'15-16 RealGM Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[RSCD3_]

I think lue deserves serious consideration for 3rd place. He came into a contentious locker room, was a major factor in smoothing that out and building the comradarie that made the cavs so much of a more dangerous team here. Culture change is a very serious thing and the way the cavs looked there's no way they would have comeback from 3-1 with blatt. The team would have pointed finger, and given glares enroute to being eliminated in 5 or earlier.

He also was quite adept (perhaps because of his playing days) at using timeouts to give rest at crucial times to his players especially because he was playing them extended minutes. He switched up strategy after 2 games and came up with a wrinkle I dont think many coaches make. IE making Kyrie Irving and JR smith into good screeners and using the warriors switching defense against them to involve curry. This I also believe had a big impact on his offense. The cavalier defense in the playoffs was also improved in intensity and consistency partly because he simpled the scheme so everyone would make less mistakes. His defensive gameplan against curry and klay was effective by doing what they did last year but switching everyone they were involved in and not letting them roam comfortably off ball. He capitalized on curry's injury by using athletic larger players to bother him on the perimeter including a surprisingly effective TT.

It's even arguable he outcoached kerr.

If you want to say he was only coach for half a year than the same should go for kerr who by all means wasnt involved much at all in day to day operations. I think there was a major change with him and Im leaning toward putting him on my ballot.

[SideshowBob]

RPM updated on ESPN. Hopefully JE provides RAPM soon (NPI 1-Y & M-Y is what he does now, no PI).

+9.12 through ECF (90 G)
+9.80 through Finals (97 G)

Math doesn't quite work this way but that would be a +18.5 over those 7 games, and going from 2.79>3.30 is the equivalent of +9.9 on defense for the series .

Again not quite how it works - more along the lines of: Finals provided more 5on5 data + box-score data on these specific matchups so thats added to the initial 98% data set and with that in mind, every player is recalculated. But the general premise is evident; that was a (the?) GOAT level series played ITO impact.

EDIT: I think he rose by as much after this series as he did from March to ECF (about a point, was around 5-6 spot before he started tearing it up at the end of the RS). While everyone else saw incremental changes.

[lorak]

It's even arguable he outcoached kerr.

Could you elaborate? Because IMO people overreact to what happened in the finals. I mean, both coaches gave chances to almost every player on roster, but the difference was Cavs players played good, while Warriors not - and coach can't do much with it except of trying different players and that what Kerr did. He wasn't exposed like Popovich vs OKC, when he did nothing until very last game, when he finally tried new things, but it was in desperate way.

[Basileus777]

It's even arguable he outcoached kerr.

Could you elaborate? Because IMO people overreact to what happened in the finals. I mean, both coaches gave chances to almost every player on roster, but the difference was Cavs players played good, while Warriors not - and coach can't do much with it except of trying different players and that what Kerr did. He wasn't exposed like Popovich vs OKC, when he did nothing until very last game, when he finally tried new things, but it was in desperate way.

Kerr put out some bad lineups there, especially in game 7, but he was backed into a corner by Bogut's injury and couldn't play Green the entire game. Varejao and Ezeli killed them, but who else could he have given those minutes to, especially with Barnes struggling?

[therealbig3]

It's even arguable he outcoached kerr.

Could you elaborate? Because IMO people overreact to what happened in the finals. I mean, both coaches gave chances to almost every player on roster, but the difference was Cavs players played good, while Warriors not - and coach can't do much with it except of trying different players and that what Kerr did. He wasn't exposed like Popovich vs OKC, when he did nothing until very last game, when he finally tried new things, but it was in desperate way.

Kerr put out some bad lineups there, especially in game 7, but he was backed into a corner by Bogut's injury and couldn't play Green the entire game. Varejao and Ezeli killed them, but who else could he have given those minutes to, especially with Barnes struggling?

I think he should have stuck with Barnes. Even with his struggles, it would have been better to have him on LeBron on a switch than Ezeli.

Furthermore, it's still another shooter that the Cavs have to pay attention to. Even if he's not hitting shots, the Cavs still aren't going to leave him open.

Going with Ezeli when the small ball lineup is what had been winning games for them all season was a surprising move to me. I saw a stat that said the Warriors were like +14 in the Finals with Green at center.

