Fire Paul Westphal
- Thread starter TheWileyVet
- Start date
He had Westbrook, along with most of the present team. That obviously wasn't my point though. PJ started something like 2-22, got fired, and Brooks almost immediately changed things around, starting with moving Durant to the sf. They steadily improved the rest of the year, and laid the foundation which carried over into the next season. Are you telling me PJ would have done the same thing with this team?
I highly doubt it. I forgot that they had Westbrook that year, well he obviously was just talent at that point. It's pretty obvious Durant was a SF all along, if PJ couldn't figure that one out then I don't know what to tell ya. They might of slightly improved their play, but still they were a lottery team for another year after that.
I agree that the right coaching change could improve this team immediately but does anyone know who that new coach should be? We've had worse before. A lot worse. Aside from substitution patterns I have a tough time identifying anything concrete that Westphal could fix. There are times when it looks like he doesn't have control of these players but how much of that is on the coach and how much of that is on the player?
It really is one of the primary qualifications of an NBA coach. Eveybody looks for x's and o's, and that has become a major issue for us, but the single most important thing an NBA coach can do is control egos and get guys to play hard and together. If they won't listen to him, then he's failed even if he's the most brillaint x's and o's guy in the world.
Last edited:
Which just goes back to the same initial point -- if Westphal can't control these guys, which coach who is available to sign right now would be able to control them? Do they just need someone to scream at them some more? Like I said I agree that we should be looking into a coaching change. Westphal isn't a young up-and-coming coach; who he is now is pretty much who he's going to be. But there's not a wealth of better options out there.
And if the team is getting better and working through some of these issues behind the scenes then you're actually setting their development backwards by putting someone new in there. I don't know if that's going to happen or not, but I just haven't seen any firable offenses yet. Evidence of problems, yes, but not enough for me to pull the trigger on a change unless there's a better option out there which is worth the risk.
And if the team is getting better and working through some of these issues behind the scenes then you're actually setting their development backwards by putting someone new in there. I don't know if that's going to happen or not, but I just haven't seen any firable offenses yet. Evidence of problems, yes, but not enough for me to pull the trigger on a change unless there's a better option out there which is worth the risk.
Last edited:
I'm not that knowledgable on Elie's coaching abilities and I think driving under the influence is a terrible and wreckless idea but to completely throw out his ability to run a team based on drinking too much alcohol/driving is pretty unrelated. I mean I have to drink to get through these games haha. And let's be real who's going to be a saint and say they haven't EVER been over .08% BAC and driven a short distance? And no, that's not an excuse but people make mistakes.
Last edited:
We've only got a handful of longterm deals left at this point, and I don't see teams lining up around the block to take Cisco's deal off our hands. Maybe Beno, but then again he's kinda useful to us. Everybody else are enders, kids or scrubs. We really don't have much that needs to be endered out of town at this point. We should be trading for talent at our stage, not trading for caproom. Of course we have to be cognizant of not actually eating up too much of the caproom we already have.
Last edited:
This argument ALWAYS comes up whenever any coach's performance is in question. If this argument was valid, then no team would ever need to fire a coach because it's never the coach's fault. I mean, the coach is never the one committing the turnover, missing the shots, hogging the ball, or not boxing out for the rebound. But that doesn't change the fact that it's the coach's job to teach these guys how to execute so that they don't make those mistakes. It's also his job to draw up and teach them plays that they are capable of executing, to maximise the chance of having a positive outcome. If the entire team executes poorly that means the coach failed at doing his job. And in Westphal's case you have to add the constant tinkering with the lineups as a factor that creates collective mistakes, because they are not gaining the experience of consistantly playing with the same teammates and not building chemistry.