Fire Paul Westphal
- Thread starter TheWileyVet
- Start date
We get it... You don't think the team has any talent. We also didn't have any talent last year when we accidentally played 500 ball to 27 games and we don't have any talent when we came back from down 20 points over and over or got close in game after game but were unable to turn that last corner. Some of us think we do actually have average talent at least for an nba team contrary to popular belief the winning teams aren't made up of 8-9 mvps in rotation and we should be able to do ok with our current roster if they were used correctly.
PW is a bad coach at least right now for this young team. He is implementing poor tendencies into our 1-3 year guys. We learned early on this year was gone we need to look for next so what strategy would I as a fairly intelligent person use? First I would play the players who are going to be together next year to get that elusive chemistry going. I would call a timeout and talk to the players when after 1/2 of moving the ball and making passes and plays they suddenly forget what offense and running is. I would exploit the huge size advantage we have against all the teams in the league. I would play our forgotten rookie in garbage time instead of expiring/one and done contracts who have no future with the team, that goes for Greene also.
I think we have mismanaged talent and a deep roster. Not the most talented team in the league but talented enough to have hit 500 this year or within 5 games of it. From the pre-season I could see WP failings as a youth coach showing through and we talked about it. Even if we lack talent early on WP cost us several games when our season was still up in the air. Do you think he still isn't costing us games? What people don't seem to understand is you are going to have nights where everything drops you are going to have nights nothing goes through the rim from outside you will have free throw pukes and free throw perfect outings but through it all you need consistency from the sidelines you need a willingness to use your personnel to their strengths instead of expecting 2 and 3 year players to be perfect all-stars already.
I didn't get a chance to watch any Kings games last year so I didn't see WP till the Pre-season. I read about it and I wasn't impressed. This year I honestly think I or several people on this board could have coached this team to more victories.
PW is a bad coach at least right now for this young team. He is implementing poor tendencies into our 1-3 year guys. We learned early on this year was gone we need to look for next so what strategy would I as a fairly intelligent person use? First I would play the players who are going to be together next year to get that elusive chemistry going. I would call a timeout and talk to the players when after 1/2 of moving the ball and making passes and plays they suddenly forget what offense and running is. I would exploit the huge size advantage we have against all the teams in the league. I would play our forgotten rookie in garbage time instead of expiring/one and done contracts who have no future with the team, that goes for Greene also.
I think we have mismanaged talent and a deep roster. Not the most talented team in the league but talented enough to have hit 500 this year or within 5 games of it. From the pre-season I could see WP failings as a youth coach showing through and we talked about it. Even if we lack talent early on WP cost us several games when our season was still up in the air. Do you think he still isn't costing us games? What people don't seem to understand is you are going to have nights where everything drops you are going to have nights nothing goes through the rim from outside you will have free throw pukes and free throw perfect outings but through it all you need consistency from the sidelines you need a willingness to use your personnel to their strengths instead of expecting 2 and 3 year players to be perfect all-stars already.
I didn't get a chance to watch any Kings games last year so I didn't see WP till the Pre-season. I read about it and I wasn't impressed. This year I honestly think I or several people on this board could have coached this team to more victories.
I'm really to the point with Westfail that I just don't care. I mean if he can't show any consistency with his coaching...how can the players show any cosistency out on the court?
This team is young as hell and not as talented as most of the teams in the NBA, but at the some point it has to be on the coach. A real NBA coach can get WINS out of this squad. We have too much size up front and on quietly a potentially potent back court....there is no excuse for this. I just can't see how people can justify these rotations anymore, just can't its simply foolish. I get that he is looking for something that works but if he could simply do something about his player ADD he would realize he already HAS something that works. I'm glad I could come here before I checked my DVR because if I would of seen Omri playing the 4 spot I probably would of put my remote through the tv.
Give Elie the bump, toss some money at Brown for 2 years or go get a college coach anything is better than this crap from PW.
This team is young as hell and not as talented as most of the teams in the NBA, but at the some point it has to be on the coach. A real NBA coach can get WINS out of this squad. We have too much size up front and on quietly a potentially potent back court....there is no excuse for this. I just can't see how people can justify these rotations anymore, just can't its simply foolish. I get that he is looking for something that works but if he could simply do something about his player ADD he would realize he already HAS something that works. I'm glad I could come here before I checked my DVR because if I would of seen Omri playing the 4 spot I probably would of put my remote through the tv.
Give Elie the bump, toss some money at Brown for 2 years or go get a college coach anything is better than this crap from PW.
