Fire JOB

[PR07]

Look at the roster, we should suck. There's a reason many experts picked us near last in the Eastern Conference. The only starting positions that are contender worthy are probably at PG and SF (assuming Ford's healthy). Murphy would be okay if you had another all-star big next to him.

When the roster is ready to compete at a high level, then probably O'Brien should go, but right now, it's a moot point. You can't expect someone to bake a cake when they don't have all the ingredients.

[cdash]

More baking analogies. We must have a lot of aspiring chefs on the forum.

The roster is not a contending roster, agreed. Just because the "experts" picked us near last doesnt mean that's where we should finish. The same people picked the Nets to be worse than us, and they are right in the playoff hunt. That's why you play the game. I'm not saying we should be a contender, but look at our record. Do you really think that we shouldnt be any better? Honestly? The thing that bothers me is the complete lack of defense this team plays. Sure, some of that falls on the players, but you cant tell me that if someone like Rick Carlisle was coaching this team that we would be giving up the second most points in the NBA. We should be better than we are.

[PR07]

Maybe we should be a little better, but how much better is a new coach really going to make us? If Rick Carlisle coaches this team, we probably regress offensively, making it counter productive. Don't forget either that our defense really fell off a cliff as soon as Artest left anyways under his tenure.

As for defensively, should we really be much better than we are? Ford is undersized and can get overpowered at the PG position. Dunleavy is not a good defender. Granger can be, but it's hard to be a two way player when you're expected to score 25+ a night. Foster is pretty good. Murphy is not a good defender. We have no shotblocker or defensive intimidator in the paint.

First get the roster, and then worry about the coach. Right now, we don't have the roster. Look at someone like Doc Rivers. He's a pretty average coach I'd say. Was it his coaching that primarily got the Celts a championship? Absolutely not. It was the influx of talent by Garnett and Ray Allen.

Is it really a big deal who coaches us when we're rebuilding? It just seems pretty irrelevant to me. As long as the coach teaches a philosophy that promotes accountability and hard work and is one that players can grow in, I'm fine with it. For the most part, I think O'Brien does a pretty good job of it. Benching Rush because he's lost defensively is fine with me. It sends the message that, you have to earn your minutes just like everyone else.

I could understand if this team was expected to be a contender and be one of the top East teams, but we're not. We have a pretty mediocre roster, and a pretty bad record to show for it.

Is winning 4 more games really going to put this franchise in a better light? I just think this team has a lot more pressing concerns over who's coaching this mess.

Like I said, who's better that you're going to get? Who's going to want to come to Indiana and take over a rebuilding effort?

Mark Jackson has no coaching experience and doesn't even want to coach here anyways.

[cdash]

I was using Carlisle as an example. I dont really think we would be much better with him, but the point is our defense is capable of being better than it is. We can play better team defense, period. If you watch the team you know that we really dont put forth much effort on the defensive end. Giving up 120+ points on a regular basis is ridiculous.

Doc Rivers lucked out, but remember he won Coach of the Year in Orlando when he coached there. He's not a great coach, but hes better than O'Brien.

I dont really understand what your point is. It seems like, "Well, we are rebuilding and not going to be good regardless, so **** it. Who cares we coaches us?" I agree, we need better players. We need someone who can score down low. We need better individual defenders. We need a lot of things, including a new coach. I've said multiple times that I dont want to replace him in the middle of the season. That doesnt accomplish much. But if you come back with Obie next season, you are kind of throwing in the towel from the start arent you? You make a few trades and bring in someone like Tom Thibodeau. He's a great defensive coach and one of the best assistants in the game.

And where are you getting this info that Jackson doesnt want to coach here? Because he didnt want the job when we hired Obie? The situation was much worse then, and his reasoning then was basically, "too many voices in the front office". That's changed now with Walsh gone. Who's to say he doesnt want to coach here now?

[xxSnEaKyPxx]

Which is exactly why he needs to go. He's been coaching to win and we still suck. He can stay on for the rest of the season, but hes gotta go in the offseason.

I would phrase that differently. To me its more like Obie is coaching to win games, and we are still underachieving. I don't care what anybody says, we are a lot better than our record, and no our roster isn't as bad as some of ya'll seem to think.

[PR07]

I think Mark Jackson's point was that he didn't want to take on a rebuilding project. That hasn't changed, we're still rebuilding. We're in a much better state than we were a season ago, but last time I checked, we're still rebuilding. Who knows if he'd be an upgrade either given he has 0 coaching experience. Great players don't always become great coaches.

My point is, is that O'Brien isn't the problem, it's the roster. Until we fix that issue, it doesn't really matter who coaches us. Phil Jackson may coach this team, and maybe we end up with the 8th seed, but what is that really going to do for us? No one has answered what the 4 extra wins is going to do for us. It starts with the players, period. Until we get that issue solved, the coaching staff is secondary.

I also do not think it's strictly a coincidence that Granger's scoring has taken off in O'Brien's system. I think some credit should go to O'Brien too in Granger's game. He's done some good things here, but an upgrade is probably needed once we reach contender status.

If the Pacers traded for Amare tomorrow, I'd say we'd need a coaching change to get to the next level, but with the current group of guys we have, I think our record is only a little under of where it should be. Certainly, not worth firing a decent coach over. It's not like we have great candidates lining up to take this job.

