Dr Spaceman wrote:bondom34 wrote:Dr Spaceman wrote:Gentry to be the next NO coach. Thoughts? He's clearly a talented offensive mind, and from accounts was exactly the type of personality they were looking for. Davis LOVED Monty, and it seems like Gentry is the type of guy who can foster a similar bond. Still curious to see where they go for assistants because their defense was 100% of their problem.
Also seems likely now that Thibs will take a year off from coaching. Wait for another spot on a playoff roster of something close.
I'm not sure. I kinda like it, but at the same time, he was a HC before and not very good. Some guys are just cut to be assistants and I wonder if he's one. That roster is a strange mishmash of players outside AD, and I don't know its ceiling. He could be great though too.
yeah he's had a poor head coaching record to this point, although I thought he was very good in Phoenix, especially considering he was brought back to basically be the D'Antoni consolation prize. I think the feeling is his time under Doc and on Kerr's staff will give him some perspective. Plus I think his offensive clout has grown a great deal.
Still, though, NOP was actually quite good offensively, it was the defense we were worried about. Weird fit, but again I feel like he's got a great personality for Davis, and maybe they aren't ready to be a serious team yet.
My thought on Gentry is that he's in the midst of something similar to the delayed "promotion" that Doc Rivers received as a result of the Big 3 in Boston.
When Boston got better, the reaction at first was simply to dismiss Doc as a guy getting lucky because he had the better players and the smart assistant, but over time people came to see Doc as one of the few guys in the league with a history of functioning well in all seasons and worth getting excited about.
When Gentry had some success in Phoenix, the immediate reaction was that it was just him going back to D'Antoni ball despite the fact that some major changes had occurred. The relatively limited success of the Suns meant that there was a limit to how much people would pay attention to Gentry, and when he was let go, people weren't up in arms. But when he started getting gigs as "offensive guru", people paid attention. The Clipper experiment was not definitive enough to cause huge excitement, but it was still a positive. The Warrior experiment though was a resounding smash that basically permanently established Gentry as an offensive guru in multiple situations - which makes him frankly virtually unique. While everyone respects D'Antoni's offensive brain, he has no track record of being able to come into any situation and make it work, only a blueprint he came up with that revolutionized the league once.
It's entirely possible this new narrative is too flattering for Gentry, but I think it's important to understand someone deserves a lot of credit for the offensive changes Golden State has made, and that if the answer is really that Kerr came up with everything, then it's strange to me why Kerr would have bothered hiring Gentry in the first place given that Kerr was GM when Gentry worked in Phoenix. As such, to the extent "offensive guru" is actually a think in the NBA, Gentry has as good of a claim on it as basically anyone.
And there's no doubt that as good as the Pelican offense is, it could get considerably better, so in that sense the move makes sense.
I'm with everyone else though: The defense can get A LOT better, so it's odd the Pelicans didn't go for a defensive guy. Frankly, it was the defense that made me say that Monty had to go. Monty had plenty of positives working for him, but clearly he was unable to make the team defensively sound. Maybe no one else could either, but that seems unlikely, and so I felt like after all this time, a change was easily worth the risk. If, somehow, defense was not a major part of the interview process then, that's shocking, and a sign of glaring incompetence.
My guess as to what happened is that the Pellie FO had a very serious consideration about Thibs, and decided the cons outweighed the pros. And this to me is pretty shocking also, but only because it confirms some of the rumors flying about about how problematic Thibs as seen in terms of his softer skills. Once you've decided that Thibs is not your guy - or I suppose at the very least he'd have to interview for the position - then you open it up to other guys, and Gentry has the stature that it makes sense for him to be on every short list out there. Hopefully what Gentry said is some combination of "here are your offensive problems right now, and here are your defensive. You've also got the greatest talent in the game on your team right now, and he needs to keep growing here and here, but we also need to make sure we keep bringing him along gradually, which Monty did a good job of. You're going to need to address X, Y, and Z. I can spearhead X completely, and Y & Z partially, here are some guys I've worked with who I would bring in to help me with them."
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