[Pillendreher]

I think one can make the argument that vs the Thunder, Thompson and Curry bailed the Warriors out whereas they didn't versus the Cavs. Kerr wasn't adjusting all that much in either series. The only thing he did against the Thunder was going away from completely ignoring Roberson and was lucky that both Russ and KD had one of their worst 3-game-stretches of their careers (going 60/157) while the roleplayers couldn't hit anything in game 7.

[Pillendreher]

Going with Ezeli when the small ball lineup is what had been winning games for them all season was a surprising move to me. I saw a stat that said the Warriors were like +14 in the Finals with Green at center.

+18.9 NetRtG in 133 minutes according to nbawowy. -2.2 NetRtG over the last 3 games tho.

[MisterHibachi]

Kerr could've gone to Barbosa, who I saw somewhere was shooting like 60%. He's got enough data over the past 6 games to know that Cavs were killing their two big line ups, so there is no excuse for playing freaking Ezeli in the fourth quarter of a game 7. Kerr's rotations in this game were almost as big a **** up as Pop taking out Duncan in game 6 2013.

[Basileus777]

Could you elaborate? Because IMO people overreact to what happened in the finals. I mean, both coaches gave chances to almost every player on roster, but the difference was Cavs players played good, while Warriors not - and coach can't do much with it except of trying different players and that what Kerr did. He wasn't exposed like Popovich vs OKC, when he did nothing until very last game, when he finally tried new things, but it was in desperate way.

Kerr put out some bad lineups there, especially in game 7, but he was backed into a corner by Bogut's injury and couldn't play Green the entire game. Varejao and Ezeli killed them, but who else could he have given those minutes to, especially with Barnes struggling?

I think he should have stuck with Barnes. Even with his struggles, it would have been better to have him on LeBron on a switch than Ezeli.

Furthermore, it's still another shooter that the Cavs have to pay attention to. Even if he's not hitting shots, the Cavs still aren't going to leave him open.

Going with Ezeli when the small ball lineup is what had been winning games for them all season was a surprising move to me. I saw a stat that said the Warriors were like +14 in the Finals with Green at center.

But that's with Green. A Barnes/Iggy frontcourt getting killed on the boards is probably a more likely outcome than Ezeli fouling on three point shots and the disastrous minutes he ended up giving.

[Doctor MJ]

I think lue deserves serious consideration for 3rd place. He came into a contentious locker room, was a major factor in smoothing that out and building the comradarie that made the cavs so much of a more dangerous team here. Culture change is a very serious thing and the way the cavs looked there's no way they would have comeback from 3-1 with blatt. The team would have pointed finger, and given glares enroute to being eliminated in 5 or earlier.

He also was quite adept (perhaps because of his playing days) at using timeouts to give rest at crucial times to his players especially because he was playing them extended minutes. He switched up strategy after 2 games and came up with a wrinkle I dont think many coaches make. IE making Kyrie Irving and JR smith into good screeners and using the warriors switching defense against them to involve curry. This I also believe had a big impact on his offense. The cavalier defense in the playoffs was also improved in intensity and consistency partly because he simpled the scheme so everyone would make less mistakes. His defensive gameplan against curry and klay was effective by doing what they did last year but switching everyone they were involved in and not letting them roam comfortably off ball. He capitalized on curry's injury by using athletic larger players to bother him on the perimeter including a surprisingly effective TT.

It's even arguable he outcoached kerr.

If you want to say he was only coach for half a year than the same should go for kerr who by all means wasnt involved much at all in day to day operations. I think there was a major change with him and Im leaning toward putting him on my ballot.

Lue didn't come into the locker room though, he was already there. LeBron & co got Blatt fired out of preference for Lue for reasons that had nothing to do with basketball knowledge, so it was basically a gambit: Fire Blatt and we'll play nice. Lue deserves credit for being someone who can both relate to players and tell them to shut up, he also deserves credit as someone who is on-the-ball, which is a pretty big deal for a rookie coach.

But with him along with a lot of other coaches, when people say "He's good at firing them up!", to me that's damning with feint praise. High school coaches can do that. At one point that's what people thought that that was among the most important things for a basketball coach to do - whereas the NFL has laughed at that for decades - but at this stage it's pretty clear that the top NBA coaching minds are doing heavy thinking to stay up on other top opponents.

