The "Dude": The Mitch Kupchak Thread

[Slava]

Fire Clifford. Bring in Fizdale.

I'd rather bring back Dunlap.

Fizdale is a good coach

Don't do that to yourselves. Fizdale was booted out of Memphis because he was beginning to ride his own dick a little too much to the annoyance of everyone around including players like Gasol. He went ahead and started dialing in favours to campaign for the Lakers job immediately knowing fully well that its a rule in the coaching community to not campaign for another coach's job.

Jordan would kick him out in a week.

Clifford is a good coach and a far better person who would get on well with Kupchak. Its best to stick with him even during a rebuild.

[_tijo_]

Now that Kupchak is official, this is what I think he does:

1. He moves Kemba to get rid of salary. I hate it, but it's what they will do. If he can get rid of Kemba + Batum for a pick and expiring, he does it.
2. He keeps Dwight so his number comes off the cap next summer.
3. We get the 12th pick in the draft because we're the Hornets and some team jumps us so we actually get a worse pick than projected.
4. He drafts SGA from Kentucky to pair with Monk, with the idea that they can complement each other pretty well. We start an all Kentucky backcourt with Monk and SGA and MKG. This is all part of his secret master "plan" to get the Brow to come here.
5. He lets Cliff coach the team this year, but fires him next summer (or doesn't renew his contract). He calls Calipari to see if he wants to coach his guys.

Basically he tries to use Kemba to shed salary (he knows we can't go anywhere with this group) and works toward the reboot in 2019.

[BeesWax]

I'd rather bring back Dunlap.

Fizdale is a good coach

Don't do that to yourselves. Fizdale was booted out of Memphis because he was beginning to ride his own dick a little too much to the annoyance of everyone around including players like Gasol. He went ahead and started dialing in favours to campaign for the Lakers job immediately knowing fully well that its a rule in the coaching community to not campaign for another coach's job.

Jordan would kick him out in a week.

Clifford is a good coach and a far better person who would get on well with Kupchak. Its best to stick with him even during a rebuild.

Cliff is a good person but he has shown nothing to make me think he is a good coach. I am not sure who we should get or who might be interested but the last thing you want is Cliff being in charge of a rebuilding team relying on player development.

[Slava]

Now that Kupchak is official, this is what I think he does:

1. He moves Kemba to get rid of salary. I hate it, but it's what they will do. If he can get rid of Kemba + Batum for a pick and expiring, he does it.
2. He keeps Dwight so his number comes off the cap next summer.
3. We get the 12th pick in the draft because we're the Hornets and some team jumps us so we actually get a worse pick than projected.
4. He drafts SGA from Kentucky to pair with Monk, with the idea that they can complement each other pretty well. We start an all Kentucky backcourt with Monk and SGA and MKG. This is all part of his secret master "plan" to get the Brow to come here.
5. He lets Cliff coach the team this year, but fires him next summer (or doesn't renew his contract). He calls Calipari to see if he wants to coach his guys.

Basically he tries to use Kemba to shed salary (he knows we can't go anywhere with this group) and works toward the reboot in 2019.

I'd look to flip Howard to someone looking to offload one of the awful 2016 free agency contracts and add a first rounder in the process. May be go a little crazy and play MKG as a small ball center like D'Antoni tried with Diaw.

MKG/Williams/Lamb/Monk/Kemba could be a fun run and gun line up. They might not go anywhere but you only need to hit on one or two good late picks to change your trajectory, kind of like a Toronto style build.

Hornets need to do things out of the box than follow a set rebuild pattern.

[Joest2003]

We start an all Kentucky backcourt with Monk and SGA and MKG.

We will not be competitive as long as we have MKG in the starting lineup. If I have to go through another season watching him catch a wide open shot and passing it up for a 2 dribble pull up long 2 I will probably off myself. He only fits on a team that has some real firepower and doesn't need to depend on him for anything other than defense. And even then they wouldn't want him to come in and ruin the spacing. You think MKG being here is going to help lure Anthony Davis? Lol common man.

Everyone but Walker, Monk, Bacon, zeller and Lamb need to go. Even possibly Walker too if that means getting out of Batums contract.

[Joest2003]

He's going to need to figure out what to do with this log jam of shooting guards we have. Monk will eventually have to play SG he's too good to be stuck behind Kemba. That gives us Monk Lamb Batum and Bacon just off the top of my head. I would hate to see Bacon or Lamb moved but I think it's going to happen.

[_tijo_]

We start an all Kentucky backcourt with Monk and SGA and MKG.

We will not be competitive as long as we have MKG in the starting lineup. If I have to go through another season watching him catch a wide open shot and passing it up for a 2 dribble pull up long 2 I will probably off myself. He only fits on a team that has some real firepower and doesn't need to depend on him for anything other than defense. And even then they wouldn't want him to come in and ruin the spacing. You think MKG being here is going to help lure Anthony Davis? Lol common man.

Everyone but Walker, Monk, Bacon, zeller and Lamb need to go. Even possibly Walker too if that means getting out of Batums contract.

1st of all MKG and Ant are boys. That's legit.

