MartinToVaught wrote:Plus, even if Doc's initial gameplans are good, he has no response when other coaches make adjustments. Just look at the Rockets game the other night. Doc went in planning to have Luc guard Harden - the blatantly obvious move that any coach would make with our personnel. But then he proceeded to watch and do nothing as DJ got switched on to Harden all game long. This is the second highest paid coach in the league, and he had no idea what to do when the Rockets started running basic high HORNS sets. He knows (or at least he should know) that Harden is one of the best in the league at orchestrating the PNR, but he still had no answer for it. What kind of "strategic advantage" doesn't include simple adjustments and counter-adjustments?
Good points, but I don't think this is in any way a Doc problem, this is kind of an every coach problem, it just depends to what degree. For example, the same thing you just mentioned Doc doing in one game was exactly what Pop did for the whole series in 14-15. Clippers ran high horns to get Kawhi off Paul, and it consistently opened up mismatches with Paul going against their bigs or even Blake on a small, and it killed them. Pop never adjusted the whole series. The 10-11 Lakers lost two games they had no business losing to the Hornets who lost David West just before the playoffs. Paul abused them on the pick and roll, they kept giving up switches and allowing him to isolate against Pau and/or Bynum. Phil didn't adjust all series, but they won due to just the large talent disparity. Series shouldn't have gone to more than 4-5 games as they were playing a team with Carl Landry as their second option.
On that point though, there's a situation here where coaches are essentially in a lose/lose situation when it comes to adjustments. If they stick with their game plan which seemed to be failing (at least short term), if that same game plan ends up working because the opposing team isn't making every shot anymore, fans might say "well he just got lucky, he should have adjusted". If they lose, then of course "what an idiot, he should have adjusted". I agree with coaches having to make adjustments, but I find it interesting how arrogant we can be as fans that if the coach had just done the adjustment we thought was correct, the team would certainly have won. Half the time people don't even notice the minor adjustments that are made, and then we tend to ignore when the adjustment we called for is done, and it totally fails and just find another thing to attack (rotations or something).
If the coach changes the game plan and they win, the coach might get credit, good adjustment. If the coach changes the game plan and they lose, then the response is "what an idiot, why would you divert from your game plan just because it wasn't working for a stretch, you should stick to it because the game plan is for the "big picture" large sample size, not for the small sample". Coaching ability and adjustments tend to get judged based on the final outcome not on any objective basis of whether or not it was the right adjustment or decision.
And that's just on the micro level. On the macro level, Doc hops on the latest fads without fully understanding them. He sees teams like the Rockets, Cavs and Warriors raining threes at a historic rate, so he makes our current roster rush up lots of jumpers instead of playing to the strengths of our personnel. He sees teams around the league going small at the 4 and the 5, so he trots out midgets at the 2 and the 3. Then he wonders why it's not working, because he hears that small-ball is the wave of the future and thinks that means he can get away with going small anywhere on the court. But instead of learning from his mistakes and adjusting his approach to roster construction and personnel usage accordingly, he just keeps quadrupling down on the same failed strategies. Again, not seeing the advantage here.
In reality the whole league is a copycat league, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. If something is working, copy it, but it can be a problem when you don't have anything close to the right personnel to accomplish that thing effectively. I think it is a bit arrogant of us to suggest that Doc doesn't fully understand the "latest fads". The problem with this is that a coaching staff is not one person, and for us to suggest that the whole coaching staff along with Doc is just so dumb and can't grasp all the latest fads like we are able to, well...
Doc understands the latest fads, Doc knows what he lacks in terms of personnel, the problem is that first it is never as easy as it seems to acquire the personnel you ideally need, and Doc has had some overconfidence issues in terms of how capable he thinks he is of "coaching up" players. This has led to him wasting the minimal assets he's had by acquiring the wrong players. When your major supporting contributors on a yearly basis are minimum players, you're unlikely to get the ideal pieces.
I don't really mind the copying, nobne of us should, but of course don't copy poorly. Outside of that though, the issue I've seen is that Doc has built rosters with players who require minutes that essentially force the team to play certain lineups. When you have both Rivers and Crawford, you create the problem of having two SG's, neither of which is a proper PG, and neither of which is a proper SF. So you either play one out of position at PG and have issues there, or play one out of position at SF, and have issues there.
On the rare occasion that Doc flukes into a strategy that somewhat works, it's always ripped off from a superior coach. For instance, Pop invented the gimmick of conceding offensive rebounds to get back on D more quickly. Doc took all the credit for it. Jimmy Patsos (the Loyola coach at the time) invented the strategy of aggressively doubling and even tripling Curry all game when he was still in college. Doc took all the credit for it. A coach who gives their team a strategic advantage would be inventing these kinds of strategies, not just following the trends.
Taking from other coaches is not a bad thing either. The willingness to learn from the experiences of others is actually a good coaching trait. Basically all the great coaches in the league will say that part of how they got great is their willingness to learn from other coaches. Doc was not the only coach to follow in Pop's footsteps . All the Pop disciples did, but we also had Carlisle, a coach many highly regard who copied that. SVG, Clifford, Spoelstra and Stotts. Can you be a strong offensive rebounding team and a strong transition defense? Sure, but the Clippers had not shown themselves to be capable of that. I have felt that they should go back to attempting to be a strong offensive rebounding team though, just as a counter to the league trend, but if they don't defend transition they will burn themselves.
The only things Doc is good at are making excuses and deflecting all blame off of himself. And it looks like he still has some people fooled. There are still people who think he's some brilliant coach because the Big Three dragged him to a ring almost a decade ago.
Doc's actual ability is in the middle of being a brilliant coach (which I'm not really sure I hear / read anyone saying), and being this terrible idiot of a coach who has no original thought of his own, somehow doesn't understand basketball even as much as the average RealGM Clippers fan, and doesn't know what a proper rotation or adjustment is. Of course maybe we just love a lot of hyperbole, who knows.