To me Cleveland winning this series is something of a blast from the past. The Cavs won because LeBron & Kyrie were going nuts out there in a way that galvanized teammates, not because Lue figured out some change mid-series that changed everything. This isn't to say there wasn't some quality coaching built into the Cavs scheme, but Lue didn't tear up Blatt's work and put his own in there. He's literally said before that some of the stuff he implemented simply wasn't done before because the players just refused to do it when Blatt told them to.

[Doctor MJ]

Could you elaborate? Because IMO people overreact to what happened in the finals. I mean, both coaches gave chances to almost every player on roster, but the difference was Cavs players played good, while Warriors not - and coach can't do much with it except of trying different players and that what Kerr did. He wasn't exposed like Popovich vs OKC, when he did nothing until very last game, when he finally tried new things, but it was in desperate way.

Kerr put out some bad lineups there, especially in game 7, but he was backed into a corner by Bogut's injury and couldn't play Green the entire game. Varejao and Ezeli killed them, but who else could he have given those minutes to, especially with Barnes struggling?

I think he should have stuck with Barnes. Even with his struggles, it would have been better to have him on LeBron on a switch than Ezeli.

Furthermore, it's still another shooter that the Cavs have to pay attention to. Even if he's not hitting shots, the Cavs still aren't going to leave him open.

Going with Ezeli when the small ball lineup is what had been winning games for them all season was a surprising move to me. I saw a stat that said the Warriors were like +14 in the Finals with Green at center.

I think that the reality is that none of these guys know how the sum of pluses and minuses will play out with a new lineup until it actually happens. Kerr and his staff have repeatedly shown the ability to make changes that help a team get better over the course of the series so we know the fundamental ability is there, but when the other team is on fire and you're team's health is forcing you to try new things with worse players, it's largely a guessing game what's less risky and I wouldn't hold that against the coach.

I think that Ezeli played worse than realistically anyone in the NBA plays in a normal game in Game 7 and that Kerr potentially deserves blame for not helping Ezeli build the same type of confidence the whole rest of the team seemed to have, but since he already had a team with great confidence overall, I can't seriously call this a weakness on Kerr's part relative to other coaches.

[Doctor MJ]

Re: Stotts. Scheme involved. Perhaps, but is there reason to believe that scheme scales toward team greatness?

.

Doc,

Maybe I'm missing some nuance in your posts, but again this suggests to me that you only see relevance in coaches fortunate enough to have great teams. Because whatever areas you think Kerr is great in---it doesn't scale to greatness either without Curry, Green, Klay, Iggy, etc....

Every coach needs great talent. That's a given. I guess I fundamentally disagree that we should only look at a handful of teams when talking about coaching relevance. Especially when the two teams that ended up in the Finals used 2 coaches this year and the team that came the closest to joining them had a rookie college coach who appeared in over his head much of the year.

Eh, I'll put it like this:

I know I can't judge these coaches perfectly.
I welcome people talking details about what coaches did.

But I hate arguments that go "They did better than expected" because to me falling in love with those situations is precisely why the COY tends to go to guys who in retrospect we're not impressed with. They just got lucky.

I don't mean that to mean I'll ignore anyone who didn't lead a contender, but I need to see arguments about what they did that really let me sink my teeth into it.

[gaf234]

I think that the reality is that none of these guys know how the sum of pluses and minuses will play out with a new lineup until it actually happens. Kerr and his staff have repeatedly shown the ability to make changes that help a team get better over the course of the series so we know the fundamental ability is there, but when the other team is on fire and you're team's health is forcing you to try new things with worse players, it's largely a guessing game what's less risky and I wouldn't hold that against the coach.

I think that Ezeli played worse than realistically anyone in the NBA plays in a normal game in Game 7 and that Kerr potentially deserves blame for not helping Ezeli build the same type of confidence the whole rest of the team seemed to have, but since he already had a team with great confidence overall, I can't seriously call this a weakness on Kerr's part relative to other coaches.

First off, the Cavs shot 40% from the field. They were 1-8 to end the game. In no sense were they "on fire".

Secondly, the big mistake from Kerr was playing a center at all, not Ezeli specifically. Bogut was -25 in the series, and he only played in the half of the series that GSW dominated! Yes Bogut is better than Ezeli, but Kyrie and Lebron were taking turns abusing the GSW centers most of the series, and Kerr just sat on his hands and watched it happen.

