Billy Donovan anyone?

[e_blazer]

Not the only reason, not even "the major reason" , but one of the reasons. The same can be said about Olshey. If the Blazers are serious about contending, they need to make multiple changes.

I'd put changing Stotts for, say Pop, at about a 3 on a scale of 1 - 10 of things that would make the Blazers better absent any other factors.

I'd put trading for Giannis at 10.

If Olshey can pull off the second one, he can keep Terry for good as far as I'm concerned.

 

[tester551]

I think that you know the answers to that, but just for the sake of discussion:

1. Yeah, he lost Westbrick and George, but he got CP3 and Gallo to return to a very solid supporting cast.

2. He didn't have the injuries that the Blazers had: No Nurk until the bubble, Collins and Hood lost in the first month of the season.

3. The Thunder got 3 wins in the playoffs, but it was against the Rockets, (No. 4 seed) not the Lakers (No. 1 seed) , and the Blazers lost Collins and for 1.5 games, Lillard.

There is absolutely nothing I can say that will convince those who think that Stotts is the major reason for the Blazers lack of success. I guess I somehow expect people to at least acknowledge reality though.

I don't think anyone here truly thinks that Stotts is THE major reason for lack of success. There are many reasons. IMO, the primary reason are the choices/decisions of Neil Olshey. Several of us have indicated as such.

But the point remains - given the small market challenges that Portland experiences, the front office and coaches cannot be average if you want to compete for a championship. NO & Stotts are not terrible, but they are also not exceptional. As long as those two stay in place, Portland will remain a mediocre team.

Coaches generally get more spotlight (right or wrong), so more of the conversation is geared towards Stotts.

 

[tester551]

I'd put changing Stotts for, say Pop, at about a 3 on a scale of 1 - 10 of things that would make the Blazers better absent any other factors.

I'd probably agree with you there.

I'd put trading for Giannis at 10.

If Olshey can pull off the second one, he can keep Terry for good as far as I'm concerned.

I disagree with you on this one. Talent is paramount, and Giannis would be a HUGE upgrade. But I still can't see Terry coaching his team to a championship. There are just too many 'little' things that occur game after game, year after year that have not been fixed. Terry would be a great assistant coach, but I don't like him as a head coach.

 

[TBpup]

I think that you know the answers to that, but just for the sake of discussion:

1. Yeah, he lost Westbrick and George, but he got CP3 and Gallo to return to a very solid supporting cast.

2. He didn't have the injuries that the Blazers had: No Nurk until the bubble, Collins and Hood lost in the first month of the season.

3. The Thunder got 3 wins in the playoffs, but it was against the Rockets, (No. 4 seed) not the Lakers (No. 1 seed) , and the Blazers lost Collins and for 1.5 games, Lillard.

There is absolutely nothing I can say that will convince those who think that Stotts is the major reason for the Blazers lack of success. I guess I somehow expect people to at least acknowledge reality though.

No problem with reality. The sad part is, it is 8 years of such minimal growth given that he has had Dame the entire run who has become better each year. STILL waiting for an adjustment to the playoff trap that everyone KNOWS is coming. Do we wait another 5 years when there has been no change in the first 8? Completely wasting Dame's career and not at least giving the team a chance at something better?

 

[e_blazer]

No problem with reality. The sad part is, it is 8 years of such minimal growth given that he has had Dame the entire run who has become better each year. STILL waiting for an adjustment to the playoff trap that everyone KNOWS is coming. Do we wait another 5 years when there has been no change in the first 8? Completely wasting Dame's career and not at least giving the team a chance at something better?

First, the "reality" statement wasn't intended as a dig at you personally. I just have an overall annoyance where some posters do a kind of "his playoff record sucks" or other similar statement to prove Stotts sucks and then fail to note little things like a couple of the sweeps were against the Warriors who pretty much swept everyone out of the way on their title runs.

