I just wanted to start a thread that was about Chauncey Billups and him alone. The coaching of this team has been horrendous at best to this point. His defensive schemes are poor and do not fit the talent he has available on this roster. Yes you can change the roster but that is the GM's job. What Chauncey Billups as a coach needs and is being asked to do is coach the players he has. Sitting back and saying we don't have the players to play my defense and my offense is not working. He needs to adjust and create ways for this team to excel. His offense is absolutely abhorrent. Who said this team needs to do more than stand around the three point line and watch Dame or CJ iso last year? Who typed those words last year? Who typed the words "All we run is the P-n-R? Last year? One final question? Who crucified Terry Stotts about playing Melo and Kanter together when that was all he had on the roster other than Wenyen Gabriel. You guys all know he's pretty much out of the league but did sign a 10 day contract. I remember a number of posters lamenting how much of an improvement Gabriel would be over Kanter. This thread is not to bash Billups but to track what improvement he does or could make to improve this team. There is no question he could use a better constructed roster so please don't turn this into another "Trade CJ Thread". Chauncey needs to improve as a coach and at least learn when to call a timeout. Needs to learn how to use a challenge. Needs to learn how to make in game adjustments. He has no clue at this point obviously.
Probably. At least i would have called a timeout in the third last night and Tony Snell would never see the court.
I am disappointed that the offense doesn't seem to be improving in the direction Billups wanted. Ball does not come up court quickly; there is not decisive, crisp passing. Not much player movement, especially inside the perimeter. Especially with a former point guard as coach, was hoping to see some improvement in Simons. Earlier I thought Rogers working with Nurk was helping, especially in slowing him down sometimes; don't see that lately. I don't know; have these players just been in the league too long with bad habits, and can't change?
After seeing stotts maximize our roster and the limits it had, Im fine with growing pains and forcing the gm to get players in that play more towards a winning style, instead of a maximize style when the max has limits. They brought in Billups for a reason. Now they must give him the tools to succeed or its on management. Not him.
I honestly do not believe we can properly judge it without knowing what the discussions and "marching orders" are behind the curtains, just as we did not have that data with Terry. I suspect that Terry's marching orders were to maximize Dame's prime and he chose the offensive and defensive schemes that worked best for that. Unfortunately, the roster in the last couple of years was the real problem. We all know that Chauncy's marching orders were to improve the defense - and rightfully his only option was to try and change the scheme - since we know that the previous scheme with this roster did not work. Unfortunately, this proved that Terry was not the issue, but the roster was - as the new scheme has not brought much improvement if any at all. What changed after NeO was removed we do not know - but I suspect that what we hear about everyone on the roster being available other than Dame means that the new GM is tasked with trying to fit the roster to the scheme - and until this happens - Chauncy tries to keep the scheme so the players that will remain after the roster shuffle are well versed in the scheme.
If we are going to allow for growing pains I think we should just blow it up. Dame isn't getting any younger. Father time is undefeated.
I really don't know sometimes what game some other people are watching. This offense isn't a fine-tuned machine, but, when it's operating the way it's supposed to, it's getting better shots for more people than Stotts' offense did and it's keeping everyone engaged. In the first quarter last night, we were getting to the rim at will. Is it Chauncey's fault guys miss layups, FTs and uncontested 3s? There was a play last night where I think they got Nurk the ball around the elbow and everyone was moving and screening and Dame got a wide-open 3 at the foul-line extended and he drained it. I swear there was move off-ball movement and off-ball screening than we saw through all the Stotts years combined. Defensively, we were doing well until they cracked the zone and found ways to exploit the opening in the corner. The biggest thing, though, was that the Pelicans made that shot. Now, you can fault Chauncey because they exploited it the same way at least two more times and we never figured it out. That's obvious. But we came totally unglued both offensively and defensively after that and still were in the game until about what 4 minutes left? At some point, though, you've got to expect Ant to find ways to be a threat and you've got to expect Nurk to make layups and foul shots and Norm to make jumpers and pass and Ben and Snell to make a couple of open shots.
One theme with Chauncey's post game interviews is that "I've got to do a better job or I've got to be better" which is what gives me patience....if he didn't see the holes in his game plans or lack of a playbook before....he at least admits it....a bad coach would mask it with bluster or throw his team under the bus.....gotta respect that aspect of Chauncey but so far he's not in Stott's ballpark in my view. What I don't get is where is Scottie Brooks in the conversation...he's supposed to be the rookiie coach whisperer? I knew that this was a high risk hire but a high potential one as well...I'll eat popcorn for now and see if we can shuffle the deck by the deadline. Every returning player except Norm or Nas is playing worse under Chauncey than they did under Stotts....at this point we'll see if we even have a basketball season in 2022...I think covid concerns are affecting teams playing to unmasked or crowded arenas more than they admit.
ill give them this year to grow, the front office to make the moves to put the right players around him for next year. If it doesn't work next year, im with ya.
In my view he's definitely already in Stotts' ballpark. If Stotts experienced Dame playing the way Dame did to start the season up until a few games ago due to injury and missed CJ some of those last several games, Stotts would be under .500 too. Olshey has put together some shitty rosters that make no sense around Dame and had Dame carry those rosters to records above .500 but this roster with 6 out of 14 guys being under 6'4" and only two guys over 6'8??? That's some stupid ass bullshit. Stotts never had to be judged solely on times that Dame was hurt and he never had a roster with this kind of unbalance. I know that the offense has looked better in the past under Stotts but did it look better when Dame was fucked up or out? I know the defense looks bad right now with Chauncey but was it any better under Stotts for an extended period of time?
it is possible that Stotts was fired way too late and Billups was hired way too early. In fact, that might be probable
Yeah, I guess saying that he definitely is in Terry Stotts' ballpark wasn't too ringing of an endorsement but it's the truth. I don't think we're worse off with Billups but when you have a team with a win now superstar, you kind of need your switch at head coach to get you better not break even until he learns the ropes which who knows how long that will take.