I'll come out clean and say that I think Kerr inserting Ezeli into the game cost them a championship. This isn't anything to do with hindsight bias either: if you didn't realize what disaster that decision was in real time, you simply hadn't watched the series. Especially during game 6 it was obvious: Lebron would switch as many times as was necessary to get Ezeli on him, one on one. If you're Kerr, you know that. Is Ezeli the one person you want guarding Lebron with your season on the line?

Look, all coaching decisions have to be weighed in the moment. You can't be outcome-oriented. Vogel's decision to take out Hibbert at the end of game 1 of the 2013 ECF came under a lot of scrutiny when Lebron hit a layup at the buzzer, but it was a perfectly sound decision: Bosh was dragging Hibbert out at the 3-PT line, and Hibbert just wasn't going to have the foot speed to catch up to him, let alone recover to contest Lebron at the rim. Same deal with Pop taking Duncan out at the end of game 6 the same year.

In the case of Kerr, what benefit are you getting from Ezeli on the floor? Better rebounding (as Kerr claimed in his postgame presser)? The Cavs were going to drag him out 25 feet from the rim, exactly as they had done in game 6. How many rebounds is he going to get camped out at the perimeter?

The more I think about how clearly overwhelmed Ezeli had been the last couple of games, the worse the decision looks by Kerr. I honestly still can't believe it.

[Doctor MJ]

I think that the reality is that none of these guys know how the sum of pluses and minuses will play out with a new lineup until it actually happens. Kerr and his staff have repeatedly shown the ability to make changes that help a team get better over the course of the series so we know the fundamental ability is there, but when the other team is on fire and you're team's health is forcing you to try new things with worse players, it's largely a guessing game what's less risky and I wouldn't hold that against the coach.

I think that Ezeli played worse than realistically anyone in the NBA plays in a normal game in Game 7 and that Kerr potentially deserves blame for not helping Ezeli build the same type of confidence the whole rest of the team seemed to have, but since he already had a team with great confidence overall, I can't seriously call this a weakness on Kerr's part relative to other coaches.

First off, the Cavs shot 40% from the field. They were 1-8 to end the game. In no sense were they "on fire".

Secondly, the big mistake from Kerr was playing a center at all, not Ezeli specifically. Bogut was -25 in the series, and he only played in the half of the series that GSW dominated! Yes Bogut is better than Ezeli, but Kyrie and Lebron were taking turns abusing the GSW centers most of the series, and Kerr just sat on his hands and watched it happen.

I'll come out clean and say that I think Kerr inserting Ezeli into the game cost them a championship. This isn't anything to do with hindsight bias either: if you didn't realize what disaster that decision was in real time, you simply hadn't watched the series. Especially during game 6 it was obvious: Lebron would switch as many times as was necessary to get Ezeli on him, one on one. If you're Kerr, you know that. Is Ezeli the one person you want guarding Lebron with your season on the line?

Look, all coaching decisions have to be weighed in the moment. You can't be outcome-oriented. Vogel's decision to take out Hibbert at the end of game 1 of the 2013 ECF came under a lot of scrutiny when Lebron hit a layup at the buzzer, but it was a perfectly sound decision: Bosh was dragging Hibbert out at the 3-PT line, and Hibbert just wasn't going to have the foot speed to catch up to him, let alone recover to contest Lebron at the rim. Same deal with Pop taking Duncan out at the end of game 6 the same year.

In the case of Kerr, what benefit are you getting from Ezeli on the floor? Better rebounding (as Kerr claimed in his postgame presser)? The Cavs were going to drag him out 25 feet from the rim, exactly as they had done in game 6. How many rebounds is he going to get camped out at the perimeter?

The more I think about how clearly overwhelmed Ezeli had been the last couple of games, the worse the decision looks by Kerr. I honestly still can't believe it.

In the previous 2 games the Cavs torched the Warriors' defense. This was what I was referring to, and I think it's frankly strange to talk about Game 7 as a coaching sin and then essentially point out that the Warrior defense was much more effective in that game that they'd been before while blaming a guy who was only out there to help on defense for the team losing.

