<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (FOMW @ Jan 23 2008, 02:01 PM)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>He also has his areas of substantive weakness, most notably a stubborn adherence to ideas that sound good on paper but fail miserable in practice for one reason or other. This is very related to his often-poor management of both the playing time, self confidence, and egos of young players. It also seems related to the team's miserable excuse for a "motion" offense. The Nets are simply not getting the kinds of shots that a motion offense is ostensibly designed to provide. All too frequently they end up with nothing but long jumpers over active defenders that would have had a better chance of going in had the jumpers come of a simple curl screen catch-and-shoot. Last night, for all the defensive problems, the Nets' half court offense looked better than usual because Frank finally decided to do more pick and rolls with Vince and used less "motion".
Overall I'm not sure how much of the Nets atrocious half court offense is due to a poor concept and how much is due to players simply not cutting hard or reading a screen correctly or not timing the movement of the ball with the movement away from the ball. Certainly some of it is due to the fact that the Nets just don't have any GOOD role playing shooters. But it looks pitiful, a whole lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.</div>
Good points. I chalk this up to Frank still being a relatively young coach. I'm studying physics in college, and it took me some time to realize that a background in physics is not a background in engineering. He knows how to diagram an effective offense in theory for his theoretical players (this explains his love of Collins, a player who's theoretical is closer to his actual than just about anyone) but understanding that rather than pressing the point of "the offense," he'd be better off trashing it all and just finding anything that works is clearly a concept he finds difficult. That lesson will only come with experience.
On the other hand, I think he's improved DRASTICALLY in how he handles young players, and I think he's done a great job this year. His philosophy that if you work hard in practice, you'll eventually get a chance is about as fair as it gets, and it built a lot of much needed character in someone like Boone or Nachbar. I think Sean could use some time on the bench, if only to convince him to keep working hard at learning the fundamentals of defense.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Even if we assume that the offense is far less Frank's fault than poor execution by his players, he is still not right for THIS team at THIS time. They like him, but they seem not to really respect him. Respect in a quasi-military, male-dominated, hierarchical society like professional team sports is always based in part on fear. At the very least it depends upon there being one alpha male in charge (be it player or coach) whose approval the others seek and whose reprisals or criticisms they fear. Frank can in no way inspire that kind of fear-based or paternalistic respect in these players. He never played at a serious level; is small in stature; is barely older than his oldest player and looks younger than half the team; is sensitive to his players feelings and would never publicly embarrass them; and, by all accounts, is soft even in his private "castigations" of players. And he's white, which wouldn't matter much if the other factors were different but, added to them, unquestionably discounts his alpha status on a team and in a league that is dominated by black players from mostly poor, urban backgrounds.
His shortcomings as a paternal/alpha male figure wouldn't be critical if there were anyone else on this team with the personality and the on-court credibility to fill the void. But there isn't. I concurred with Dumpy long ago that Jason Kidd is a terrible "leader". If he were a real leader, Vince Carter wouldn't have gone through numerous "funks" in his NJ tenure where he was content to blend into the woodwork and watch the game from the perimeter. The team wouldn't for the better part of 2 seasons have come out lethargic and weak-spirited for at least one quarter or one half of nearly every game. It seems abundantly clear to me now that the REAL leader of this team during its heyday was K-Mart. Sure Kidd was by far the best player, but the enforcer -- the alpha male -- was Martin.</div>
I thought this over, and I realize I agree 100%. Kidd IS a terrible leader, because a Kevin Garnett or Tim Duncan would never have stood for the crap VC pulls. I presume that when a lot of us posters pine for the days of K-Mart, this is what we feel the team's missing. Someone who would go out there and hold everyone accountable.
I don't think you ever get something like this out of the coach. A "loud, fiery coach" without the backing of a strong personality in the locker room is just another Scott Skiles or Larry Brown, a coach who might achieve short term success, but someone with whom players will quickly tire and tune out.
It strikes me that Frank is a guy who understands what it takes to win a championship in the NBA. He may not necessarily understand how to execute those plans right now, with this group of players, but he can still learn. And that trait is so rare that I'd rather keep him around than keep trying with this same group of players who, regardless of who is coaching them, are not and never will be championship-level.
