The Steve Clifford Thread 2.0 - Off the Cliff we go

[ChokeFasncists]

Kudos to Cliff, nice chart:

[Braggins]

My biggest criticism of Clifford at the moment is his player development philosophy. Not just because the results have obviously been very poor, but also because I think the development strategy that he has explicitly stated he follows, which is that he tells players to focus on working on what is going to get them playing time next season, is at least partially flawed.

I feel like that is a solid strategy with partially or mostly/full developed players, but when you are drafting 19 and 20 year olds you need to let them also focus heavily on developing their strengths and trying to develop what is going to get them the most out of their skill set in general. I think Clifford's philosophy has severely stunted the growth of several of our players.

Cody was immediately forced to play a role and position he had never played before and was expected to contribute with outside shooting and drives from the perimeter, which are both things that had never been strengths or major parts of his game before. If you look at our roster construction and apply Cliffords stated development philosophy to Cody, it becomes very obvious why this happened. He was never going to get many opportunities in the paint because Al Jefferson is teh post gawd and we were trying to make a playoff push with a roster of Al and a bunch of 19-21 year olds, so he was told to focus on defense, rebounding, and playing perimeter offense.

The same thing seems to have happened to Biz. With Al here he was never going to get many minutes since he is explicitly a center and he had no semblance of any kind of offensive game, so he was never going to get a chance to develop anything except defense and rebounding.

Vonleh missed training camp and the rest was history.

Kemba and MKG have turned into good players, but I think you could easily argue that both of them haven't developed as well as much as they probably should have at this point. MKG's offensive development was almost completely due to Mark Price and his first season with Clifford was an absolute disaster that had people doubting he would ever be an NBA starter despite having a promising rookie season (as a 19 year old).

Most of Kemba's development can also probably be contributed to Price as well. He has developed somewhat on defense and his shooting/finishing has improved but he really hasn't changed that much. He also struggled quite a bit initially under Clifford following his strong sophomore year.

I can't put all the blame on Clifford. Our drafting hasn't been that good and some of our players have some obvious limitations. However, I think it is hard to deny the pattern with our lack of player development. It seems to almost definitely be at least a significant part of the problem, and I would actually argue that it has possibly been a bigger issue than our drafting. I also find it hard to believe that Clifford also hasn't actually been a fairly big influence in our drafting process. It doesn't seem to be a coincidence that since we hired Clifford our last three draft picks have been attempts to draft stretch 4's.

[DY_nasty]

Regarding Cody.... That was a clash between coaching and FO. He was drafted to be a stretch 4 as a compliment to Al - and certainly not some key figure for our defense.

You could argue that if Cliff doesn't go against the grain and adapt to using Cody as a diving 5 and taking the time to make sure he learns to be a factor on defense, Cody ends up worse than Len.

FO and Coaching Staff didn't like Biz. I think the only coach that really appreciated Biz was Silas.

Kemba... I think the FO and Coaching Staff need to see him go just to get some real perspective on the whole situation. He's overvalued and accommodated way too much for a guy who's done a lot of nothing.

[Eoghan]

But, but, but, one of the big hallmarks of signing teh post gawd Al Jefferson was that he was going to mentor Charlotte's young bigs like he did with Favors and Kanter in Utah. It's not Clifford's fault Al's been too busy ripping bong hits and eating chicken to show the youngins the secrets to getting 20 and 10 without helping to win the game.

[spaceballer]

I like that he takes responsibility instead of looking for a scapegoat or throwing players under the bus (even if merited) to save face like some other coaches in the league do.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/JTyree704/status/689143313144745984[/tweet]
https://twitter.com/JTyree704/status/689143313144745984

[Eoghan]

That's because he doesn't have Billy Boy Biyombo to kick around no more.

[HornetJail]

Can we all agree that trading a lottery protected 1st to the Raptors in order to get Bismack back would be worth it? Or would Clifford play Spencer Hawes over him?

[Braggins]

I would do it in a heart beat, but Cliff probably would prefer Hawez. All that size... All that skill...

