#Spacing - Steve Clifford Thread

Vanderbilt_Grad · Post #1781 » by **Vanderbilt_Grad** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 10:39 am

Braggins wrote:Keeping Clifford is basically going all in on the worst version of Van Gundy ball possible. Even Van Gundy ball in its best form is kind of questionable, so I have no idea why we would want to go all in on Clifford's version. Is this really want anyone wants?

No, but I feel like it's going to happen.

Post #1782 » by **yosemiteben** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 1:20 pm

Braggins wrote:Keeping Clifford is basically going all in on the worst version of Van Gundy ball possible.

How is giving him one more year to prove himself going all in?

LofJ · Post #1783 » by **LofJ** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 1:36 pm

I'm in favor of giving Clifford another year. As maddening as his dumb rotations are he has at the very least put our guys in a position to succeed defensively. He's utterly failed on the other side of the court so he has his work cut out for him in the offseason, but hopefully he realizes that. For starters he needs to stop reaching out to SVG and Thibodeau because defense isn't his problem. He needs to reach out to Kerr or Carlyle and pick their brain as often as they're willing to speak with him. That and we also need to hire someone that understands how to adapt offensive systems to the skill set of the players they have.

I also suggest that MJ approach Coach K and ask him to work with our staff in the summer. He needs to start giving his assistants more autonomy to run things because he's reaching retirement age. Why not start transitioning to something he can do on the side?

BeesWax · Post #1784 » by **BeesWax** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 1:38 pm

yosemiteben wrote:
Braggins wrote:Keeping Clifford is basically going all in on the worst version of Van Gundy ball possible.

How is giving him one more year to prove himself going all in?

It kind of depends. Does keeping Clifford cost us anything. Do we try to go out and spend another off-season going after players to fit his system? Do we lose Biz because he does not fit with a coach who is not doing very well? It is going all in if it cost this team players or cap flexibility long term. He was just plain bad this season and if we lose worthwhile assets to try to fit his completely inflexible system then it is just to much.

Post #1785 » by **yosemiteben** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 2:13 pm

jdm3 wrote:
yosemiteben wrote:
Braggins wrote:Keeping Clifford is basically going all in on the worst version of Van Gundy ball possible.

How is giving him one more year to prove himself going all in?

It kind of depends. Does keeping Clifford cost us anything. Do we try to go out and spend another off-season going after players to fit his system? Do we lose Biz because he does not fit with a coach who is not doing very well? It is going all in if it cost this team players or cap flexibility long term. He was just plain bad this season and if we lose worthwhile assets to try to fit his completely inflexible system then it is just to much.

What type of player fits his system that people don't want anyway? We need shooters and scorers. He's said it throughout the season. Everyone here knows it.

It's not like he has this completely exotic offensive scheme that will only work if we get new players that are otherwise useless in other NBA schemes.

BeesWax · Post #1786 » by **BeesWax** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 2:36 pm

yosemiteben wrote:
jdm3 wrote:
yosemiteben wrote:How is giving him one more year to prove himself going all in?

It kind of depends. Does keeping Clifford cost us anything. Do we try to go out and spend another off-season going after players to fit his system? Do we lose Biz because he does not fit with a coach who is not doing very well? It is going all in if it cost this team players or cap flexibility long term. He was just plain bad this season and if we lose worthwhile assets to try to fit his completely inflexible system then it is just to much.

What type of player fits his system that people don't want anyway? We need shooters and scorers. He's said it throughout the season. Everyone here knows it.

It's not like he has this completely exotic offensive scheme that will only work if we get new players that are otherwise useless in other NBA schemes.

No he has no offensive scheme. We tried to fill his needs with some shooters in the past and they perform below their career averages. We went after Marvin and Roberts with the idea that they solved what Clifford wanted which was shooters. The "system" he runs does not help the guys we bring in. If we bring in someone who would apply universally then fine but if we went specialty for him like we did last season, other than Lance, then it is not a good plan. If it costs us Biz it is not a good plan.

Post #1787 » by **yosemiteben** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 2:54 pm

jdm3 wrote:We tried to fill his needs with some shooters in the past and they perform below their career averages.

I've made this argument too, but now I'm not so sure. Marvin didn't. Tolliver didn't. CDR did well.

Neal was shooting 36% from three in MIL, then came to us and shot 40.6%. He was on fire in the month of November when he was really our only scoring option from the guard spots and then went into an insane slump for two months. Maybe that's Cliff's fault, but I'm not convinced of that.

jdm3 wrote:We went after Marvin and Roberts with the idea that they solved what Clifford wanted which was shooters. The "system" he runs does not help the guys we bring in.

