What I will ask you is: do you think the stats you listed are a primary cause of a coach? Meaning if you look at the long term track record of a bunch of coaches, those stats would be fairly consistent? Or do you think they would change as their rosters/talent levels change?
my answer is probably a combination of
'it's complicated' and it's a
'chicken-and-egg' thing
start with a couple of disclaimers:
* I don't like Olshey, at all
* I really don't like the Dame/CJ pairing; I think they are way too redundant in style, size, tendencies, and bad defense
yeah, that's bias, but it is the lens I look thru when analyzing Portland
let's hop in the way-back machine and jump 4 1/2 years into the past. My disdain for Olshey wasn't as strong back then, but it was there. I hated the way he cheap-screwed together his first two Portland benches. They were historically bad, and he had options he chose not to pursue. I also hated that he made max offers to Roy Hibbert and Greg Monroe, and a max-MLE offer to Spenser Hawes. Ok, a GM can't be perfect, but still, those were poor moves in my view and at that time it was apparent what a weak pick Meyers was
anyway, it's 2015 and Matthews has ruptured his Achilles. Portland limps into the playoffs against Memphis. They get hammered 4-1 and their season ends in a whimper. Worse, is that Memphis sets the template for defending Dame and the Blazers by blanketing him with the defense of Tony Allen, Courtney Lee, and Conley and always having Gasol or Green hedging or trapping Dame at every screen. That template becomes Portland's biggest weakness. But there's a report from the Blazer locker room after the elimination game...I think it was either Quick or Haynes reporting, about how Olshey was really, really excited about how CJ had performed. How Olshey was chortling to Stotts in an "I told you so" fashion about CJ...this minutes after the season ended. If I'm recalling things wrong, let me know
fast forward a little to the off-season; Batum has been traded and Aldridge, Matthews, and Lopez all walk. Olshey has cleared the roster and one of the main things he's cleared is any competition CJ has for playing time. He is asked several times about the Blazers not having a backup PG and he keeps insisting that CJ can be a great backup PG.
and to this day, he's never added a decent backup PG, and my suspicion is he knows if Stotts had that option, he'd use it over CJ at times. For 4.4 seasons now, Dame has been the only PG on the roster, and I think that's always been a big weakness. And of course, the Dame-centric defensive template that Memphis set has killed Portland in the playoffs every damn year since, in no small part because Portland has nobody besides Dame who can consistently run an offense against strong defensive resistance. If an opponent can shut down Dame they take out Portland's best scorer and the only guy who runs the offense. That's always worth the effort
so when you ask if it's the coach, I think first that Stotts has not had good tools in his toolbox to adjust away from all the one-on-one possessions that CJ brings to the floor. But a tool he does have is he controls the offense and the schemes and the rotations, and he could have developed better off-ball action after more than 4 years than he has. And the thing is that while CJ is a very clever ball-handler, prone to over-dribbling, he's not efficient in one-on-one because he's terrible at getting to the foul line. His iso-ball is featured in the offense to the overall detriment of the offense....IMO, Stotts could easily throttle that back and implement more accountability for selfish play
so yeah, I blame Stotts for some of this. But I blame Olshey too. For instance, if Portland had a backup PG like Rondo (just an example), I don't believe we'd see all this one-on-one bullshit. But Rondo is an actual PG. Napier and Curry aren't, neither is Simons, and for damn sure, Turner, Hezonja, and Bazemore aren't. And of course, CJ isn't. But that's who Sotts has been stuck with
