things don't turn around we're going to go with the youth movement". It sounds to me like Boylan has paxson's approval to play vets and try to right the ship for a set amount of time.
