The Steve Clifford Thread 2.0 - Off the Cliff we go

[stinger14]

Wouldn’t be surprised if they take him out of his misery (literally considering his mental health stress-related issues) this weekend by firing him and making their golden boy hot (not) shot assistant coach Silas the interim coach for the rest of the season.

It's too late to save this season, but the sooner he is gone, the sooner I know I want have to watch him coach this team again. The only positive to him finishing the season is our draft pick may be a couple spots higher.

Tony Bennett and Jay Wright are the type of guys I would like see be the next Coach

[bws94]

So basically, Coach had exhaustion and had to shut it down? At any rate, beyond basketball, best of health to Coach Clifford.

[catch20two]

The next head coach we get the first thing he’s gonna do is move Batum to SF or PF, watch lol. That’s assuming that Batum is even still on the roster after the new GM is appointed.

[catch20two]

Read on Twitter

[Bassman]

Read on Twitter

Does he think we are still in playoff pursuit?

This team, except for Kemba, shut it down after the trade deadline. As soon as everyone was safe, it was back to sloppy ball. Clifford presides over a club team, that’s all they are. Batum tried to produce when he thought it might get him moved to a contender; now he’s back to being a POS. Kaminsky is not good; I doubt Milwaukee would even trade for him.

Cliff and Cho have got to GO!

[316Hornets]

Read on Twitter

Does he think we are still in playoff pursuit?

This team, except for Kemba, shut it down after the trade deadline. As soon as everyone was safe, it was back to sloppy ball. Clifford presides over a club team, that’s all they are. Batum tried to produce when he thought it might get him moved to a contender; now he’s back to being a POS. Kaminsky is not good; I doubt Milwaukee would even trade for him.

Cliff and Cho have got to GO!

Stop with the truth. Cliff hates the truth and would rather talk about unicorns and faeries than where we are as a team.

[Snidely FC]

Clifford is a problem but there is a fracture between his systems and player personnel. He wants to play 4 out 1 in with a team that can't shoot

From 3: MKG 0% Batum 31% MCW 26% Frank 33% Lamb 34% Dwight? lol

Who continues to populate the roster with players that would have looked better in the Jordan Era? It's so schizoid.

Team management needs a renovation from top to bottom and a roster that is suited to the coach's system; and it can't be another iteration of the old boy network

[catch20two]

Clifford is a problem but there is a fracture between his systems and player personnel. He wants to play 4 out 1 in with a team that can't shoot

From 3: MKG 0% Batum 31% MCW 26% Frank 33% Lamb 34% Dwight? lol

Who continues to populate the roster with players that would have looked better in the Jordan Era? It's so schizoid.

Team management needs a renovation from top to bottom and a roster that is suited to the coach's system; and it can't be another iteration of the old boy network

I’d like to think that it’s Clifford’s offense scheme that devoids our 3pt prowess. I mean think about it how often do we shoot corner 3s compared to most other teams in the NBA?

MKG certainly doesn’t help in that area. I’m surprised they don’t tell him just to spot up from 3 and attempt them no matter what or else. I’m a huge MKG fan but if I was the head coach I would’ve gave him the ultimatum to attempt 2.5 3pters per game or get demoted to the bench.

I think a lot of our players are affected by Clifford’s vanilla offense and lack of ability to create open shots for our players in rhythm consistently. That’s why our go-to offense is usually Kemba or Lamb creating their own shot and Dwight in the post.

[TheKingofSting]

So basically, Coach had exhaustion and had to shut it down? At any rate, beyond basketball, best of health to Coach Clifford.

I missed the game, are you saying he has taken time away from basketball again?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BeesWax]

Clifford is a problem but there is a fracture between his systems and player personnel. He wants to play 4 out 1 in with a team that can't shoot

From 3: MKG 0% Batum 31% MCW 26% Frank 33% Lamb 34% Dwight? lol

Who continues to populate the roster with players that would have looked better in the Jordan Era? It's so schizoid.

Team management needs a renovation from top to bottom and a roster that is suited to the coach's system; and it can't be another iteration of the old boy network

The dead last thing you should do is draft for a coaches system. That is how you end up with Frank. What you should do is draft the best player available and have a coach who is good enough to be flexible and work with a system that fits the talent you can give him. That is where Cliff fails because he only knows one way and will jam that square peg against the round hole repeatedly without ever trying anything else. Could the roster be built better? Sure but it is built better than our record shows.

Great coaches adjust there systems to fit their players, good coaches try to work players into some version of their system and bad coaches just complain that the pieces they have don't work with what they want to do.

[yosemiteben]

It's not exactly drafting system players to draft guys that can shoot though. The ability to shoot the three is a necessary skill in any modern offensive system.

IMO our biggest problem right now is we have exactly one guy that can generate offense when defenses lock down. MKG and Marv disappear down the stretch, and Batum just isn't a big shot maker. Combine those two and you have a team that constantly falls apart down the stretch. MKG and Dwight just don't work together, and Marv isn't assertive enough to make up the difference.

[catch20two]

I’m going to miss you guys. I have a feeling that I’m going to be banned soon. I’ll be taking my trolling talents with a lot of basketball insight to either Reddit, AtTheHive, or SLAENT. I have a big decision to make so I want to weigh my options and talk it over with my family.

#CliffordMustGo

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

It's not exactly drafting system players to draft guys that can shoot though. The ability to shoot the three is a necessary skill in any modern offensive system.

IMO our biggest problem right now is we have exactly one guy that can generate offense when defenses lock down. MKG and Marv disappear down the stretch, and Batum just isn't a big shot maker. Combine those two and you have a team that constantly falls apart down the stretch. MKG and Dwight just don't work together, and Marv isn't assertive enough to make up the difference.