[xxSnEaKyPxx]

He has lost us more than 4 games with his coaching. Now, I will say since the new year, he hasn't been all that bad aside from a few exceptions, but earlier in the year he lost us a lot of games with his awful decisions. He is not a decent coach, that is an insult to decent coaches everywhere.

The difference between a few more wins and where we are now, is playoff experience. That is a huge reason right there. Lets not forget he hasn't really helped our young guys much either.

The guy is a train wreck as a coach.

[cdash]

What bothers me about your approach to the coaching issue is that you dont think it matters who coaches us until we are a contender. Who's to say when that will be? It could be three years until we are contenders again. Do you really want O'Brien hanging around for three years? More importantly, the fans are starting to sour on Obie a little bit. What kind of message are you sending the fans if you keep him here too long? Besides, if you ask me, we will never be contenders under Obie, not with the defense being a sieve like it is. Amare coming tomorrow wouldnt change that one bit either.

[PR07]

That's not true though. It matters who coaches us, but it doesn't necessarily matter how many games we win though under him at this time. Jim O'Brien has this team playing very competitive. We've lost a lot of games, but we've been close in almost all of them. He has also brought in a culture that awards playing time based on hard work and accountability. I have no problem with him playing Joey Graham over Brandon Rush if Joey is outworking Brandon. Some of you put way too much stock in how big of an impact a head coach can have. These are grown men. You can't expect someone to make lemonade out of limes. I think the best coach probably gets you +5 wins.

I'll also say that a coach shouldn't stick around longer than 4 years unless they're a franchise-type coach. I'd give O'Brien one more season after this one and see where we're at, and see what other options are available. Some of you are quick to give him his pink slip, but I've yet to hear of any legit replacements that we know would actually take the job that are clearly an upgrade.

Also, Amare Stoudemire would easily improve the defense, maybe not to contender status, but if you think having him back there as a shotblocker doesn't improve us, you're mistaken, given the obvious lack of athleticism in our frontcourt.

I also think the defensive blame should fall on Dick Harter as much as it should fall on Jim O'Brien. Isn't he our defensive coach? Didn't he have our NBA Finals team playing defense at a high level? That makes me think that either the game's changed too much for him or this team lacks competent defenders.

[Miller4ever]

^^Okay, you've done this twice, and the first time I thought it was a typo. You are aware that the Graham the Pacers have is Stephen, not Joey, right? Other than that, you've got a real argument.

First and foremost the team is comprised of players, which are controlled by a coach. There are many factors which decide whether a coach is "good" or "bad" and a lot of the time chemistry plays a large part. I think the players are cool with O'Brien, as no one has voiced any opinion to contradict him. There are always coaching decisions that you question.

My problem with Jim O'Brien is that he allows too many three-point attempts. It's a double-edged sword that sometimes becomes the reason we get blown out. There will be games where we will take 25 of them and only sink 5. Because of the nature of the three-point (floor is spread, but defense is mor to the inside), we can't get second-chance attempts. Also, the man defense doesn't really work for me. Our lineup does not match up well against the average NBA lineup. TJ Ford is undersized, Dunleavy is slow for an SG, Granger is our top defender, and he has trouble with help defense, Troy Murphy doesn't have good footwork on defense and is overall slower than your average PF (from Amare Stoudamire to Chuck Hayes) and Foster relies on physicality and that doesn't help the fact that our team fouls the most in the NBA.

So, yes, the players aren't that good, but O'Brien isn't utilizing appropriate strategies to fit the roster. He has a definite brand of offense and defense, and whatever team he's with, he'll be pretty insistent on heaving threes. Our team doesn't play the pick-and-roll. We play the TJ drives and maybe kicks it out/Granger takes it in and gets fouled, converting all of his free throws/Shoot 3's until the 4-point line is developed.

Basically, our team can't execute Jim O'Brien's system well, true. But I think his system isn't that good. I think next year we should try a new system. You find a coach that works well with your team and suddenly sparks something, even for a season or two (like Avery Johnson for the Mavs or Don Nelson for the Warriors). We'll never know until we try. Can you blame us fans for wanting better?

[cdash]

Amare Stoudemire is not a shot blocker. He is someone who should walk into any situation and improve the defense. He is a terrible, terrible defender. Or, maybe, he is just an extremely apathetic defender. Either way, if your defense is bad enough to where he walked in and IMPROVED your defense...you dont have a prayer.

[PR07]

Sorry about the Joey Graham thing, it's just habit.

Amare Stoudemire is not a great shotblocker, but he's a guy who going to change the game inside purely based on his athleticism. He may not block a lot of shots, but like an Andris Biedrins or Kenyon Martin, he's going to alter the game down there. He'd improve our defense the same way TJ Ford has improved our defense in the backcourt to some extent. We lacked speed and athleticism in the backcourt last season, and now we have a little more of it.

I'll agree also with the system. To be successful long-term, you can't live or die by the three point shot. It's proven that it's hard to maintain long-term success doing that. In the short-term, I don't mind it though. It's not the most practical system, but it's an exciting system that doesn't take a whole lot of know-how for young players to run. Either way, I don't see O'Brien hanging around after next season, so it's not a huge deal.

[cdash]

Either way, I don't see O'Brien hanging around after next season, so it's not a huge deal.

Agreed.