Serious question

[Fez Hammersticks]

D'Antoni came out of nowhere. He bounced around as an assistant and blew up as a head coach. Who out there is the next Mike-D?

 

[rocketeer]

And this is an upgrade over McMillen how exactly?

you really don't think that rick adelman would be an improvement over nate?

 

[andalusian]

I think that's a lot of it. I guess what I'd say is that McMillan runs a very basic offense...isolate and kick.

Of course he runs a very basic offense - the team plays 4 rookies significant minutes, one of them is a PG, 2 of them are starters, their featured scorer of the bench is an athletic guy with questionable BBIQ - what do you expect?

Nate has to adjust the game plan to the players he has on offense - you try and be fancy with a team that usually has at least 2 rookies on the court at any minute - and you are going to get some ugly basketball.

One hopes that as these kids get experience and adjust to the NBA - the offense will become more creative. I think I heard the NY broadcast before the game in MSG and they talked to D'antoni about Nate and asked him how it was to work in the olympics with Nate being the defensive coach and himself on the offense - and he told them that Nate deals a lot with offense and he can come with some nice offensive sets as well - he just likes to pretend that he is only a defensive coach...

 

[MrJayremmie]

I think we can def. upgrade our coach, but not with D'Antoni... his style won't win titles... and our team isn't really built for playing his style as the roster currently stands, though I think we could form a lineup from our roster that would like running...

I'd definitely rather look for a Sloan or Pop type coach, and obviously those are my two favorites, but both are probably impossible to get unless Pop thinks the SA window is closing and he wants a new challenge?

 

[Minstrel]

Of course he runs a very basic offense - the team plays 4 rookies significant minutes, one of them is a PG, 2 of them are starters, their featured scorer of the bench is an athletic guy with questionable BBIQ - what do you expect?

More sophisticated sets in which the coach does a lot of the heavy mental lifting. Each individual player's job can be simpler, but the interactions of each player doing their job can be dynamic. And he has a very smart, heady player in Roy to run it. Roy, I'm quite sure, is capable of more mentally than isolations.

My main problem with McMillan is that there's very little motion, so players have to do it all themselves. That actually doesn't seem at all ideal for young players. When Oden gets isolated in the post, McMillan is calling upon him to play like a veteran center and figure out the best way to proceed every time. Oden struggles with that, so McMillan's response is just not to go to Oden. That seems wasteful. It would be much better if he designed sets that put the offense and defense in motion and got Oden rolling to the hoop more and receiving passes in flow to the hoop. Static isolation offenses require the players to make all the opportunities themselves. Only Roy is currently consistently great at that. Outlaw is capable of it when he's playing well and at other times makes mistake after mistake. Oden sometimes dominates his defender and other times looks lost. Aldridge has the talent but not always the assertiveness. I think a static isolation offense is not at all ideal for the team...it looks great when several players are on and terrible when they aren't and Roy is on the bench or not feeling it.

 

[Minstrel]

Agreed. I'd welcome Rick back to Portland. I like your suggestion of Mike D'Antoni too, but I'm more than a little wary of his teams defensive history.

D'Antoni wasn't my suggestion, actually. My suggestions are Adelman and Flip Saunders.

 

[Nikolokolus]

I've been mostly pleased with Nate this year (the team not playing a lick of defense not withstanding), and while a D'Antoni team would probably be a lot of fun to watch, I suspect we'd see a lot of high scoring games, big regular season win totals and then lots of post-season disappointment when we run into the more disciplined defenses of elite teams and the grinding style that usually wins playoff series.

I'd definitely be on board with Rick Adelman if he left the Rockets for some reason; he still has an off-season home here, so presumably there would be some motivation to come here beyond the job itself. He's always struck me as a coach who is very good at getting the best out of his players

 

[MARIS61]

Nate's fine, COY IMO.