coldfish wrote:If Mark Jackson or Jason Kidd or countless other coaches were coaching Derrick, they would have tried to turn him into something he wasn't, which was a passing PG. Thibs embraced Rose as a scoring guard and that maximized his talent. I doubt that Rose would have won MVP with many other coaches.
Regardless, I made the specific points about Derrick making noticeable improvements. You seem to be raising the bar to a level where no coach could ever reach. I would love an objective read on the situation. During his tenure how many players became all stars under him who never had before versus other coaches?
I'm not sure that questioning whether he developed Derrick Rose, whom was viewed as a franchise caliber talent before Thibs is really raising the bar to a level no one could reach.
He seemed to actively delay Jimmy Butler's development, whom developed very slowly under Thibs and continued to get much better after Thibs, as an example. He did this for the exact reason I stated of not giving time to young players.
It is my understanding that teams do few full on practices during the season. That said, they do film work with coaches regularly. What we refer to as a "shootaround" is really a pre-planned set of individual workouts with trainers. Walkthroughs are before every game and players have a chance to work with coaches then, put film work into play and work on 5 on 5 game understanding at a slower pace.
Don't get caught up in the word "practice" as being only full speed full team workouts. For every hour they spend on an NBA court, players will spend several working on their craft in some way. Some people might call that "practicing".
Are you suggesting that a player is going to improve at making correct defensive reads in walkthroughs and film sessions without being on the court or that they will be able to prove their ability to do so while not on the court? I agree these things are important, but playing as absolutely more important.
In general, I think you completely missed Thibodeau's point.Tom Thibodeau wrote:“Practice is important. The regular season is important. Your meetings are important. Your walk-through is important. Everything is important. You want to be a championship team, there's a price to pay. And that's what you have to do. There's no shortcuts. You can't shortcut your way to success.”
That goes with the above too.
You know how towards the end of the Rose run with Pau the team just kind of lollygagged its way through the regular season? If you go back to the board at the time, you will see many people talk about the team "flipping a switch". When the playoffs came, they were unable to do so.
This is a common thing in sports. A lot of players and teams think they can just turn it on when they feel like. Very few really can though. Thibodeau doesn't believe that game 15 of the regular season is going to make or break the team. The whole purpose of taking every game seriously is to teach players HOW to take games seriously. Work on conditioning. Develop good habits.
Here is another guy I'm guessing you would have hated as a coach but its exactly the same philosophy:
https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Habit-Lombardi-Success-Excellence/dp/0062702157
I didn't say I hated Thibs. I said he was a good coach. I said player development wasn't his strength. Some of what you said above, about providing that day in and day out consistency is great as a trait for any player to have and develop, but young players that need time on the court but don't get it because they make a mistake are not developting.
This is different from developing a group or a team or building your culture and mantra and your path to success and putting the work in or grinding or whatever. You seem to be broadening out the topic considerably more than what I am. I said, specifically, I don't believe he's a good player development guy. All those things you brought up to me are on the fringe of player development IMO, but yeah, they're all great things.
I'm a golfer, so I'll give a golf analogy. No one has ever improved their swing by taking their practice and game time like a joke and trying Happy Gilmore swings with their off hand. You get better by developing a swing routine and sticking to it.
Thibs didn't pull people for missing shots. Most of the issue with Thibs was players missing defensive assignments. Letting players do that regularly doesn't help them and it also demoralizes the rest of the team who are working to do the right thing.
I literally can't think of any single thing in my life, ever, not one single instance, where I got better at something by doing it the wrong way.
Your golf swing wouldn't get better if you did it wrong, and then I told you were wrong and wouldn't let you swing the club again either.
Only the most trivial things in life are done the right way the first time. They're done the wrong way many times with work towards the right way.
You don't make the right defensive assignment after missing one by getting pulled from the game and not getting another chance and getting few minutes. You get the right defensive assignment by getting constructive feedback after every game and given more chances to do so and make corrective behavior.