skywalker33 wrote:The Rebel wrote:Lue has his question marks, he did find ways to get a lot of production out of role players and put together rotations to get the most out of those teams. With our lack of depth that is something that we need to look at hard when it comes to the next coach.
While I do think Lue has a few more X's and O's in him than Malone, without LBJ he'd have never won an NBA championship. And I realize we're down two men on the roster, but when did we go from one of the deepest teams to one with a lack of depth ??
We have plenty of depth at PG and PF, but not at SG or Sf. Our lack of depth happened when the guy who should have been our 5th SG/SF became a starter. When we traded 2 guys who are starting at SG/SF for another team so we could get 2 PFs and a future pick. After salary dumping Chandler and losing Gallo for nothing. When our starting SG and SF both ended up with injuries bad enough that they have missed significant amounts of time over the last 2 seasons. Really look at our depth chart at SG and SF
Harris/Craig/ Daniels/
Barton/MPJ/
That is not a deep team and it forces us to play Morris and Murray together in the backcourt or move Grant to SG/SF even with his issues keeping up with the small guys.
Then if we look at what we have heading into the offseason it is really bad outside of PG
Murray/Morris/ Dozier
Harris
Barton/ MPJ
Bol/ Cancar
Jokic
and that is it, that is all that we have under contract for next year.
skywalker33 wrote:The Rebel wrote:I would easily hire Billups or even Mike MIller (the former player), both have worked with our young guys and both know what it takes to win while having great basketball intelligence. I would take a risk on either of them, but I doubt our front office will, and we know they don't like to pay unproven coaches.
I agree Miller should be added to the list, especially with both of their recruiting talents they'd easily bring a new Free Agency dimension to the Nuggets, one that TC apparently doesn't have. I also think Billups would be more aggressive than Connelly in the trade market, he doesn't appear to have apprehension in making the tough call. Not sure about Miller, do know he's more in touch with players and is willing to put himself out there. And really, while he had pedigree how much real winning experience did Malone have before he was hired ?
When Miller was here a few years ago Malone used to talk about how Miller would point out things that he was missing in the games, which tells me Miller sees the game correctly and does not miss much. I know rumors were out there that he and Jokic were close but he has only been an assistant coach in the NCAA for a couple of years so he may not be an option.
I never got the Malone hire, while many raved about his time with the Kings, I viewed it as a failure. Any team will struggle losing their all star type of players, but that team collapsed despite the fact that they had some good proven talent on that team. I also think that team had more talent than their record ever showed, Just like we see today Malone could not adjust to his players available nor his scheme on either end.
I also never understood how he got so much credit for the Warriors defense, his last season there they were 14th overall in defense, that is not exactly a great defense. I do think he is a good development coach and with a team like the Suns would work wonders, but we should be past that point. With the current state of the roster we have to at least reload, and having a coach who does not see value in scorers and cannot seem to adjust to his roster is a recipe for disaster. We cannot expect Jokic and Murray to carry the offense every game.
