The coach we need

[The Hammer]

Here's a new (to me) thought:

Just thinking about great coaches and great players. Some people say "oh blank coach inherited great player X". This is far from the truth. All great players NEED great or at least good coaches. There are many examples of extremely talented players that just never found either the right situation or the right coach to really excel. Do you think Kobe would have become what he has become without PJ (apologies for the Lakers reference).

This leads me to the following thought, which has just come out of a chat with optimus. Our young super-talents will attract a good coach that will want to work with them and bring out the best in them.

Of the available coaches, I am hoping that due to having so much youth and potential, it will attract a coach who really wants to mentor and develop those players.

Granted, the list of available quality coaches is not long. Perhaps Elie has it in him. Perhsps JVG is right for us. The upshot of my novel thought is that we needn't feel like a little podunk stop on the vaudeville coaching tour... great coaches are attracted by great young players that they have the chance to develop and do something with.... OTIS HUGHLY FOR HEAD COACH!

 

[cuad]

It's not the coaching. It's the players, especially on defense and especially against the pick and roll.

Cousins is too fat to guard the pick and roll, doesn't run back on defense and doesn't know wtf he's doing on defense in general. He also seems to think that every center is Ray Allen.

Jason Thompson gets off on reaching in.

Landry is too dumb to guard the pick and roll, switching when he shouldn't or just losing his assignment.

It doesn't even look like Evans can guard the pick and roll. He likes to cheat and always gets burned. Players get into his head way too easily, causing him to lose focus. He doesn't really run back on defense either.

The team all together doesn't run back on defense. Half of the times that they do, somebody picks up the wrong guy, giving the other team a mismatch. When certain players are on the floor they can't rotate to save their life either.

None of that is on the coaching.

Our offense isn't even a problem compared to our defense.

 

[Bricklayer]

It's not the coaching. It's the players, especially on defense and especially against the pick and roll.

Cousins is too fat to guard the pick and roll, doesn't run back on defense and doesn't know wtf he's doing on defense in general. He also seems to think that every center is Ray Allen.

Jason Thompson gets off on reaching in.

Landry is too dumb to guard the pick and roll, switching when he shouldn't or just losing his assignment.

It doesn't even look like Evans can guard the pick and roll. He likes to cheat and always gets burned. Players get into his head way too easily, causing him to lose focus. He doesn't really run back on defense either.

The team all together doesn't run back on defense. Half of the times that they do, somebody picks up the wrong guy, giving the other team a mismatch. When certain players are on the floor they can't rotate to save their life either.

None of that is on the coaching.

Our offense isn't even a problem compared to our defense.

Almost eveything you mentioned there is youth and coaching. In particular with such young players. Maybe Baron Davis is set in his ways at 32. 20/21 yr old kids are not. They need structure and instruction. That's not the same as yanking their chain. A few games ago against New Orleans the effort on defense in particular was spectacular. Same players. They made about half a dozen obvious defensive errors in that game that you could clearly see, but they were very tough otherwise, and hustled hard to catch up and correct the errors they did make. When you know the players are capable of far greater things then they are giving you, and now they aren't giving those to you, you become as much the problem as the players. And you're far easier to replace. Most of an NBA coach's job is defined by providing a structure and inspiring an effort.

 

[hardware_failure]

The Kings are a perfect example of why getting rid of a coach when all else fails is a stupid idea when hes a good coach.

When the kings started to go downhilll in the playoffs and Aldemans contract expired in 2006, he wasnt resigned. In 2008 and 2009 Houston were possible contenders. Aldeman was hands down the best coach ever for the Kings in Sacramento. Its been nothing but one crappy coach after another since then.

I continue to get the feeling that this year is a "fire sale" for when the team gets sold

How do you motivate a team in this position?

 

[Asaf]

The Kings are a perfect example of why getting rid of a coach when all else fails is a stupid idea when hes a good coach.

When the kings started to go downhilll in the playoffs and Aldemans contract expired in 2006, he wasnt resigned. In 2008 and 2009 Houston were possible contenders. Aldeman was hands down the best coach ever for the Kings in Sacramento. Its been nothing but one crappy coach after another since then.

I continue to get the feeling that this year is a "fire sale" for when the team gets sold

How do you motivate a team in this position?

