Canzano: Nate under pressure to change coaching staff

[SlyPokerDog]

There's scuttlebutt inside the organization that Allen might force McMillan to make changes to his coaching staff again this offseason. McMillan's staff was a revolving door last summer. Cho wouldn't comment on that, but has said numerous times that he believes any coach should get a wide berth in selecting his own staff.

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/or...f/2011/05/canzano_blazers_gm_rich_cho_ta.html

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Either you want him as your coach or you fire him. Trying to blame it on his coaching staff is just weird.

 

[MickZagger]

That is weird. I wonder if he's gonna get another group of guys who wouldn't be qualified to take his place. No up-and-coming hot assistants.

 

[TradeNurkicNow]

Scuttlebutt? Seriously?

 

[magnifier661]

It's an indirect "Oh shit we made a mistake giving Nate an extension" ploy.

 

[illmatic99]

Do assistants really matter that much?

If you want change, just get rid of Nate, eat that two year deal, and get Rick.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

What would be really funny is if the Blazers fire Nate the day after the Lakers hire their new coach.

Unless the Lakers hire Adelman, then all hell will break loose in Blazer fandom.

 

[julius]

maybe it's the assistant coaches who have been injuring Roy and Greg!

 

[barfo]

It's not that they want to change. It's that the current assistant coaches all ascended to heaven during the rapture on Saturday. Nate would have gone too, but there was a mixup. His name was listed as Assclown McScribbles.

barfo

 

[RoyToy]

They must have Warren LeGarie as their agent.

On a serious note

If this is the way it's going to be, just get rid of Nate. I suspect though the Blazers are afraid that they might not be able to attract good candidates(Adelman, etc) so they'll just ride it out with Nate. Their search for a GM saw them really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to come up with Cho. On the outside looking in it looked like no high profile GM candidate wanted anything to do with Paul Allen and his meddling ways.

This franchise is dysfunctional and it starts at the top.

Oh, and the money quote:

Pushing for a suspension was a bold play by Cho. Especially given that the last general manager, Kevin Pritchard, lost his job for thinking on his own.

Bingo. I said the same thing right after his unwarranted firing.

 

[Mediocre Man]

Just fire the guy already. At some point, it's not the assistants that are the issue

 

[UKRAINEFAN]

I think Nate is a good overall manger and motivator and not bad at substitution and game management. But as I have said before I think this team is very poor at fundamentals, especially defensively and it would be great to have an assistant coach who would be given free rein to come in and instruct. I hope Cho will back Allen on this.

 

[Nikolokolus]

I said it last year when he ditched Prunty and Demopolous after Monty took off; replacing assistants is basically shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. Is this really going to make the team more competitive? Did Nate's shitty switching defense change all that much from Dean's zone influence to Ociepka's man based approach? Did the tempo change one bit with Bickerstaff added to the mix?

Certainly there are some roster/health deficiencies that have plagued this team for a while, but putting that aside for a moment, all I know is this, we have Batum, Gerald Wallace and Wesley Matthews and we (still) couldn't defend the perimeter for shit. The assistants seem to come and go and the problems (mostly) remain the same.

 

[tlongII]

Our problem is not coaching. It's a lack of talent.

 

[jlprk]

This franchise is dysfunctional and it starts at the top. Oh, and the money quote:


Bingo. I said the same thing right after his unwarranted firing.

You and Canzano, eh. Great minds think alike.

 

[Draco]

Our problem is not coaching. It's a lack of talent.

Coaches influence on wins is less than believed.

 

[Nikolokolus]

I agree that coaching gets overplayed when it comes to wins and losses ... in the regular season.

The first hurdle appears to be getting guys to play hard and buying in to making the necessary sacrifices needed to win and Nate has definitely cleared that. But where the good/great get separated from the run-of-the-mill is being able to scheme and make counter moves and that's the part I'm not so sure about with him.

 

[BoBoBREWSKI]

I highly doubt this is true. Crapzano trying to stir shit up as always.

 

[Tince]

There are some great points made in this thread that I believe have a lot of truth to it.

1) The organization doesn't believe they can get in better coach - This is something I keep going back to; we have a good coach, and the desire to get a great coach is unrealistic. Marc Iavaroni would've been the coach if it wasn't for Nate. Mo Cheeks was coach before Nate. Nash/Patterson replaced Whitsit, then was replaced by an assistant in the organization looking to move up the ladder, and was again replaced by option 4/5/6 on their list. I'm pretty sure that Paul Allen and his crew's reputation around the league makes it near impossible to get a proven coach/GM.

2) Talent Issue > Coach Issue - This roster is horribly unbalanced and is thin at the two hardest and most important areas to fill; PG and C. Add in the fact that we are frequently among the league leaders in games missed due to injuries, and the deck has been stacked against us.

Nate isn't the best coach in the league, and he never will be. To me, going out and looking for a new coach would be like turning down $800,000 guaranteed to have a 50/50 chance at getting $1,000,000. Maybe I'm just risk adverse, but the odds don't appear to be in our favor.

 

[THE HCP]

I couldn't imagine them getting rid of Bayno or Canales..... no way! Everybody else is new right?

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Is THIS what got Cho fired?

 

[illmatic99]

That would be extremely petty, but I wouldn't put it past PA to do it.

 

[STOMP]

I said it last year when he ditched Prunty and Demopolous after Monty took off; replacing assistants is basically shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. Is this really going to make the team more competitive? Did Nate's shitty switching defense change all that much from Dean's zone influence to Ociepka's man based approach? Did the tempo change one bit with Bickerstaff added to the mix?

The two wing spots are where you find the most athletic players in the league, but I wouldn't call any of Portland's 2 guards slashers or great athletes... average may be stretching it. Certainly the fastbreaking improved with the addition of Gerald Wallace who not coincidentally is an elite wing athlete.

The other thing that hurt their pace was with their true 5s out with injury they had to play small for most of the year. Everyone had to crash the boards to help out their undersized front court which of course meant guys weren't getting out on the wings. I put it more on the personnel then the coach.

STOMP

 

[Sinobas]

If this is true, then Paul Allen is the 2nd dumbest sports owner behind Al Davis. If you are not satisfied with the job the coaching staff is doing FIRE THE COACH. It's like, "Oh yes, I'm sure we'll be a much better team if we only had better assistants." You're not going to fire the coach, but you're going to force him to change his staff? Again, I we don't really know if this has any truth to it, but if so.....