Pelicans hire SVG to be Zion Williamson's coach

[flow]

Unbelievable.

[vic]

Sad day for all that young talent

[Crymson]

Sucks for them. He's such a bad coach.

[Spider156]

I think SVG is gonna be amazing for that team. He’s gonna maximize Zion the way he maximized Howard and Drummond. Ball isn’t the right point guard for him. He’s gonna utilize Holiday at PG often and set pick and rolls. He’s pretty amazing as a coach. I think what got him in trouble isn’t the coaching but basketball decisions. He should’ve stepped down to coach for his last year. I love SVG though. I think he’s a great coach.

[Pharaoh]

Will be interesting to see what they can do next season under SVG.

They still need a big man and another wing though NAW might be that wing.

I bet JJ Redick is happy about the hire.

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[Uncle Mxy]

Looking forward to SVG versus Lavar...

[440BB]

We finally have a trade partner for Blake. Yay!

I believe Jameer Nelson is available too.

[Laimbeer]

We were pretty giddy when he came here. Good coach in Orlando, his main problem was Drummond not being Dwight Howard. I think he was getting desperate when he traded for Blake. I'd give it a chance.

[Snakebites]

I'm actually genuinely curious here. I don't think SVG is a great coach or anything, but I thought he was decent in the first 2 years here before he lost the group.

What do people who think he's an awful, awful coach believe a "good" coach could have done with the rosters we had?

Obviously the quality of the roster was partially his fault, and I was first in line to criticism SVG the executive, but that's a separate issue.

[JNewton]

I'm actually genuinely curious here. I don't think SVG is a great coach or anything, but I thought he was decent in the first 2 years here before he lost the group.

What do people who think he's an awful, awful coach believe a "good" coach could have done with the rosters we had?

Obviously the quality of the roster was partially his fault, and I was first in line to criticism SVG the executive, but that's a separate issue.

I'm in the same boat. Obviously SVG went completely off the rails with the 2016 cap spike and then the subsequent Blake Griffin trade, but before that I thought he had done a pretty reasonable job, especially considering the situation he inherited in the wake of the Dumars regime.

[DetroitSho]

I'm actually genuinely curious here. I don't think SVG is a great coach or anything, but I thought he was decent in the first 2 years here before he lost the group.

What do people who think he's an awful, awful coach believe a "good" coach could have done with the rosters we had?

Obviously the quality of the roster was partially his fault, and I was first in line to criticism SVG the executive, but that's a separate issue.

There are fans that say LeBron James sucks and is a loser. People look for perfection from players, coaches, GMs, commentators and everyone basketball related. There's no in between for some fans. If you don't prefer a person, they automatically suck. I'll stand out on my own and say SVG is damn good coach, despite what group think likes to believe.

Even with Drummond not amounting to the peak of Dwight, that still wasn't the biggest reason the team didn't progress as far as we thought they were headed after the 2016 playoffs.

Injuries to Reggie Jackson was SVG's biggest downfall. As flawed as he was, if we had 2015-16 for all 5 years along with some of the strides Drummond made, we would have been way further along. Contending? Hell no. Consistently competing with a reasonably young core? Yep.

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[chrbal]

I'm actually genuinely curious here. I don't think SVG is a great coach or anything, but I thought he was decent in the first 2 years here before he lost the group.

What do people who think he's an awful, awful coach believe a "good" coach could have done with the rosters we had?

Obviously the quality of the roster was partially his fault, and I was first in line to criticism SVG the executive, but that's a separate issue.

Honestly, and I realize that this isn’t truly fair, what he did as a gm ruined my opinion of him as a head coach. If new Orleans can keep their core and add smart free agents, they should be able to get good. I just think he doesn’t have the success level to get such a young team to buy in.

[440BB]

It's Stan's history of not developing youngsters that limit him as a coach for a young team IMO.

[Snakebites]

I'm actually genuinely curious here. I don't think SVG is a great coach or anything, but I thought he was decent in the first 2 years here before he lost the group.

What do people who think he's an awful, awful coach believe a "good" coach could have done with the rosters we had?

Obviously the quality of the roster was partially his fault, and I was first in line to criticism SVG the executive, but that's a separate issue.