As far as wasting Dame's prime years, yeah, I'm worried about that too. My position is that we need a better roster more than we need a better coach, and I also think that's necessary in order to attract a top-tier coach to a small market team like the Blazers. No established, top-level coach is signing on here unless he's got a roster that they're pretty certain is going to compete for a championship. Fixing the roster so that there's a major scorer at the PF spot would also go a long ways towards fixing the trap game as well. It would be pretty tough for the Lakers to send AD out to double Dame like they did in this last series, and like the Pelicans did when they beat the Blazers, if we had someone like Giannis at the 4 waiting for a pass from Dame.

 

[TBpup]

First, the "reality" statement wasn't intended as a dig at you personally. I just have an overall annoyance where some posters do a kind of "his playoff record sucks" or other similar statement to prove Stotts sucks and then fail to note little things like a couple of the sweeps were against the Warriors who pretty much swept everyone out of the way on their title runs.

As far as wasting Dame's prime years, yeah, I'm worried about that too. My position is that we need a better roster more than we need a better coach, and I also think that's necessary in order to attract a top-tier coach to a small market team like the Blazers. No established, top-level coach is signing on here unless he's got a roster that they're pretty certain is going to compete for a championship. Fixing the roster so that there's a major scorer at the PF spot would also go a long ways towards fixing the trap game as well. It would be pretty tough for the Lakers to send AD out to double Dame like they did in this last series, and like the Pelicans did when they beat the Blazers, if we had someone like Giannis at the 4 waiting for a pass from Dame.

No shame in getting beat by the Warriors. To get swept year after year showing no growth and the only win coming at home with Steph Curry out tells me we aren't progressing.....whether we lose the series or not. Win or lose, after 8 years of showing not a single improvement in dealing with the impending, 'know it's coming', playoff trap, it's time for a change. They likely don't win those series against the Warriors and certainly were the underdog against the Lakers. But even in a loss, you can tell if improvements or growth were taking place.....and I see none.

I've been on this island for several years now and thought we we were swept by the underdog, lower seeded Pelicans, that finally something would get done. Here we are, years later, and dealing with the same issues, the same problems....except now Dame is on the other side of 30. It pains me greatly.

 

[jlprk]

I don't think anyone here truly thinks that Stotts is THE major reason for lack of success.

Talent is paramount, and Giannis would be a HUGE upgrade. But I still can't see Terry coaching his team to a championship. There are just too many 'little' things that occur game after game, year after year that have not been fixed.

You contradict yourself with those 2 statements. Many posters, including me, have said that nothing will change until Stotts is gone. Yes, he is THE major reason.

Talent doesn't matter when you have a coach who doesn't mind a hundred errors per game. If he coached the Lakers or Clippers right now, he could not win a championship.

 

[Hoopguru]

You contradict yourself with those 2 statements. Many posters, including me, have said that nothing will change until Stotts is gone. Yes, he is THE major reason.

Talent doesn't matter when you have a coach who doesn't mind a hundred errors per game. If he coached the Lakers or Clippers right now, he could not win a championship.

And I doubt that Rivers or Lakers coach could take the Blazers to the Cship. Both have failed a number of times till they got teams with 2 super stars. And they still may fail, we know one of them will.

 

[tester551]

You contradict yourself with those 2 statements. Many posters, including me, have said that nothing will change until Stotts is gone. Yes, he is THE major reason.

Talent doesn't matter when you have a coach who doesn't mind a hundred errors per game. If he coached the Lakers or Clippers right now, he could not win a championship.

I didn't contract myself at all.

First & foremost, you need the talent on the team to win. Right now, Blazers don't have enough talent on the roster. Pop, Phil, Red or any of the other Hall of Fame coaches would not take this Blazer team to a championship.

But I do agree that Stotts is a problem. I could see him taking the Clippers to the WCF & maybe the Celtics to the ECF. He possibly could 'coach' the Lakers to a championship, but that's only because Lebron is the real coach of that team...

There is no way in hell where I could see Stotts coaching that Miami team to the ECF this year.

