This is an argument that comes up often on this board and I just don't get it. The criticism of Westphal is not that he can't win with a veteran team. He actually made it to the NBA finals with a veteran team. The big question regarding Westphal is whether or not he is able to develop young talent and turn it into veteran, winning talent. There is ample evidence that the answer to that question is no (or as Christina Bosh likes to put it, HELL NO). This assumption that our young talent is just going to miraculously develop into elite NBA veteran talent without adequate coaching is purely false.
Ample evidence being what? Tyreke's leg giving out? Donte coming back after a summer of taking work out lessons from Shaq? Demarcus having maturity issues that he acknowledged himself that he needed to work on?
Or maybe you're referring to his days with the Suns, when he failed to develop such stalwarts as Skeeter Henry and Malcolm Mackey.
Or maybe you're focusing upon his tenure in Seattle, where he had enough trust in his second round pick (some guy named Rashard Lewis) to let him play increasingly valuable minutes despite the fact he was dealing with an increasingly unstable Vin Baker and the always lovely Glove as role models? Maybe you're disappointed int he fact that he couldn't develop the
other Barry brother (poor Drew Barry didn't know what hit him), or the fact that in his two full years there he didn't have a first round pick to develop.
Is there outstanding evidence one way or the other about Westphal's prowess in developing talent? No. Is that the case with just about any coach whatsoever? Yes.
Is there any coach out there on the market that would be markedly better than Westphal when it comes to developing talent? Not particularly.
Look, I'm as much of an advocate for hiring Adleman as the next guy but his style is all but condusive to actually developing players not in his tight 8-9 man rotation (Gerald Wallace, Hell, even Hedo, Kevin Martin sitting on the bench until he finally had no choice but to play him [most of his development, btw, can be attributed to his work with some guy named Coachie], actually playing Mateen during garbage time rather than keeping him on the bench to improve his towel waving skills).
Let him finish out his contract and see how things progress from there.
I'm pretty sure the OKC success story may have a bit more to do with the fact that they have some guys named Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook on their team more than the fact that Scotty Brooks is among the better coaches in the NBA (why did we pass on him for Theus again?).