I couldn't disagree more. I think if Brandon retires three months earlier, we don't trade Miller, and Nate would have done just fine developing a motion offense built around LaMarcus feasting on lob after lob at the rim in the pick and roll. He spent training camp working on the most efficient offense in the league (say what you like about ISO-Roy, it was efficient as hell), then had the only player on the planet who could possibly thrive in that offense retire out from under him.
You, and Nate, are/were both living in the past. Any claim of "most efficient offense in the league" was three seasons old by the time Roy actually retired. Two seasons before Roy retired, we had the 11th most efficient offense in the league and the season before he retired, we were 12th.
So, why didn't Nate develop that motion offense with Aldridge feasting on lobs from Miller in the two seasons before Roy retired - during which Roy missed
52 regular season games and we had a healthy Aldridge and a healthy Andre Miller? When the player your offense is built around misses long stretches of regular season games, you need to adapt, but Nate didn't, he just plugged Bayless, or whoever, into the Roy role and expected to get by until Roy came back. The fact that Nate made no adjustments during the two seasons before Roy retired, and hadn't planned on making any the year Roy did retire, was short sighted and foolishly stubborn.
Even if Roy was healthy (healthy players don't miss 52 regular season games), the rest of the league had figured out how to stop the Roy ISO (it really wasn't that complex). So no, he did not spend training camp working on the most efficient offense in the league. He spent training camp working on a very simplistic offense that was the 12 most efficient in the league, that the rest of the league had figured out how to defend, and was 100% reliant on the health of a player who had missed 52 regular season games over the previous two years and was limited to 23 MPG in the playoffs. Doesn't sound too smart to me.
Yes, Brandon Roy was a great player when healthy, but he missed 17 games two years before he retired and then 35 more the season before he retired. Not only did he miss 35 games the season before he retired, when he did play, his effectiveness was limited. The season before he retired, Brandon Roy only started 23 games and had a PER of 13.9. Please tell me how it makes sense to base your offense completely on the health of a player that was only able to start 23 games over an 82 game schedule, performed below the league average when he did play, and didn't start a single game in the playoffs? Nate deserved to be fired. My only gripe is he should have been fired sooner. If I was Paul Allen, I would have fired him immediately after the Phoenix series when Nate was completely out coached by Alvin Gentry.
BNM