[LamarMatic7]

Can we all agree that trading a lottery protected 1st to the Raptors in order to get Bismack back would be worth it? Or would Clifford play Spencer Hawes over him?

I would argue that it would be spending too much for an asset which we don't exactly need that much.

a) despite his stats, I think we can all agree that Biz is at his best when playing about 20-25 minutes. a lottery protected pick would be a hefty price for such a player.

b) his skills somewhat overlap with Cody's and we have a logjam at the front-court when Al is healthy. is this really the time to spend a pick for another big? it would be moreso justified if we at least had moved one of the bigs we already have.

c) due to his shortcomings, he plays a role and possesses skills which are largely replicable. if you want a more defensive-minded big than Hawes that's fine but I bet there are athletic bigs out there who can do 70% of what Biz does in 20mpg and can be acquired for a lesser price.

d) his deal expires in the summer of 2017. if you look at him as a core asset for the future of the franchise you might as well woo him over then. if I had to put an over/under for our playoff series wins before the summer of 2017, it would probably be 0.5. thus I don't see a real need to try out such a luxury (spending a lotto-protected pick on a 25mpg center) if we're not likely to go far in the playoffs during this time span.

[Braggins]

Would you trade Cody and 2nd rounder for him?

Cody's versatility on defense is probably generally more valuable in our system, but since our other bigs are so incredibly soft I feel like we currently would be better off with someone like Biz who can just physically dominate the paint area and the rebounding game.

Cody is also worlds better on offense than Biz, but I feel like we aren't really utilizing him much more than we would Biz, so his superiority on that side of the ball isn't very relevant.

I'm not really sure what I'd do if that option was on the table. I think I would pull the trigger, but I can really see it both ways.

[BigSlam]

Why are we talking fake trades in the Cliff thread?


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[bigbob]

got to say...cliff really speaks fancy words about defense and how important it is, how he is a devensive guru of a coach lol. I really can't reconcile that with him having bigs shooting 3 from the perimeter, lack of post defense, lack of perimeter defense, lack of PnR defense. Not getting on batums case for playing shoddy D, nor kaminskys. He is not a defensive minded coach, he is what I like to call a "yes man", an employee who serves his bosses, ie cocapitain kemba and batum, says "yes" to whatever they say

[Eoghan]

got to say...cliff really speaks fancy words about defense and how important it is, how he is a devensive guru of a coach lol. I really can't reconcile that with him having bigs shooting 3 from the perimeter, lack of post defense, lack of perimeter defense, lack of PnR defense. Not getting on batums case for playing shoddy D, nor kaminskys. He is not a defensive minded coach, he is what I like to call a "yes man", an employee who serves his bosses, ie cocapitain kemba and batum, says "yes" to whatever they say

Yeah, he's a player's coach. He doesn't hold the star players accountable and uses the role players for whipping boys.

[swijayas]

got to say...cliff really speaks fancy words about defense and how important it is, how he is a devensive guru of a coach lol. I really can't reconcile that with him having bigs shooting 3 from the perimeter, lack of post defense, lack of perimeter defense, lack of PnR defense. Not getting on batums case for playing shoddy D, nor kaminskys. He is not a defensive minded coach, he is what I like to call a "yes man", an employee who serves his bosses, ie cocapitain kemba and batum, says "yes" to whatever they say

Yeah, he's a player's coach. He doesn't hold the star players accountable and uses the role players for whipping boys.

Believe this accountability & less ISO would give significantly improved results (really enjoyed the pre-season team ball)

[Eoghan]

I hope Clifford is wearing some asbestos underwear...

[yosemiteben]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/At_The_Hive/status/694604079369195520[/tweet]

At The Hive ‏@At_The_Hive 1h1 hour ago
At The Hive Retweeted Kumar
Steve Clifford among the top coaches in points out of timeouts



#narrativebuster

[fatlever]

I would not have expected that.

[HornetJail]

I'm very surprised. Somehow we manage to be among the worst at inbounding, but once the ball's in play, we're good apparently.

[BigSlam]

Imagine his numbers if we actually ran the one and only baseline in bound from under our basket play successfully.


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[TinmanZBoy]

Lin fans lol @the bottom three