Putting aside the good start to last season, our record with PW since January 2010 is 15-51. Our offense wouldn't cut it in the Bulgarian league and our defense is non-existent. Adelman led the Kings to their biggest achievements in history. PW has achieved nothing with the Kings, unless you count his ability to pad Tyreke's stats to 20-5-5 so he can get the ROY award a coach's achievement. The PW situation has absolutely nothing to do with the Adelman situation.

 

[hardware_failure]

I was basically just saying the PW is another notch on the bedpost for a failed attempt to get another decent coach in Sac. I agree with the OP that this young team NEEDS a more experienced NBA coach. JVG would be very interesting.

 

[RookieOfTheDay]

I was basically just saying the PW is another notch on the bedpost for a failed attempt to get another decent coach in Sac. I agree with the OP that this young team NEEDS a more experienced NBA coach. JVG would be very interesting.

Westphal has like 7 years experience as an NBA coach not including his tenor with The Kings. How much more experience do you need.

 

[hardware_failure]

I just looked up his record with PHX...

Maybe a team like the Kings can make a veteran coach suck...

I know it sounds like trollin but everything added up... its very hard to be a positive fan right now.

 

[RookieOfTheDay]

..

Maybe a team like the Kings can make a veteran coach suck...

There may be something to that. They seem to be able to make veteran player's field goal percentages take a nose dive, too. Dalembert was 52% before becoming a King, 34% since. Kings curse?

 

[gunks]

I think it was Bajaden who made a really great post in another thread about Westphal's coaching history.

In a nutshell: he inherited a great team in Pheonix (with Sir Charles among others), got fired as they got worse under his tenure as HC, he inherited another great team in Seattle (I think he had Payton to work with this time), got fired again as the team regressed, then he had a bunch of really bad tenures as coaches of young teams.

So basically: If Westphal is coaching a team of vets, led by a star player, where the entire roster already knows their roles, he does alright. When Westphal has to start from scratch with a young team he does terribly.

We need someone who will develop our young players. We have so much young potential on our roster, it would suck if they all bust out from lack of coaching. We've had good luck with draft picks when Adelman was coaching (Williams, Peja, Hedo was alright here, Wallace couldnt get pt, Martin started blooming under Rick, Cisco had a nice rookie year and hasnt really gotten much better since Rick left us)...

...but since we've had this run of turrible coaches in Muss, Theus, Natt, and now Westphal our young players have been Bleh. Douby busted out, Hawes is about to bust out, JT hasnt progressed at all, Greene is a little bit better, Omri/Reke/Cuz/Whiteside = too early to tell. Although both Om and Reke seem to have regressed a bit. Coincidence?

 

[RookieOfTheDay]

In a nutshell: he inherited a great team in Pheonix (with Sir Charles among others), got fired as they got worse under his tenure as HC, he inherited another great team in Seattle (I think he had Payton to work with this time), got fired again as the team regressed, then he had a bunch of really bad tenures as coaches of young teams.

So basically: If Westphal is coaching a team of vets, led by a star player, where the entire roster already knows their roles, he does alright. When Westphal has to start from scratch with a young team he does terribly.

Replace Phoenix with Sac, and Seattle with Houston, and that's basically what Adleman has done for the last decade.

 

[bajaden]

It's not the coaching. It's the players, especially on defense and especially against the pick and roll.

Cousins is too fat to guard the pick and roll, doesn't run back on defense and doesn't know wtf he's doing on defense in general. He also seems to think that every center is Ray Allen.

Jason Thompson gets off on reaching in.

Landry is too dumb to guard the pick and roll, switching when he shouldn't or just losing his assignment.

It doesn't even look like Evans can guard the pick and roll. He likes to cheat and always gets burned. Players get into his head way too easily, causing him to lose focus. He doesn't really run back on defense either.

The team all together doesn't run back on defense. Half of the times that they do, somebody picks up the wrong guy, giving the other team a mismatch. When certain players are on the floor they can't rotate to save their life either.

None of that is on the coaching.

Our offense isn't even a problem compared to our defense.

First off, will you stop with this Cousins is fat stuff. Take a look at him. Does he look fat to you? Come on. He may not be in total NBA game shape, but thats an entirely different thing from being fat. You just listed a whole bunch of things that the team is doing wrong and your saying that its not the coaches fault, its all the players fault. Well if it was just one player or maybe even two, I might agree with you. But when the entire team is going south and seems totally out of synch, then I'm sorry thats on the coach.