So really we have multiple problems... Stotts is just one if them.

 

[blazerkor]

You contradict yourself with those 2 statements. Many posters, including me, have said that nothing will change until Stotts is gone. Yes, he is THE major reason.

Talent doesn't matter when you have a coach who doesn't mind a hundred errors per game. If he coached the Lakers or Clippers right now, he could not win a championship.

Stotts is not THE major reason. We wouldn't still have Stotts, we wouldn't still have the redundant, overpaid and necessarily underutilized CJ McCollum and we would have accountability starting from the top down if we didn't have THE major reason for being stuck in mediocrity... Neil Olshey.

By the way, Neil needs to stop sabotaging CJ's career. CJ is going to need to be a platooning point guard on a couple of championship teams if he's going achieve his ultimate goal of taking Kenny Smith's place.

 

[SharpesTriumph]

I don't think anyone here truly thinks that Stotts is THE major reason for lack of success. There are many reasons. IMO, the primary reason are the choices/decisions of Neil Olshey. Several of us have indicated as such.

But the point remains - given the small market challenges that Portland experiences, the front office and coaches cannot be average if you want to compete for a championship. NO & Stotts are not terrible, but they are also not exceptional. As long as those two stay in place, Portland will remain a mediocre team.

Coaches generally get more spotlight (right or wrong), so more of the conversation is geared towards Stotts.

It sounds as though you want the Blazers to maximize their chance of a title regardless of the downside risk.

Maybe changing the GM or coach would make an improvement. But there is a risk it could also cause a big decline.

We've had very shitty GMs like John Nash and Rich Cho, coaches like Cheeks or Carlisemo. While I agree Neil and Terry are not great, they are not bad.

The team is run for more than pursing titles. Having .500 seasons and not .300 seasons is important. If titles were the only concern they should hire a GM like Heinke.

That has never been how the Blazers are run. I'd argue its actually more important for a small market team to be run conservately in this manner. They need decades of steady play to earn revenue. A large market team can be terrible and survive, then earn more during a period of title runs.

 

[blazerkor]

It sounds as though you want the Blazers to maximize their chance of a title regardless of the downside risk.

Maybe changing the GM or coach would make an improvement. But there is a risk it could also cause a big decline.

We've had very shitty GMs like John Nash and Rich Cho, coaches like Cheeks or Carlisemo. While I agree Neil and Terry are not great, they are not bad.

The team is run for more than pursing titles. Having .500 seasons and not .300 seasons is important. If titles were the only concern they should hire a GM like Heinke.

That has never been how the Blazers are run. I'd argue its actually more important for a small market team to be run conservately in this manner. They need decades of steady play to earn revenue. A large market team can be terrible and survive, then earn more during a period of title runs.

I don't know if there needs to be a firing of either guy but there definitely needs to be a reckoning. Olshey has to turn the talent he has on this roster into a cohesive team and needs to start holding Stotts responsible for his lack of discipline on defense and his lack of adjustments when we struggle offensively. Someone needs to come in and shake some sense into Olshey and Stotts and remind them that this isn't summer camp, it's not about everybody getting along and learning lessons, it's about winning a title. We have some really good if not great players in Dame, Nurk, CJ, and Gary and a lot of young potential with Zach, Nas, Wenyen and even Simons (obviously Nurk and Gary haven't hit their ceiling but they've both shown that their floor is pretty high). We even have some guys that still have some gas in the tank and just play winning basketball in Ariza, Hood if he gets healthy and Melo if he re-signs. Then we have all of our future draft picks. Those are a lot of assets, Neil needs to turn them into parts of a whole instead of just a jumble of valuable components to different machines. Then Stotts needs to actually coach them, not pat them on the back no matter what they do. If Neil and/or Terry can't get that shit done then ship them the fuck out.

 

[riverman]

Very true about who Donovan had.....but he lost Westbrook and PG13 from last year (MVP and All-NBA player) and STILL finished with a better record than Stotts....and of course, more Playoff wins. I don't want Donovan, but if he is fired (BETTER REGULAR SEASON RECORD AND BETTER PLAYOFF RECORD) how does Stotts still have a job?