Marvin pretty much did exactly what he did in Utah last season (which was close to a career high), he's just had a few less attempts.

I agree with your point about Roberts, he has been disappointing, but he wasn't ever going to be a primary perimeter threat and I don't think can be used as evidence that a wing player with a strong perimeter game won't be successful here. I wouldn't say we targeted him - he was cheap and seemed to fit. We signed him for less than $3M per year, there aren't a ton of reliable shooting options at that price range.

jdm3 wrote:If we bring in someone who would apply universally then fine but if we went specialty for him like we did last season, other than Lance, then it is not a good plan. If it costs us Biz it is not a good plan.

I agree that if it costs us Biz it's not a good plan, but otherwise it's like you are arguing that we shouldn't be targeting perimeter shooters. Is that your argument?

BeesWax · Post #1788 » by **BeesWax** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 3:07 pm

No I never said that. I said we should not target guys who are only targeted for shooting. We got three guys who shot at least 35% from three the year before last off season. This year only Marv has come in at that range. We got a guy who had the 6th best EFG% in the NBA for qualifying SGs last season and he has been a disaster.

Also once Al started beasting in the post all star portion of last year everyone had their 3PT% go down from the first half. Tolliver, CDR, and McRoberts all dropped off. It seems his offense was figured out and he has been unable to adjust. All our perimeter players started to sputter after the break and it continued into this year. Only Neal shot well post all star break last season.

Now this season Marvin has gone up since the all star break. I am curious if he has been figured out and does not know how to get good looks for his shooters. Will a shooter help us? I agree we could use another one but I am not sure if it will hurt their confidence playing under Clifford for one season while he runs his terrible offense.

Post #1789 » by **yosemiteben** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 3:21 pm

I think it says something that our best shooters since Clifford arrived were a guy we plucked from the D league that is now out of the league and who before us had never been able to stay on a roster (CDR), a guy that has bounced around year to year and was traded this season by the team that signed him like a month into the season for a guy they cut a couple weeks later (Tolliver), and a guy that took almost double the number of threes in one season for us (291) than he did in his entire five plus year career before that (185, 29 of which were for us the year before) (McRoberts).

Cliff has never really had a single proven shooter to work with during his time in Charlotte.

Post #1790 » by **JDR720** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 3:26 pm

I would let him coach next season, but if he is still messing up too much he is gone. if we do fire him i would still bring in another defensive coach because our best players are defensive focused but he would have to be at least average on offense and flexible. would also target someone relatively young.

Hornet Mania · Post #1791 » by **Hornet Mania** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 3:41 pm

On the tangent about retaining Clifford hypothetically costing us Biz, I would also rather just keep Biz. I'm about 90% sure Cliff will be gone by June 2016 anyway.

BeesWax · Post #1792 » by **BeesWax** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 3:52 pm

yosemiteben wrote:I think it says something that our best shooters since Clifford arrived were a guy we plucked from the D league that is now out of the league and who before us had never been able to stay on a roster (CDR), a guy that has bounced around year to year and was traded this season by the team that signed him like a month into the season for a guy they cut a couple weeks later (Tolliver), and a guy that took almost double the number of threes in one season for us (291) than he did in his entire five plus year career before that (185, 29 of which were for us the year before) (McRoberts).

Cliff has never really had a single proven shooter to work with during his time in Charlotte.

I think this shows that the only way someone can make threes in Cliffords system is for the other team to ignore them and just let them shoot. After teams realized CDR and Tolliver were capable they covered them and the percentages dropped. Marvin starts off shooting just eh and so they let him have more shots now he shoots 40%. I think these swings in shooting percentages are a lot of ability to set up a plan where we get good open looks. I am all for bringing in Danny Green to be a shooter for us. The problem is that when he starts shooting bad people are going to try to blame Cho for getting the wrong shooter. Then when somebody we have now does well somewhere else it is going to be Cho's fault for letting them go. He has brought in guys who shot well other places even if they had not been playing long and they come here and start to struggle. At some point when this many people have a production drop off you have to look at the "system". I put that in parenthesis because I am not sure he has a system but just goes out there and does a terrible job of winging it.

Post #1793 » by **yosemiteben** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 7:24 pm

jdm3 wrote:At some point when this many people have a production drop off you have to look at the "system". I put that in parenthesis because I am not sure he has a system but just goes out there and does a terrible job of winging it.