A well coached team looks like a well coached team, and that has nothing to do with the talent level. If you take a bunch of players with average talent and coach them properly they won't look like a bunch of keystone cops. They might lose anyway, but at least they'll look like they know what they're doing. I mean just what do you think a coach is for? Its his job to teach and develop players, as well as design an offense and a defense that best fit the talents of the players you have. And if the coach isn't capable of doing that, then you get something that looks like the current team.

I'll be honest. I could manage a baseball team. Its not rocket science knowing who the best fielders and hitters are. Its always been my opinion that the best baseball managers are the best at keeping all the players happy and content. Not so with football and basketball. Baseball is a team sport but everybody on the team actually operates independent of the others for the most part. But football and basketball require total teamwork to win. If one person doesn't do his job properly then the entire play can break down. Its no accident that the best teams in football and basketball usually have the best coaches as well. Mke Singletery of the 49's is a prime example of a coach that has a lot of talent and he can't figure out how to win with it. However a good quarterback would help.

Its Westphal's job to figure out how to get the best out of the talent he has. And he has talent. It may not be world championship talent, but its certainly better that its performing right now. He has a young player in Casspi who he makes the starter. Then he decides that he wants Greene as the starter. He's asked how Casspi accepted it. He say that he told Casspi he wanted to make a change and that Casspi said he was alright with it. He's then asked if Casspi is alright with going from starter to DNP. He's says, well I really haven't talked to him about it, but the way things are set up, Cisco is the first man off the bench backing up the 3 spot, so if you not starting you go to maybe not playing.

Now you tell me that makes any sense to you. You either start, or you possibly don't play. And, he didn't even bother to tell Casspi that. And you wonder why the players are confused.

 

[bajaden]

Replace Phoenix with Sac, and Seattle with Houston, and that's basically what Adleman has done for the last decade.

Not sure I follow what your saying here. But then I've had a few cervesa's to prepare myself for the game. He left out Pepperdine where Westphal once again inherited a team that had been built by the previous coach and he made a run at the conference championship but came in second to Gonzaga. The still managed to get a berth in the tournament but went out in the first round. After that it was just a slow decline and he was fired after his fifth year. In Seattle he inherited a very good team and made the playoffs. But in his second year he started tinkering with the lineups and benched one of Paytons best friends on the team. He lost Payton and as a result he lost the team. In Phoenix he was groomed by Cotton Fitzsimmons who was the coach and GM. He inherited a great team that almost won the world championship. Then the slow decline came from players underaccheiving, and three years later he was fired by the very man that had groomed him. He was also out of pro basketball after being fired by the Suns and coached highschool basketball. Sorry, I don't know his record there.

 

[nbaFan]

I agree with the poster about PW being a stop gap coach until the team situation is figured out. Hes signed through next year,no way he's let go unless hes replaced on an interim basis by an existing coach. The Maloofs wont pay another coach with so much team uncertainty. A new coach wont matter anyway, this team is real bad right now, JVG or Phil Jackson couldnt improve these dudes. I liked JT tonight as the only bright spot,wonder if PW leaves him in and lets him grow. Again DMC looks lost and unmotivated to being any kind of player we all envision him to be. Bad body language as usual. Slow to defend . This truly is an organization going through the motions. I suspect bad things are on the horizons

 

[Kingster]

It's not the coaching. You're searching for some silver bullet that doesn't exist. There is no easy solution to a young team that has some major deficiencies.

It's this quest for the magic bullet that has contributed to so much of the Kings instability over the last several years (Artest is one obvious example). Now the quest is being adopted by the fans looking for the miraculous coach who can instantaneously make the inexperienced experienced and the talent deprived talented. It's time to suck it up and stick with the coach through the thin times. An organization doesn't gain a reputation for stability in good times. It gains it during the bad times, when despite the chimerical whimsy of fans it has the back of the coach. The immature pining for the Miraculous One does nothing but undermine the stability that this organization desperately needs.

 

[The Hammer]

It's not the coaching. You're searching for some silver bullet that doesn't exist. There is no easy solution to a young team that has some major deficiencies.