For one thing...Stotts can keep players in Portland....players have bailed on OKC over and over....if your players constantly want out....you might not have an edge in the long run over players that want to spend a career with your franchise. Again I think it comes down to whether or not fans can take the ups and downs of a players coach who gives his players all the freedom to improvise over coaches with rigid systems....I like the Stotts approach to basketball personally...Olshey needs to find 2 way players for Stotts to have more playoff success....he should have done whatever it takes to get a Jimmy Butler playing with Dame...

 

[TBpup]

For one thing...Stotts can keep players in Portland....players have bailed on OKC over and over....if your players constantly want out....you might not have an edge in the long run over players that want to spend a career with your franchise. Again I think it comes down to whether or not fans can take the ups and downs of a players coach who gives his players all the freedom to improvise over coaches with rigid systems....I like the Stotts approach to basketball personally...Olshey needs to find 2 way players for Stotts to have more playoff success....he should have done whatever it takes to get a Jimmy Butler playing with Dame...

True....players may keep bailing over and over again....and yet, the still finished with a better record than Portland this year and Donovan's playoff record is quite a bit better than Stotts.

 

[jlprk]

I don't know if there needs to be a firing of either guy but there definitely needs to be a reckoning.

If this isn't a reckoning, I don't know what is.

Paul Allen wanted to fire Stotts, but Olshey and Stotts argued and got 1 more year to improve, then Allen died months later.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25321406/zach-lowe-damian-lillard-portland-trail-blazers-nba

from the thread "What it will take to get Stotts fired?"

I reckon they were on his short list to be fired last May.

 

[BigGameDamian]

Too late. He's with the Bulls now.

 

[e_blazer]

Too late. He's with the Bulls now.

Whew! Another bullet dodged.

 

[AquaXI]

Wondering if Stotts would be a wanted man if let go? Even Donovan got suitors.

 

[KSF-ERIC]

It sounds as though you want the Blazers to maximize their chance of a title regardless of the downside risk.

Maybe changing the GM or coach would make an improvement. But there is a risk it could also cause a big decline.

We've had very shitty GMs like John Nash and Rich Cho, coaches like Cheeks or Carlisemo. While I agree Neil and Terry are not great, they are not bad.

The team is run for more than pursing titles. Having .500 seasons and not .300 seasons is important. If titles were the only concern they should hire a GM like Heinke.

That has never been how the Blazers are run. I'd argue its actually more important for a small market team to be run conservately in this manner. They need decades of steady play to earn revenue. A large market team can be terrible and survive, then earn more during a period of title runs.

Yes, and for all of Heinke's tanking, the Sixers haven't even reached a conference finals and Olshey's team has. I'd be so depressed if I were a Sixers fan. All that tanking for nothing but a first round sweep.

 

[Tince]

Wondering if Stotts would be a wanted man if let go? Even Donovan got suitors.

If/when he's let go, he'll get other offers.

 

[jlprk]

Wondering if Stotts would be a wanted man if let go? Even Donovan got suitors.

Sure he would. They're all about equal. That's why most teams change coaches every 2-3 years--to see what's on the other side of the hill. There is no risk--the reverse draft compensates for that. Ups and downs are the spice of life.

You could stay with your first girlfriend from age 15 till you die. But unless you're a deadhead status quo-er, you have a lively mind and want to experience life. Grow up, all you chickens!

 

[illmatic99]

So.... he apparently mutually decided with OKC to leave because he didn't want to be part of the rebuild.

Then decides he's OK with the 22 win Bulls.

 

[Chris Craig]

So.... he apparently mutually decided with OKC to leave because he didn't want to be part of the rebuild.

Then decides he's OK with the 22 win Bulls.

Beggers can't be choosers. Maybe the 76ers, Rockets, and Pels weren't interested