I fully understand your argument, and honestly you may be right, but I still maintain that you can't point to a single shooter that Cliff has had during his time at Charlotte that had a role as a primary shooter for even an average NBA team before that player arrived or after that player left.

BeesWax · Post #1794 » by **BeesWax** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 9:55 pm

yosemiteben wrote:
jdm3 wrote:At some point when this many people have a production drop off you have to look at the "system". I put that in parenthesis because I am not sure he has a system but just goes out there and does a terrible job of winging it.

I fully understand your argument, and honestly you may be right, but I still maintain that you can't point to a single shooter that Cliff has had during his time at Charlotte that had a role as a primary shooter for even an average NBA team before that player arrived or after that player left.

His years in SA Neal was a top three 3pt shooter by per game volume. I do get your point but I am not sure it matters. We got guys that could shoot then managed to make them bad shooters. Is it they were not ready to be primary shooters? I do not know but it could be. I just think since all these guys while not being primary scorers in the past shot high percentages on solid numbers of attempts. They get here and bottom out. I think we have to target a player that will fit not only what Clifford needs but any system because I do not think Clifford lasts past next season. He has to develop some sort of offensive system or he is gone.

Elden Payton · Post #1795 » by **Elden Payton** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 3:18 am

Clifford has failed on every level this season.

We have missed the playoffs and not given youngsters opportunities to develop, I wouldn't care if we played the vets and made the playoffs or played the prospects and missed the playoffs but to play the verts and miss the playoffs is hard to digest.

Clifford defensive schemes have also been exposed, no MKG equals no defense... and even when MKG is out, he refuses to play Biz in place of Al, this is maddening and just defies logic.

Fire him and hire Mike Malone or something, players love him, he can coach offense and develop talent, after being a part of the Kings, this organization would compare with the Spurs.

Hornet Mania · Post #1796 » by **Hornet Mania** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 6:55 pm

If Malone would actually come here I'd swap them in an instant, just not sure that he will. Cliff definitely needs to get the boot though, and I have no doubt anymore that he will, it's just a matter of when. Doubt the ax comes down in the next few weeks, more likely after a mediocre 2016 or in the worst (best?) it comes a month or two into next season if we have another 6-19ish start.

Bassman · Post #1797 » by **Bassman** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 7:42 pm

Agree with the desire to hire Malone (if possible) then fire Clifford. Another year of Cliff-ball delays the re-re-rebuild. If both Al and Hendo opt-in, it may not matter. But, part of the problem with Clifford and the front office is their focus on Al. As long as he is here, we are stuck. If they were to agree on a multi-year extension this summer...I just don't think I could stomach it. But that is exactly the kind of thing I could see Cliff promoting, and Cho agreeing to. It would be at a "hometown discount" that they would crow about, but do nothing but lock in big money on a guy who is clearly long on mileage. As much as I love Al's classic low-post game, the game has left him (and it) behind.

Post #1798 » by **fatlever** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:30 pm

why is everyone so in love with Malone?

Post #1799 » by **yosemiteben** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:46 pm

fatlever wrote:why is everyone so in love with Malone?

Curious about this as well. He was 28 - 54 his first season with SAC, then started this season 11 - 13. Granted SAC was a bit of a mess, but not sure what the draw is.

HornetJail · Post #1800 » by **HornetJail** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:57 pm

Clifford->Malone seems like a lateral move personally. I'm more interested to see Clifford sans Jefferson than anything else. I think the roster is more to blame than he is. When your best three-point shooter for 2/3 of the season is a 35% shooting Marvin Williams, and you've got a high-usage big man in Al Jefferson, what the hell do you expect to happen? Between McRoberts, Tolliver, CDR, etc, Cho has been phenomenal picking up the right role players on the cheap- he dropped the ball this year letting them go and replacing them with decidedly mediocre players, and Clifford couldn't adjust. There's blame all around, but if I'm choosing between Jefferson and Clifford, I'm picking Clifford. We've had an infinite revolving door at the HC position forever- unless there's an obvious upgrade available, I'm still siding with Clifford. He's not without quirks, but he's likely one of the better coaches available to us.

I would honestly hire Dunlap back as an assistant to help out with our offense. I feel like it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, as long as we've got enough role player shooters to backup our non-shooting starters. At least he'd encourage Vonleh and Hendo to shoot threes, maybe Zeller too.