It's this quest for the magic bullet that has contributed to so much of the Kings instability over the last several years (Artest is one obvious example). Now the quest is being adopted by the fans looking for the miraculous coach who can instantaneously make the inexperienced experienced and the talent deprived talented. It's time to suck it up and stick with the coach through the thin times. An organization doesn't gain a reputation for stability in good times. It gains it during the bad times, when despite the chimerical whimsy of fans it has the back of the coach. The immature pining for the Miraculous One does nothing but undermine the stability that this organization desperately needs.

No no no. I'm not looking for a silver bullet to make it all better. What I'm looking for are signs that the coach and players are on the same page. Actually signs that there is a page. This is wholly different than what you allude to. Instead, I just can't shake the feeling that coming from somewhere high up in the org, the towel has been thrown in. The Maloofs may very well be arranging things to sell or move the team. That's a much different kind of instability than straight out losing seasons, etc.

Like I've said in previous posts, it might be better to just stick with Westphal through all this... but the larger issue is that it might be useless to get a new coach if those big bad thoughts become reality.

The Maloofs could be in SERIOUS financial straights as a family. I think all the fans should recognize this as a REAL possibility. There are plenty of examples of mega rich people and families losing all or most of it or even ending up in serious debt. The Maloofs put a lot into their Vegas ventures at a time when things were riding high... then the luxury industry virtually disappeared. Have any of you talked to people from Vegas? Things are not good there. The Maloofs I think have something like a $350M payment coming up. For all we know, they've already arranged for the sale of the team. People should not be naive about these things.

 

[Section 101]

Replace Phoenix with Sac, and Seattle with Houston, and that's basically what Adleman has done for the last decade.

Not even close. Adelman took the Kings from 27-23 (strike year about 43 win pace), to 44, 55 ,61 , 59, 55 , 50 , 44. Westphal in Phx, 62, 56, 59, 14-19 was fired (they were 53 win team when he took over and got Barkley his first year) , in Seattle, 25-25 (strike year), 45, 6-9 fired, (they were a 61 team before he took over).

 

[Capt. Factorial]

The Maloofs I think have something like a $350M payment coming up. For all we know, they've already arranged for the sale of the team. People should not be naive about these things.

Is it naïve to take them at their word when they have insisted, multiple times in the past year and as recently as this month, that they will not sell the team? Or is it naïve to come up with a pet theory on the basis of nothing but speculation that flies in the face of multiple public comments and continue to push it despite all evidence to the contrary?

 

[gunks]

Is it naïve to take them at their word when they have insisted, multiple times in the past year and as recently as this month, that they will not sell the team? Or is it naïve to come up with a pet theory on the basis of nothing but speculation that flies in the face of multiple public comments and continue to push it despite all evidence to the contrary?

Never trust the rediculously wealthy

 

[The Hammer]

Is it naïve to take them at their word when they have insisted, multiple times in the past year and as recently as this month, that they will not sell the team? Or is it naïve to come up with a pet theory on the basis of nothing but speculation that flies in the face of multiple public comments and continue to push it despite all evidence to the contrary?

Nice perjorative language.

Moving on... it would be naive to take them at their word.

Also, depends on what you classify as evidence.

It's not a pet theory. It is exactly speculation. And yes it does fly in the face of "multiple" public comments.

I'm also not saying that they are being or would have to be deceptive with their public comments. That right there is where your term "pet thoery" goes astray. You implied my pet theory had a causation built into it. It doesn't. Which is why it's not a theory. They could genuinely believe that they would never sell the team... but sometimes unforeseen circumstances dictate otherwise. My speculation does not need to impune the Maloofs of public deceivery.

They could, and probably still do, believe and very much not want to move the team. But Stern has his ways. We've already heard him speaking in the past tense about failed efforts to build a new arena, thereby at the very least setting the stage for a team move. People really need to realize: the stage has been set for a move. However, and here's more speculation, you know cause this is a sports board and that's what we do... Stern's words could also be seen as a last ditch motivational tool to get things done here in Sac.

 

[bajaden]

Never trust the rediculously wealthy

Why? Are we to assume that all of them are liars and cheats? And I suspose that all the poor people in the world are true blue honest. There are dishonest people and there are honest people and how rich you are of how poor you are has nothing to do with it.

 

[The Hammer]

Why? Are we to assume that all of them are liars and cheats? And I suspose that all the poor people in the world are true blue honest. There are dishonest people and there are honest people and how rich you are of how poor you are has nothing to do with it.

True, although the ability to practice "selective honesty" is useful in the world of business.