GT: Knicks @ Hornets Fri Dec 5th 7PM EST

[Liver_Pooty]

I can't imagine how bad our defense would have been last year with Dunlap as the coach and Al as our starting C. Honestly though, 38 wins was good enough to make the playoffs last year so who knows.

Tried to reply to your PM. It wouldn't let me. Everything's all good though.

[BeesWax]

Hopefully in a couple games when MKG gets his legs back under him we will see a turn in the defense.

[HornetJail]

I would seriously not have been surprised if we made the playoffs last year with Dunlap coaching.

Dave.

Hey, he took a 7 win team and got a 21 win team and that was with Mullens playing a prominent role. Give him one more year of progression from Kemba, Biz, and MKG and combine that with Tankathon '13 and we still probably get the 8th seed. He'd still be coach if he hadn't have gone all stern taskmaster with constant practices.

Wed be worse than last year's Cavs. If we still had Tanklap. Dunlap was a detriment to our bigs and a god awful coach in games

[DY_nasty]

Dave.

Hey, he took a 7 win team and got a 21 win team and that was with Mullens playing a prominent role. Give him one more year of progression from Kemba, Biz, and MKG and combine that with Tankathon '13 and we still probably get the 8th seed. He'd still be coach if he hadn't have gone all stern taskmaster with constant practices.

Wed be worse than last year's Cavs. If we still had Tanklap. Dunlap was a detriment to our bigs and a god awful coach in games

what bigs?

dude's entire coaching philosophy on defense was built around the team's complete inability to play defense past the 8 second mark or rebound. i've never seen a coach so immediately accept his team as fundamentally broken from the ground level. i'll always respect him for that. we may not have on a single game if he hadn't found a way to blitz in basketball

[yosemiteben]

we may not have on a single game if he hadn't found a way to blitz in basketball

So you're commending him for how he had a defensive philosophy that put us at literally the worst defense in the league?

[DY_nasty]

we may not have on a single game if he hadn't found a way to blitz in basketball

So you're commending him for how he had a defensive philosophy that put us at literally the worst defense in the league?

yeah because it should've been the worst in league history

can you imagine how bad that team would've been if he DIDNT commit our guys to sell out hard on every single trap? we would've never stood a chance. i never thought i'd ever see an nba team play a defense resembling 2k12 online play but it happened

that entire season was comical but the part that will always stick out to me was the fact that dunlap knew that he had fewer defensive tools than most college coaches had to work with and spent training camp practicing that cheese tactic to pull fastbreak points out of nowhere to *occasionally* mask the points that we'd give away by simply being fundamentally broken

like

he understood he was screwed better than anyone i've ever seen in the nba even in philly, where they tried to make MCW look like a good player by having their team play at an 80s pace to inflate stats, there was still some sort of attempt to play real basketball. dunlap just gave up playing defense from preseason on because he knew the team would never be able to do it. i'll always laugh at that

[BeesWax]

we may not have on a single game if he hadn't found a way to blitz in basketball

So you're commending him for how he had a defensive philosophy that put us at literally the worst defense in the league?

In his defense I am not sure Thibs could have turned that mess into an even decent defensive team. We were very devoid of developed talent that year. He did recognize that we have to play very unorthodox not to kill absolute blown out every single night.

[floppymoose]

I actually think MCW is a good player. Or at least will be one.

[yosemiteben]

we may not have on a single game if he hadn't found a way to blitz in basketball

So you're commending him for how he had a defensive philosophy that put us at literally the worst defense in the league?

In his defense I am not sure Thibs could have turned that mess into an even decent defensive team. We were very devoid of developed talent that year. He did recognize that we have to play very unorthodox not to kill absolute blown out every single night.

He had the worst sets I have ever seen. They were completely embarrassing. I completely disagree that he made a good choice about proper defensive rotations, even given the lack of talent.

[DY_nasty]

So you're commending him for how he had a defensive philosophy that put us at literally the worst defense in the league?

