Illuminaire wrote:I'm kind of curious what I said back then. I'm pretty sure I thought he was a mediocre coach, though I recall him impressing me in a podcast a few months before he was hired, where it sounded like he'd learned a lot from his failures at OKC.
Hahahaha. Nope.
The spin at the time was he would help Wall/Beal/Otto develop into elite players. It has worked for Wall up to a point and injuries got in the way. For Beal it did. Porter never truly got there although he hasn't played as well since leaving to Chicago.
Also the odds of increasing their chances at KD although obviously the 2016 season went so poorly that the Wizards lost out even on the Al Horford sweepstakes and settled to sign some pretty bad contracts.
His playoff resume is alright. People note the 2012 Thunder were loaded but of course so were the 2012 Spurs- losing to the Heat due to some controversial calls IMO and lack of experience is the best on his resume and even those had faults (not going enough to small ball lineups with Ibaka at center for instance).
In 2013 Westbrook was injured by Pat Beverly and lost to the tough minded Memphis Grizzlies.
In 2014, Ibaka was injured and this time the Thunder couldn't beat the Spurs who were dialed in especially with revenge on the Heat.
In 2015, Durant missed most of the season and the Thunder failed to make the playoffs.
There were signs of him not developing a bench, which was always a weak point for him in OKC, playing guys like Eric Maynor over Nate Robinson- or staying with Perkins lineups at center.