Honestly, and I realize that this isn’t truly fair, what he did as a gm ruined my opinion of him as a head coach. If new Orleans can keep their core and add smart free agents, they should be able to get good. I just think he doesn’t have the success level to get such a young team to buy in.

It's fair to criticize SVG overall for what he did on the Pistons- he wasn't just hired as our coach after all.

That DOES appear to be his clearly defined role in this new hire though.

[Invictus88]

I'm actually genuinely curious here. I don't think SVG is a great coach or anything, but I thought he was decent in the first 2 years here before he lost the group.

What do people who think he's an awful, awful coach believe a "good" coach could have done with the rosters we had?

Obviously the quality of the roster was partially his fault, and I was first in line to criticism SVG the executive, but that's a separate issue.

So I think first and foremost that his coaching style is driven primarily by negative reinforcement and just wears out his welcome; eventually losing the team. See similar non-Piston instances with Shaq and Dwight. On that very same front this approach can often negatively impact the development of younger players. I didn't see any of them improve in any meaningful way from a skills standpoint during his tenure.

With good coaches you will often hear of players 'buying in' to the system or general messaging that the coach is putting forth. I didn't hear anything even close to that with SVG.

From an X's and O's standpoint I think he was 'meh' which is sadly a great improvement from previous folks we've had here (Mo Cheeks says Hi!). But if you've already lost the team from a communication standpoint then your effectiveness in this area takes a big hit.

And yes, the roster is also entirely his fault. However, if he were coaching well he could have had more success here in spite of that.

[Invictus88]

I remember getting my dad and siblings 2nd row seats directly behind the aisle where the Pistons sat during the game as Christmas presents one year. The coolest thing was seeing the players up close and just watching them be themselves. The most eye-opening thing was that SVG basically just yelled at the players the entire game. No encouragement whatsoever at any point.

The second most eye-opening thing was the fact that it appeared that literally none of them were listening to him. Not in the huddles. Not on the bench. No eye contact at all. There were plenty of eye rolls and looks between players though. A lot of players (including starters) just stared out into the crowd while SVG was trying to draw up plays (or yell).

It was just so disheartening to watch as a Pistons fan.

[Manocad]

And there’s that whole looking like Ron Jeremy thing too.

I never had really strong feelings for him one way or the other relative to his coaching. He did pretty well when he had some good players and he didn’t do as well when he didn’t have many good players.

[Pharaoh]

Since everyone seems to be bringing up the negatives with SVG I'll go the other way.

Redick & Wade, among others speak very highly of SVG. He made loads of players better and helped them have long careers AND got them paid!

He's been fairly successful in multiple locations playing different ways - he's not a MDA one trick pony.

When he first took the job here he gave us all hope and for a while...things appeared to be going well.

And then the seat got way too hot (partially on him, partially on Bower, partially on Gores) for lots of different reasons.

It's easy to trash someone. Doesn't mean they don't have positive qualities too.

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[Invictus88]

Since everyone seems to be bringing up the negatives with SVG I'll go the other way.

Redick & Wade, among others speak very highly of SVG. He made loads of players better and helped them have long careers AND got them paid!

He's been fairly successful in multiple locations playing different ways - he's not a MDA one trick pony.

When he first took the job here he gave us all hope and for a while...things appeared to be going well.

And then the seat got way too hot (partially on him, partially on Bower, partially on Gores) for lots of different reasons.

It's easy to trash someone. Doesn't mean they don't have positive qualities too.

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A question was literally asked in the chat of the effect: For those folks who think SVG was a bad coach, what do good coaches do instead?
Part of answering that is identifying where SVG went wrong.

Then a bunch of people including myself answered it. Does SVG have positive attributes too? Sure. But that's not what was asked.

I can't really name a Piston who was one of those 'loads of players' whose careers were bettered by SVG and resulted in them 'getting paid'. It would be interesting to see whst kind of list someone came up with for that; because that's not a claim I would make.

[Uncle Mxy]

Why did SVG take the Pistons job? Drummond.
What did he do to develop Drummond? He certainly didn't turn him into the second coming of Dwight Howard.
What did he do when that didn't work out? Gambled and lost.