In both Marv and MKG's cases I think that their offense would be helped by a scheme which involved more ball movement, but yeah, having a 2nd offensive "star" or eve more really good 2 way players in the starting lineup would help.

Cho's early drafting definitely didn't seem to anticipate where the NBA would go. His later drafting seemed to be too much of drafting to fit the stretch 4 or grabbing a guy who dropped that the team apparently hadn't scouted enough. Lack of flexibility in the draft seems to e a thing with the team.

That said guys I thought Cliff liked:
2017 Donavan Mitchell
2016 no-one ... Cliff seemed to be a voice pushing for the Beli trade
2015 not sure ... Cliff seemed OK with Frank though
2014 Doug McDermott ... though Cliff was really excited about Vonleh in the early going

It's hard for me to say that the team has drafted they guys Cliff wanted every year. The Vonleh & Monk drafts in particular were clear "we can't believe theses guys fell" picks and were happening no matter who Cliff like or if they fit his system perfectly. The Beli trade is the one year where it really seems like Cliff's voice 'won' though maybe Frank is part of that too. Perhaps the Boston trade happens if Cliff doesn't push for Frank. IDK.

[yosemiteben]

To me a lineup that includes Dwight, Marv, and MKG is setting up for failure when you are playing against locked down defenses. Maybe this doesn't make sense because the net rating of our starting lineup is ok and the bench has been an issue, but I'm starting to think that even more than the bench the biggest issue has been our performance in Q4 and that includes our starting group. I expect us to lose close games now, we have no ability to close out games.

Maybe this falls on Cliff, maybe it doesn't, but MKG not being willing to even attempt threes is one of the biggest but under emphasized storylines this season. Like seriously, what is going on there? This offense would be so much better if we had a perimeter shooter at SF in the starting lineup. How can someone shoot so many long 2s without even attempting a 3?

I am about at the point of favoring Graham over MKG with the starters. At least Graham will attempt threes.

I would say Lamb over MKG, but I don't see where the bench points would come from if you swapped Lamb and MKG.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

I believe that Treveon would be a more productive starter than MKG in Cliff's system. I think that Lamb is the better player of the two and has good chemistry with Kemba ... but mostly I want Lamb finishing games in the 4th. The lineup I would like to see tried a bit more at some point is Kemba-Lamb-Treveon-Marv-Cody. All of those guys have at least something approaching a two way game.

[bws94]

So basically, Coach had exhaustion and had to shut it down? At any rate, beyond basketball, best of health to Coach Clifford.

I missed the game, are you saying he has taken time away from basketball again?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No, I meant when he had to miss time. I'm just late to commenting on it.

[Braggins]

Clifford is a problem but there is a fracture between his systems and player personnel. He wants to play 4 out 1 in with a team that can't shoot

From 3: MKG 0% Batum 31% MCW 26% Frank 33% Lamb 34% Dwight? lol

Who continues to populate the roster with players that would have looked better in the Jordan Era? It's so schizoid.

Team management needs a renovation from top to bottom and a roster that is suited to the coach's system; and it can't be another iteration of the old boy network

The dead last thing you should do is draft for a coaches system. That is how you end up with Frank. What you should do is draft the best player available and have a coach who is good enough to be flexible and work with a system that fits the talent you can give him. That is where Cliff fails because he only knows one way and will jam that square peg against the round hole repeatedly without ever trying anything else. Could the roster be built better? Sure but it is built better than our record shows.

Great coaches adjust there systems to fit their players, good coaches try to work players into some version of their system and bad coaches just complain that the pieces they have don't work with what they want to do.

I would love to know which people in our front office favored which players in the last few drafts. We were rumored to have been interested in the big misses from each of the last three drafts, but in each case went a different direction than the guy we were supposed to have liked and seem to have been wrong in each instance.

Word was we were after Booker in 2015 (we should have listened to you), but went with Frank. Brogdon in 2016, but traded the pick for **** Belinelli... Then everyone including Mitchell himself thought we were taking him last year if no one fell.

I feel like Frank and Belinelli wreak of Clifford, but I have no idea about the last draft. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone liked Mitchell, but couldn't pass up Monk after he fell (I still like Monk a lot as a prospect, but Mitchell seems to have been who we should have picked).

[JDR720]

If we had those 3 and they preformed anywhere close to or even half as good as they are now we would be a 3 seed.

But more likely is they all suck and frank is averaging mini-porzingis stats while monk is averaging 20/5/5

[JDR720]

I think cho likes athletic potential players (biz, vonleh, cody). mj likes "winners" frank, Kemba, mkg . Cliff likes "win now " players -
frank, trading the pick, probably even hairston.

Monk doesn't really fit any of these categories though. Guess he is a "winner" since he went to UK.

[BeesWax]

I think cho likes athletic potential players (biz, vonleh, cody). mj likes "winners" frank, Kemba, mkg . Cliff likes "win now " players -
frank, trading the pick, probably even hairston.

Monk doesn't really fit any of these categories though. Guess he is a "winner" since he went to UK.

I think Cho sees and likes potential. I think he was the Biz, Vonleh, Booker, and Brogdon guy. He saw guys who had skills that would translate to the NBA and had enough other promise to make it worth while. MJ like you said looks for intangibles. I think he is searching for someone with the same type of fire he had. This is why I think he had a hard time letting Kemba go this deadline because he sees that fire and doesn't want to lose it. Cliff would rather not have a rookie but if he does he wants him to fit into his system and would rather overdraft a guy 20 spots to slot into a backup role that have to try to develop a guy who has potential to be really good.