I do agree that Ezeli's mistakes directly accounted for more than the difference in the game, so in that sense I don't disagree with you, but from a coaching perspective, to me it's just a riddle you don't know the answer to until after you try it.

Re: can't be outcome-oriented...said the man belaboring a point he wouldn't be talking about if the outcome had been different.

[RSCD3_]

It's even arguable he outcoached kerr.

Could you elaborate? Because IMO people overreact to what happened in the finals. I mean, both coaches gave chances to almost every player on roster, but the difference was Cavs players played good, while Warriors not - and coach can't do much with it except of trying different players and that what Kerr did. He wasn't exposed like Popovich vs OKC, when he did nothing until very last game, when he finally tried new things, but it was in desperate way.

Well When draymond was at center golden state won the margin 58-44. Varejao and Ezeli were lead weights in this series. It's not saying kerr was that bad per se but ty wasnt that far apart IMO.

[lorak]

It's even arguable he outcoached kerr.

Could you elaborate? Because IMO people overreact to what happened in the finals. I mean, both coaches gave chances to almost every player on roster, but the difference was Cavs players played good, while Warriors not - and coach can't do much with it except of trying different players and that what Kerr did. He wasn't exposed like Popovich vs OKC, when he did nothing until very last game, when he finally tried new things, but it was in desperate way.

Well When draymond was at center golden state won the margin 58-44. Varejao and Ezeli were lead weights in this series. It's not saying kerr was that bad per se but ty wasnt that far apart IMO.

Varejo had one of the best +/- (per 36) among GSW players in the finals. Ezeli much worse, but even if that was bad decision (in 1st half he played ok), then it's just ONE. Is it really enough to downgrade coach? It's like criticizing player for missing a shot, even game winner - doesn't make much sense. And keep in mid how close was that series, one block less, or one more Curry/Barnes/Klay made open jumper and Warriors would have won and the same people who now criticize Kerr would criticize Lue and probably also would talk about LeBron being looser again...

[gaf234]

In the previous 2 games the Cavs torched the Warriors' defense. This was what I was referring to, and I think it's frankly strange to talk about Game 7 as a coaching sin and then essentially point out that the Warrior defense was much more effective in that game that they'd been before while blaming a guy who was only out there to help on defense for the team losing.

I do agree that Ezeli's mistakes directly accounted for more than the difference in the game, so in that sense I don't disagree with you, but from a coaching perspective, to me it's just a riddle you don't know the answer to until after you try it.

Re: can't be outcome-oriented...said the man belaboring a point he wouldn't be talking about if the outcome had been different.

Huh? The Warriors defense was more effective than it was in previous games, that's true. Ezeli was out on the floor ostensibly to help out the defense, true, yes.

Are you saying the first point was caused by the decision to make the second...?

And I'm glad you know exactly what I'd be saying in a counterfactual...

[Doctor MJ]

In the previous 2 games the Cavs torched the Warriors' defense. This was what I was referring to, and I think it's frankly strange to talk about Game 7 as a coaching sin and then essentially point out that the Warrior defense was much more effective in that game that they'd been before while blaming a guy who was only out there to help on defense for the team losing.

I do agree that Ezeli's mistakes directly accounted for more than the difference in the game, so in that sense I don't disagree with you, but from a coaching perspective, to me it's just a riddle you don't know the answer to until after you try it.

Re: can't be outcome-oriented...said the man belaboring a point he wouldn't be talking about if the outcome had been different.

Huh? The Warriors defense was more effective than it was in previous games, that's true. Ezeli was out on the floor ostensibly to help out the defense, true, yes.

Are you saying the first point was caused by the decision to make the second...?

And I'm glad you know exactly what I'd be saying in a counterfactual...

No, I'm literally telling you that if you seriously blame Kerr for plays Ezeli made in this game, you would seem to be focused on outcome rather than process.

[bondom34]

The outcome is the entire point. To take it back to players, the entire reason many here use PM data a lot is because it is results based, not process based. Scoreboard is the ultimate measure.

[Basileus777]

The outcome is the entire point. To take it back to players, the entire reason many here use PM data a lot is because it is results based, not process based. Scoreboard is the ultimate measure.

I don't see how this logic applies when judging coaching decisions. Sometimes things happen that are unlikely, do you blame the coach for failing to predict that?