In his defense I am not sure Thibs could have turned that mess into an even decent defensive team. We were very devoid of developed talent that year. He did recognize that we have to play very unorthodox not to kill absolute blown out every single night.

He had the worst sets I have ever seen. They were completely embarrassing. I completely disagree that he made a good choice about proper defensive rotations, even given the lack of talent.

They weren't sets or rotations. He threw guys at the ball carrier as far out as he could on some quasi-Heat trap scheme and once it didn't work he just told the guys to get ready to run if the other team missed.

It was the closest thing to a blitz the NBA has probably ever seen. Dude committed everything to fastbreak points and increasing possessions through not playing real defense (which the team was simply incapable of doing) easing the pain of getting obliterated consistently. If he didn't make the conscious effort to gamble everything on attacking right after the half court line, then the Bobcats would've probably easily been the worst defensive team of all time. They were on pace for it at one point too. Its all quite hilarious to me tbqh

[HornetJail]

So you're commending him for how he had a defensive philosophy that put us at literally the worst defense in the league?

In his defense I am not sure Thibs could have turned that mess into an even decent defensive team. We were very devoid of developed talent that year. He did recognize that we have to play very unorthodox not to kill absolute blown out every single night.

He had the worst sets I have ever seen. They were completely embarrassing. I completely disagree that he made a good choice about proper defensive rotations, even given the lack of talent.

we brought back nearly the exact same roster the next year. our only "notable additions" were Big Al and Zeller, and neither of them were defensive players by any stretch.

Dunlap->Clifford was one hell of a jump

[Braggins]

In his defense I am not sure Thibs could have turned that mess into an even decent defensive team. We were very devoid of developed talent that year. He did recognize that we have to play very unorthodox not to kill absolute blown out every single night.

He had the worst sets I have ever seen. They were completely embarrassing. I completely disagree that he made a good choice about proper defensive rotations, even given the lack of talent.

we brought back nearly the exact same roster the next year.

Dunlap->Clifford was one hell of a jump

No no no. That roster included Ben Gordon, Byron Mullens, Brendan Haywood, Hakim Warrick, Reggie Williams, Tyrus Thomas, Sagana Diop, Matt Carroll, and Corey Higgins. Kemba and Biz were in their second years and didn't have a training camp or a full season their rookie years and were coached by a complete lame duck in Silas. MKG and Taylor were rookies. The only other players that team had were worthy rotation players were Sessions, Hendo, Jeff Adrien, and half a season of McBob. That team was basically the 7 win team with MKG and Taylor added and showed massive improvement. I hadn't considered that theory about why we ran that insane defensive scheme that year but that might actually be a pretty insightful observation. I'm not excusing how bad we were that season or saying I think Dunlap could have coached us to a good defense with a reasonable roster like Clifford has because there simply isn't any evidence to suggest it but I think that dude might be onto something about why we played that way.

[Braggins]

There is no denying that Kemba and Hendo looked amazing considering the circumstance in Mike Dunlaps system. Even rookie MKG looked a lot better offensively than he did under Clifford his sophomore season.

[Braggins]

Hey, he took a 7 win team and got a 21 win team and that was with Mullens playing a prominent role. Give him one more year of progression from Kemba, Biz, and MKG and combine that with Tankathon '13 and we still probably get the 8th seed. He'd still be coach if he hadn't have gone all stern taskmaster with constant practices.

Wed be worse than last year's Cavs. If we still had Tanklap. Dunlap was a detriment to our bigs and a god awful coach in games

what bigs?

dude's entire coaching philosophy on defense was built around the team's complete inability to play defense past the 8 second mark or rebound. i've never seen a coach so immediately accept his team as fundamentally broken from the ground level. i'll always respect him for that. we may not have on a single game if he hadn't found a way to blitz in basketball

You are blowing my mind. I never considered why Dunlap had us running that crazy system but it makes a ton of sense. At the time I just thought he was crazy lol.