Dave Joergers offense, roster awareness and pace.

[ESP47]

We've been on a coaching carousel for so long that even an average coach seems to be a godsend to people. Very few coaches actually adapt to their team's personnel; coaches better than Joerger have spent decades with one style and have been in bad situations and coached poorly because of it. D'Antoni comes to mind. Karl as well. Right now, Joerger has had enough of a body of work and success to be stuck in his ways and its doubtful he's going to adjust. This actually happens more often than not. You could probably count on one hand the coaches who could adapt to a new system after moving teams.

I think NBA teams might start taking into account coaching when rebuilding. We've had a few examples of proven coaches flaming out in the past couple of years alone. Vogel was a complete failure in Orlando (though they hired Clifford! Lol!). Thibodeau was made God-Emperor in Minnesota, tanked their future, and is going to lose Jimmy Butler. Both of them are regarded as significantly better than Joerger, and what all three of them have in common is they took over rebuilding teams and aren't going to adjust their system that brought them success on their old team. Meanwhile, Utah and Boston hired unproven coaches to take their teams to the next level.

Rebuilding teams take into account going for the draft picks/prospects versus the proven star; why should it be any different for coaches? In this case, the unproven college or assistant coach is one who may flame out or can grow with a team while molding himself, ie the Stevens/Synders, and getting the Joergers/Thibodeaus/Vogels for a rebuilding team is the equivalent of acquiring a star player prematurely that leads you to 30 wins
and hinders you from moving forward.



Adelman never coached a rebuild/losing team for us. He actually coached for the rebuilding Wolves and it wasn't ideal. Malone is a bottom 5 coach and probably won't get another head coaching gig whenever his stint in done is Denver.

We would all like to get off the coaching carousel as well and I'd be fine with it stopping at Joerger but the way he coaches needs to start making some sense and it needs to make sense quickly. I feel like Joerger likes to talk a lot about how he likes to play fast but he doesn't know how to really implement it. He's like a coach in the NFL that has a young star QB and two big athletic wide receivers but still implements a running/clock management offensive scheme because that's how he won with a different team years ago. Oh and run the ball and manage the clock at a more uptempo pace would ya?

I highly doubt this is a Karate Kid scenario where the first season, he taught the young guys how to paint the fence, how to sand the floor and how to wax the car. Then this year the training wheels come off and they start using what they thought were pointless skills to start kicking ass. I wish we could take Joerger's people skills that he uses to connect with his players and mix them with George Karl's coaching system. This team would be better and a lot quicker.

 

[The_Jamal]

I'll give Joerger a pass for last year. Team was basically all entirely new with a bunch of rookies and guys who never played with each other. We also didn't have a defined core and no one expected George Hill to go from an above average starting PG to a complete dunce. I wasn't expecting pretty much any offensive cohesion.

No excuse this year though. The same core is back with a year under their belt playing together and with his playbook. Fox/Buddy/Bogdan all need to be 30+ MPG from the jump. Bagley needs to start. Giles needs to be 20+ MPG whether starting or not. No more screwing around with 11 man rotations and yanking guys in and out of the LU.

 

[dude12]

A bunch of hot takes in this thread. On par with an Aaron Bruski hot take. Gibberish.

 

[ppine]

Not impressed with Mason Ball. Coaching in SL was below average.
Coach J is pretty bright and knows how to get the most out of his players.
It will take a while to figure out the right approach.
Young players make everything harder. They are overwhelmed at first. The NBA is full of great ahtletes even on losing teams. The speed of the game is intimidating. It is like challenging the winning team at the single court in Laguna Beach. Nothing but former UCLA players hanging around on weekends. They play fast.

 

[ESP47]

A bunch of hot takes in this thread. On par with an Aaron Bruski hot take. Gibberish.

Dave Joerger has been a head coach for 5 years and the Kings coach for 2 years. We have years worth of data to back our opinions on. They aren't hot takes.

 

[swisshh]

I haven't watched the last SL game, but I noticed the SL coach (apologies for not remembering his name) went away from Horns sets in the third game and the offense got better.

Part of the argument for pace includes half court setups that can be quickly moved into from a fast break attempt. Some of this requires added skill from your PG. Your point needs to be able to pressure in fast break, see where its not there, and then flow into a secondary break. If you're running slow Horns sets, then you'll get a fast break push and then 10-15 seconds wasted trying to initiate into a double high post.

However, if you push pace, then back off into a more spread offense that can transition into high pick n rolls then you'll get your secondary breaks and quick hitters.

Right now it's either full push or slog and that doesn't have much going on positively for it.

 

[ESP47]

I haven't watched the last SL game, but I noticed the SL coach (apologies for not remembering his name) went away from Horns sets in the third game and the offense got better.

Part of the argument for pace includes half court setups that can be quickly moved into from a fast break attempt. Some of this requires added skill from your PG. Your point needs to be able to pressure in fast break, see where its not there, and then flow into a secondary break. If you're running slow Horns sets, then you'll get a fast break push and then 10-15 seconds wasted trying to initiate into a double high post.

However, if you push pace, then back off into a more spread offense that can transition into high pick n rolls then you'll get your secondary breaks and quick hitters.

Right now it's either full push or slog and that doesn't have much going on positively for it.

That's a much better way of explaining what I've been trying to say.

 

[Hallama]

So we have a coach who IMO isn't really a fast paced coach being told by Vlade (I'm sure Vivek) to play up-tempo without adding any up-tempo players. Makes sense.

Being sarcastic of course, and Giles and Bags will eventually be those types of players but I don't like a forced philosophy. And we'll see a lot of Randolph in those lineups. Eh.

 

[BigVirg]

I haven't watched the last SL game, but I noticed the SL coach (apologies for not remembering his name) went away from Horns sets in the third game and the offense got better.

Part of the argument for pace includes half court setups that can be quickly moved into from a fast break attempt. Some of this requires added skill from your PG. Your point needs to be able to pressure in fast break, see where its not there, and then flow into a secondary break. If you're running slow Horns sets, then you'll get a fast break push and then 10-15 seconds wasted trying to initiate into a double high post.

However, if you push pace, then back off into a more spread offense that can transition into high pick n rolls then you'll get your secondary breaks and quick hitters.

Right now it's either full push or slog and that doesn't have much going on positively for it.

awesome post!

 

[SacTownKid]

this reminds me of all the complaints about Adelmans ineffective defensive sets and Malones too simple offense.

No situation is going to be perfect, but both of those coaches ran things that made sense for the main core of their roster. Grind and grind with Cuz would be great IMO. Not now and the statistical results last year prove it out. It's a team with mostly pick and roll bigs, pick and roll guards, and catch and shoot guards/wings. Perhaps in time Bagley could be a good big in that style, but he's a finisher around the rim right now. I think it's about finding a balance but I did not like what I saw in summer league. They were running the same plays that led to a slower pace and guess what, scoring was a struggle. More than it should have been.