The post was what I think Mitch's plan and thinking would be. It's not what I would do, or even think that Ant would come here.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Howard and MKG are the guys I would most like to see traded from a fit perspective. Batum & either Zeller or Marv from a contract perspective.

[Robot Rock]

1. He moves Kemba to get rid of salary. I hate it, but it's what they will do. If he can get rid of Kemba + Batum for a pick and expiring, he does it.
2. He keeps Dwight so his number comes off the cap next summer.
3. We get the 12th pick in the draft because we're the Hornets and some team jumps us so we actually get a worse pick than projected.
4. He drafts SGA from Kentucky to pair with Monk, with the idea that they can complement each other pretty well. We start an all Kentucky backcourt with Monk and SGA and MKG.
5. He lets Cliff coach the team this year, but fires him next summer (or doesn't renew his contract)

All of this will happen except maybe the picking SGA. That would be good, though.

[Joest2003]

Looks strikingly similar to "papa" from stranger things. Not sure this guy can be trusted

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

So Mitch saying a whole lot of nothing, but I did find one thing interesting here:

Read on Twitter

He mentions that "First we need to find a style of play that fits the players."

Maybe I'm hearing more than what he meant to say, but that didn't sound great for Cliff. Strongly implies that the team is not currently playing that way.

[vorbis]

I watched pretty much the entire press conference (missed the first ~3 minutes or so) and agree that if you want to extrapolate 'newsy' stuff from this presser where Kupchak did everything he could to not make news, then it wasn't exactly a glowing evaluation of Clifford's performance. said he thought he was head coach material in LA, didn't expect it to take long. kind of boilerplate "yeah he exists" kind of stuff. the only newsy thing I'd take from that is his seat is definitely not ironclad safe. but, I mean who expected that.

also said about Kemba after some hemming and hawing "I don't know why you wouldn't want a player like him around". that's GM speak, and exactly the kind of thing he'd tell other GMs in discussions about potential trades. he also mentioned Kemba having one year left on his deal at an outrageously good number. but he spoke positively about Kemba's recent comments about not really being enthusiastic about being around for a rebuild. said he likes hearing that from players. very generic GM speak by a seasoned GM. not showing his cards.

mentioned Howard had one year left on his deal, and that he wanted to keep him in LA before he was 'recruited to Houston.' no immediate sense that he was tied to Howard or any other player for that matter.

he seems to have a clear head about the draft, and mentioned on multiple occasions his strategy for 2nd round picks, including in cases where you have multiple 2nd round picks. maaaaybe the days of selling 2nd round picks have passed? who knows.

mentioned the growth of analytical tools in recent years for player evaluation, and said he'll use both, but in the case of ties, go with his instincts. I think that's fair enough, and what you'd expect an old-school basketball guy to do. it's clear he is aware of the usefulness of new GPS-type tools, and aware of the organizational commitment it requires to fully implement it in the evaluation process. good news, but nothing straying from GeneralManagerese.

tl;dr he's a bit of an old salt and he won't seduce many media people, but it's clear he's got an ease of professionalism about him, and he's ready to be clearheaded about the needs of the roster going forward. where that leads is open to debate (to say the least), but it won't be his first rodeo.

[yosemiteben]

Looks strikingly similar to "papa" from stranger things. Not sure this guy can be trusted

Damn, I wish you hadn't said this. Never would have thought of that and now I can't unsee it! This is exactly spot on.

[BeesWax]

So Mitch saying a whole lot of nothing, but I did find one thing interesting here:

Read on Twitter

He mentions that "First we need to find a style of play that fits the players."

Maybe I'm hearing more than what he meant to say, but that didn't sound great for Cliff. Strongly implies that the team is not currently playing that way.

I think that is very telling. It is a shot at a roster that was built but not used correctly. I hope this is a sign that Cliff is out the door.

[JDR720]

Hopefully that means he thinks Cliffs system doesn't fit the players, and in order to fix that we need to dump Cliff rather than redo the roster for Cliffords system.

[yosemiteben]

It would be kinda fun to have a GM that doesn't give plain vanilla press conferences.

[Bassman]

Hopefully that means he thinks Cliffs system doesn't fit the players, and in order to fix that we need to dump Cliff rather than redo the roster for Cliffords system.

Indeed. This is no time for accommodating the wrong coach, wrong system, wrong match. I also hopefully read in the concept of a fresh start, new coach, decided strategy to fit the team approach to the talent (love that), and not a total gut job. Identify talent and all possible deals, then come away with your best team going forward.

I like it.

[Joest2003]

Looks strikingly similar to "papa" from stranger things. Not sure this guy can be trusted

Damn, I wish you hadn't said this. Never would have thought of that and now I can't unsee it! This is exactly spot on.

Lol the resemblance is uncanny

[countryboi]

It would be kinda fun to have a GM that doesn't give plain vanilla press conferences.

yea but then you would end up with a Gman vs Steve smith situation where players find out the news about them on twitter.

[Radu_Hornets]

Trade Howard? Pursue Leonard? Start Monk? What will Hornets do? Here are your answers

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/nba/charlotte-hornets/article208919354.html