Sam Presti tells the coaches who to play

[sleestak33]

I base my premise on mainly Kendrick Perkins who started here all those years and averaged almost 30 minutes per game. There is absolutely no way in hell Scott Brooks continued to start Perk on his own volition in the face of overwhelming evidence that he was truly just a backup role player (his knee injury obviously had slowed him considerably and he wasn't remotely close to what he was in Boston) and the reason Perk kept starting is because Presti wasted 9.3 million per year on him and he would have looked like an idiot if he didn't start and play that role. Anybody who knows anything about the NBA will tell you that Perk is the reason OKC lost the finals against Miami as he never should have stepped on the court and was useless on both ends of the court...even the Miami players were quoted as saying they knew they were going to win when they kept seeing Perk in the starting lineup. What backs up my point is that once Perk left OKC he went from starting to never even getting off the bench and now he's out of the NBA at 32 which is still young so obviously he was terrible. Same thing goes with Kyle Singler who Presti wasted 25 million on and there's no way Donovan would have continued to play him as long as he did without Presti giving the orders because again it would have made him look like an idiot for signing him for that much money. Sabonis also should have been benched 20 games into the season but Presti wanted him out there and Roberson is absolutely atrocious yet he keeps starting and playing 32 minutes per game when he should be coming off the bench and playing maybe 12-14...it's all Presti. Hate to say it but the coach in OKC is a more of a puppet than anything.

[oken]

That's called ROI. Did you ever spend $25mln on a truly useless thing? I bet you would try even harder to salvage anything from it.

[Pillendreher]

Sunken cost fallacy.

[bondom34]

So we have no evidence of this. Is it possible? Yes. But it's possible there are aliens living next door too.

I don't know what the point of this is.

[bondom34]

And paragraphs as a suggestion.

[spearsy23]

And paragraphs as a suggestion.

I didn't want to say it, but I really wanted to say it.

Presti picks what routines the thunder girls do as well.

[Kizz Fastfists]

Please tell us who the better center was when Perkins was here. Who should have been starting over him? Singler gets/got minutes because the whole bench sucks. Should Huestis be getting the playing time? Do you really think Presti told Brooks to play inferior players? Do you think that he tells Donovan to play inferior players? You think Presti wants to lose games? Did Presti tell Donovan to play Kanter and Adams together against the Spurs in the playoffs last year? Do the coaches wear an ear piece so Presti can tell them who to substitute during the game? Does Presti design the offensive and defensive schemes? Are only the bad decisions on Presti and the ones that work are the coaches? Is it more likely that Presti made a poor coaching hire in Donovan?

[sleestak33]

Collison was a much better overall player than Perkins and clearly should have started. He's a 4 but he could easily have guarded anybody Perkins did but the difference is he was considerably better offensively and could run the floor better. Perkins was a huge detriment to the success of the team with his poor play. 9.3 million per year for 5 pts. and 6 rbds. is a joke. Presti also had Brooks start Sefolosha over Harden because he wanted Harden to become Manu Ginobli coming off the bench which was the Spurs blueprint. At the end of the day they had 3 MVP level players on the same team and failed to win even one championship because of these foolish personnel moves. Presti doesn't want to lose games, he's just so deadest on maintaining the Spurs blueprint that he just doesn't get that it isn't working (he came from San Antonio).

[spearsy23]

Harden as manu wasn't working? Lolwut

[Thundershock88]

I do agree that Collison should have started at Center. We should have gone small. Brooks never made any adjustments. The Heat ran a small ball lineup with Battier and Bosh and it destroyed us.

[spearsy23]

I do agree that Collison should have started at Center. We should have gone small. Brooks never made any adjustments. The Heat ran a small ball lineup with Battier and Bosh and it destroyed us.

Speaking specifically of the finals, it never would've mattered. Harden was complete trash, the refs were calling touch fouls on cupcake every trip down, and we were just too young. Starting nick may have won us an extra game at best.

[hardenASG13]

I do agree that Collison should have started at Center. We should have gone small. Brooks never made any adjustments. The Heat ran a small ball lineup with Battier and Bosh and it destroyed us.

Speaking specifically of the finals, it never would've mattered. Harden was complete trash, the refs were calling touch fouls on cupcake every trip down, and we were just too young. Starting nick may have won us an extra game at best.

Why wouldn't it have mattered? They could've won game 2 (probably should've anyway) bc Collison was so much better than perk he coulda easily accounted for the few points they needed. That woulda guaranteed they got back to OKC. That extra win is huge in that regard. And who knows, if perk isn't out there in miami, maybe their smallball lineup doesn't completely destroy okc and they get a game there. Why play an extremely slow traditional center, who can't guard the perimeter, if he isn't making up for that weakness by killing that small ball lineup on the boards or scoring inside (like Kanter does, for example)? What are the benefits? I used to always blame Brooks for this, but to the OPs point, similar mind boggling decisions have gone on with Donovan at times (Singler over morrow, which crushed morrow confidence, Singler over anyone, roberson currently). You can't say the system doesn't look earily similar with both coaches there either.

[Thundershock88]

I do agree that Collison should have started at Center. We should have gone small. Brooks never made any adjustments. The Heat ran a small ball lineup with Battier and Bosh and it destroyed us.

Speaking specifically of the finals, it never would've mattered. Harden was complete trash, the refs were calling touch fouls on cupcake every trip down, and we were just too young. Starting nick may have won us an extra game at best.

That may be the case BUT, we will never know. You have to make adjustments, especially in a series for all of the marbles. It was clear from the beginning that Perk could not guard Bosh. With Battier and Bosh able to draw them out of the paint, there was absolutely no reason to play him. Going small may not have worked, but you have to at least try there. You have to try something different when it isn't working. Perk worked well against teams with true centers. Bosh was basically a power forward and Battier was basically a small forward. It was a complete mismatch.

[sleestak33]

I do agree that Collison should have started at Center. We should have gone small. Brooks never made any adjustments. The Heat ran a small ball lineup with Battier and Bosh and it destroyed us.

Speaking specifically of the finals, it never would've mattered. Harden was complete trash, the refs were calling touch fouls on cupcake every trip down, and we were just too young. Starting nick may have won us an extra game at best.

Why wouldn't it have mattered? They could've won game 2 (probably should've anyway) bc Collison was so much better than perk he coulda easily accounted for the few points they needed. That woulda guaranteed they got back to OKC. That extra win is huge in that regard. And who knows, if perk isn't out there in miami, maybe their smallball lineup doesn't completely destroy okc and they get a game there. Why play an extremely slow traditional center, who can't guard the perimeter, if he isn't making up for that weakness by killing that small ball lineup on the boards or scoring inside (like Kanter does, for example)? What are the benefits? I used to always blame Brooks for this, but to the OPs point, similar mind boggling decisions have gone on with Donovan at times (Singler over morrow, which crushed morrow confidence, Singler over anyone, roberson currently). You can't say the system doesn't look earily similar with both coaches there either.

If Brooks would have started Harden and Collison instead of Thabo and Perkins there is absolutely no question OKC wins that series and probably 4-2 or even 4-1. Games 2-4 were all very close and the negative impact Perk had easily was the difference in those games. People rip on Harden because he didn't play well but a poorly playing Harden is still infinitely better than Thabo (Thabo was terrible in that series) and of course Perk never should have played even one minute. I still find it almost inconceivable that OKC had 3 MVP level players on the same team yet failed to win even one championship and most of it goes to poor personnel choices which is something even the casual fan could see needed to be made.