EFJ gettin canned

[diaboliQ_Mo]

I know we Zards' fans been thru **** this season. So much frustrations that we aint remember who our head coach was at the beginning of 08/09 season. Y'all aint got no freakin comment bout eddie freakin jordan getting clipped!?

http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wireta ... ie_jordan/

[P'Oed]

I really take no enjoyment in it at all. I really feel bad for the guy. His reputation has been nuked and he led our team back to the playoffs for a number of years. Happens to be a really nice person as well. Hope someone else finds use for him somewhere.

[Benjammin]

He's a nice guy who made a heck of a lot of money leading teams to one total playoff series victory. I hope he lands in the college ranks or he can be content being an assistant on an NBA staff.

[queridiculo]

Stubbornness cost him two jobs, tough to feel sorry for the guy after how much he's been getting paid.

[MF23]

When you equate where the franchise was before he arrived he did some great things with the Wizards. With that said his fascination with small ball, lack of focus towards defense and counterproductive rotations cannot work for a contender. Definitely will not work without a solid pg like Kidd or Arenas.

[closg00]

Stubbornness cost him two jobs, tough to feel sorry for the guy after how much he's been getting paid.

EFJ is owed 6 million dollars. Eddie was NEVER a good coach, he rode the coat-tails of a hot trio when the East was at it's weakest.

[dobrojim]

like others have said, hard to feel too sorry for him given
how much he's getting paid. He's a nice guy I suppose
but he's been proven to be a mediocre NBA coach.

[Severn Hoos]

I like Eddie as a person - or more precisely, I like the public persona that Eddie Jordan presented, and have no reason to doubt that he was a similar person in private. There's no joy in seeing an (apparently) good person fail, with all the disappointment, embarrassment, etc. involved - even with the huge payday that he had/has.

I was on the "Keep Eddie" side of the fence - though just barely - through his last final year, when the board was split rather evenly. I felt like we were in a bit of a catch-22, just as with Arenas & Jamison's re-signings. Keep them and you're looking at being average (45 wins tops) for the next few years. Dump them and you're likely to be much worse. And at the time, I wasn't ready to take that severe short-term pain for the hope of long-term gain (can you say, "Kwame"?)

The reality, as it turned out, was actually much, much worse than average or mediocre. Now we just hope for the long-term payoff.

But EJ did two things that were pretty much unforgivable, in my opinion - both of which appear to be rooted in stubbornness.

The first was his dismissal of Brendan Haywood, and Haywood's positive contribution to the team. EVERYONE on this board (OK, except one or two who can't see past defensive rebounding) knew what a positive effect BTH had when on the court. We saw it with our own eyes, it showed up in the W-L record, in every statistical analysis - you had to be willfully blind not to see it. And yet EJ still favored Etan because he felt ET "brought the force." Whatever that means.

Not only did this have an effect on the Wizards' on-court success, it clearly also had an effect in the locker room and on team chemistry. And I have to assume that players saw the same things we did - which would mean that they felt their coach wasn't doing what was best for the team. That can't possibly be a good situation.

Leaving Haywood on the bench in the playoffs against the Cavs was absolutely ridiculous. If I was GM, I just might have fired him on the spot for that.

The other thing he did was running off Tom Thibodeau. At a time when it was painfully obvious to everyone in the sport that the Wizards needed serious help on the defensive end, Ernie called in an old hand who just happens to be one of the premier strategists and teachers of defense in the league. On paper, the match of EJ's offense and TT's defense should have been a match made in heaven. (Kind of like Steve Spurrier & Marvin Lewis?) But we'll never know, because Eddie made TT so uncomfortable that he left within 48 hours.

Thibodeau went on to the Celtics, who, um, won the championship - with an excellent defensive team. (Yes, I know - Garnett et al - but still TT was no doubt influential there.) It certainly looked like EJ just didn't want the pressure of having a guy like TT on his staff (looking over his shoulder?) and was worried for job security. Which is ironic, because TT might have allowed him to actually win more games -and obviously, that's the best job security of all.

Wow, that's a long-winded recap that really doesn't add any new insight. Suffice it to say that Eddie seemed like a good guy, and I think he could have been a good NBA coach if he would have taken off his blinders and listened to others who could see things he apparently couldn't. But his stubbornness got the best of him, and now he's just another guy looking for his next job.

[verbal8]

I think Eddie would be a good sportscaster/analyst. Or he also could do well as a college coach, where his personality and offensive focus would help a lot with recruiting.

[Benjammin]

I think Eddie would be a good sportscaster/analyst. Or he also could do well as a college coach, where his personality and offensive focus would help a lot with recruiting.

Not meaning to be overly harsh, but if he wants to get into tv work a few trips to the dentist might be in order.

[verbal8]

I think Eddie would be a good sportscaster/analyst. Or he also could do well as a college coach, where his personality and offensive focus would help a lot with recruiting.

Not meaning to be overly harsh, but if he wants to get into tv work a few trips to the dentist might be in order.

Maybe radio is the way to go.

[miller31time]

The 76'ers went from 14th in defensive efficiency (2008-2009) to 24th in defensive efficiency (2009-2010).

Their entire defensive culture has been changed. No wonder EJ got the boot.

I wonder if other GMs are seeing a trend here.

[keynote]

It's hard to predict whether someone would be good in broadcasting. I never thought of EJ has a good quote, but then again, I found JVG to be hang-dog and dour before he entered the booth. And surprise, surprise, JVG is entertaining and lively. Go figure.

Anyway, I also thought the current Wiretap story about how EJ never doled out fines was telling. If there was one criticism we could levy at EJ's teams on both sides of the ball, it's that they were undisciplined. They overrated and ball-watched on defense, and they deviated from the system and freelanced on offense.

Players usually "cut the check" when playing for players' coaches; they usually only revolt when under the thumb of a disciplinarian (e.g, Carlisle, Skiles, PJ). Things were so bad in PHI that players were grumbling that EJ was too *soft*! What an indictment on EJ's tenure as a head coach. And frankly, if the Wizards roster had more true professionals on it, perhaps they would've demanded a higher level of professionalism from their teammates and their coach as well.

[Wizards2Lottery]

Should have been canned in 2006. The marriage was over that year. A lot of us knew at that point what we were getting from an EFJ coached team.

[verbal8]

It sounds like Philly was a complete disaster this year.

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/sixers/20100418_Stephen_A__Smith__Jordan_happy_to_be_gone_from_76ers.html

[LyricalRico]

I think Eddie would be a good sportscaster/analyst. Or he also could do well as a college coach, where his personality and offensive focus would help a lot with recruiting.

Not meaning to be overly harsh, but if he wants to get into tv work a few trips to the dentist might be in order.

Maybe radio is the way to go.