Post#624 » by Fencer reregistered » Thu Mar 18, 2021 8:46 am
I don't think the issue here is Ainge's personnel selection. He had a terrible offseason except in the draft. It happens. Many personnel moves fail, even ones made by Red Auerbach or Jerry West.
Brad, however, is having his second year in the past three of ineffective coaching, and the one sandwiched between had some imperfections too. I get that this is one of the hardest years to coach in a long time, but Brad seems to be doing worse than a number of his peers. And Ainge hasn't done anything useful we can detect to get Brad onto a better path.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting here and thinking I know what Brad should do to improve in this year that teaching is so extraordinarily difficult, at least at the 100,000-foot level:
-- Pick a scheme and a matching rotation ...
-- ... so as to reduce the volume of what needs to be effectively taught!
-- Work with Ainge to agree on rotation tradeoffs between immediate results and player development.
And at the 30,000-foot level I have a pretty good idea of what the rotations and offensive schemes should be:
-- A multiple-actions offense, heavy on the high screens, because that's what Stevens has been trying to teach all along.
-- A P&R center (Theis/Time Lord) doing P&R things, other offensive help (passing, seals, high screens), and switchable defense.
-- A natural PG (Smart/Pritchard) to keep the offense flowing and reset it as needed.
-- The top creative scorers (Tatum, Walker, Brown) staggered in the lineup as much as possible.
-- More variety in who's involved in P&Rs and DHOs (if all you have is a hammer, get a broad variety of nails).
-- Emphasis on moving without the ball, with willingness to do that smartly being a huge determinant of who does or doesn't get minutes. WIth that plan, Nesmith would get minutes. Grant would play better or sit (it could either way). Etc.
Banned temporarily for, among other sins, being "Extremely Deviant".