It doesn't really matter to me what people decide to give props to Stots for, or what they don't. I just think saying oh it's just common sense to simplify a "good" coaching decision and excuse it away is mostly about a bias to discredit him. It's possible to excuse just about any "good" or "bad" coaching decision to fulfill a narrative.
I'd say Stotts has done a lot better as a coach this year in terms of shaping the offense around Nurkic, now he goes away from it at times of course but still Nurkic has been a huge part of the offense this year and that means that Dame and CJ have to at times play off of him. It's easy to excuse that away, by just saying it's common sense Nurkic is a good passer so, therefore, it wasn't really good coaching.
I think Stotts has done a good job of riding "hot" players at times this year, whether it's Nurkic, Layman, Dame, CJ, Hood, etc but I suppose that one could easily just say well he lucked into it, or that it's common sense to ride the hot player.
I guess what I'm saying is that it's extremely easy to just say that everything good that's happened this year has nothing to do with his coaching, and sure there's some merit to it. I just think it's somewhat disingenuous to then basically throw all the bad stuff at Stotts and say well if we didn't have Stotts everything would be better. We all know his PNR scheme has been figured out, but sheesh sometimes Dame and CJ's lack of interest on the defensive end is just crazy, that's not a scheme problem... I saw Dame let Wright and Conley blow by him over and over yesterday without a Pick, when a pick did come it was even worse.
I'm not defending Stotts, I've been very critical of him too I just don't think it's incredibly fair to throw shade at him every time the Players do something stupid. Ultimately the Players like ET should know better to then commit some of the bad turnovers he commits. A coach shouldn't have to tell a professional athlete to stop throwing lazy passes, or that maybe they should move once in a while instead of park themselves in a corner. Feels like almost every loss it's "all because Stotts didn't do (x)", but every win it's almost entirely on the players and any credit he's given is excused away.