Paul Westfail is a terrible coach, and he deserves no credit, even if we beat the Lakers by 40+ 
Concerning the quoted post ------- Westphal in my book is not a terrible coach and has not been during his tenure with the Kings, and deserves an awful lot of credit (and sympathy) for having to be the front man for all the grief this team has wrought so far. Now that we have seen an improvement, at least I have, please let us calm the waters and give him a little credit.
Well put. Agree 100%. I think it's funny how when The Kings won 3 out of 4 home games to start January, the anti Westphal brigade quited significantly. Some even claimed he was doing a better job as of late. Yet, all it takes is a few bad road losses and all of a sudden he's the worst coach in the league again.
One thing I find interesting. I've been reading other team's forums a lot lately after Kings' wins and pretty much every bad team The Kings have beat have a pretty big subsection of fans who think that their team has the worst coach in the league. It's just so easy to blame the coach when things are going bad.
You have a music background, right?
Let's pretend this is a midi keyboard - if a couple of keys, say, the D and F# keys didn't work, you would probably assume that there is something wrong with those keys. But, if every single key didn't work, I think it would be safe to assume that the problem is not in the individual keys, but maybe something is wrong with the powerplug, right?
You have a music background, right?
Let's pretend this is a midi keyboard - if a couple of keys, say, the D and F# keys didn't work, you would probably assume that there is something wrong with those keys. But, if every single key didn't work, I think it would be safe to assume that the problem is not in the individual keys, but maybe something is wrong with the powerplug, right?
Last edited:
No one is saying that every single mistake the players make is necessarily the coach's fault, but the coach's job is to put the players in a position to succeed. Part of that is playing similar rotations for a long enough time so that the players can develop chemistry, which PW simply refuses to do. Another part is playing each player in his natural position - we are a pretty deep team, there is no reason to play JT or Landry at SF, and there is certainly no reason to play Omri at PF. That is just setting them up for failure. Another part is not jerking players back and forth from starter to DNP-CD, and not having one set of rules for certain players and another set for other players - that just messes up the team psychologically beyond repair.
Unless you think all those things are player-initiated (Donte: "Please coach, I've been a starter for enough games, I liked the doghouse a lot better. Please put me back on the bench and give me some pompoms"), then a lot of responsibility here should go on the coach.
Unless you think all those things are player-initiated (Donte: "Please coach, I've been a starter for enough games, I liked the doghouse a lot better. Please put me back on the bench and give me some pompoms"), then a lot of responsibility here should go on the coach.
I agree that Westphal's rotations are somewhat problematic. But we probably disagree about to what extent. I don't think the team's record would be much better, if at all, had he played the same starting 5 since day 1. I think the problem is this team just lacks starting caliber players. I can see where picking a starting 5 from a cast of mostly bench caliber players wouldn't be easy. It's easy to talk about how I'd pick one lineup and stay with it. But if I were in that position and the lineup I picked kept losing, I might juggle things around to.
A big part of a coach's job is to make decision. No one is saying it's always easy, but if it was easy then any random person would have been able to do that job. Westphal is paid big bucks to make those decisions, and if he is unable to do that, then he is not doing his job properly.
Regarding the record - your speculation that our record wouldn't be better with a set lineup is just that - a speculation, and a comparison between teams with set lineups and teams with random rotations would suggest otherwise. Of course, there are other things that come into the equation, like the level of talent, youth vs. vets, etc, but in general, teams that have solidified rotations do a LOT better than teams that constantly switch things around.
But the thing that bothers me is not necessarily the record. Had we been losing just because of characteristic youth mistakes, the record wouldn't have been that much of a concern, since we are obviously not championship contenders, even if we play far beyond our talent level. The more crucial thing is that the lack of consistency in the rotations and the treatment of players is hindering the growth of the team and the players, and may be harmful to our future. It is hurting the players' confidence and planting doubt in their minds regarding our chances of ever becoming a winning team, and their chances of becoming quality NBA players. It also prevents them from learning their roles, which is a vital part of building a team and directing it towards a successful future.
Regarding the record - your speculation that our record wouldn't be better with a set lineup is just that - a speculation, and a comparison between teams with set lineups and teams with random rotations would suggest otherwise. Of course, there are other things that come into the equation, like the level of talent, youth vs. vets, etc, but in general, teams that have solidified rotations do a LOT better than teams that constantly switch things around.
But the thing that bothers me is not necessarily the record. Had we been losing just because of characteristic youth mistakes, the record wouldn't have been that much of a concern, since we are obviously not championship contenders, even if we play far beyond our talent level. The more crucial thing is that the lack of consistency in the rotations and the treatment of players is hindering the growth of the team and the players, and may be harmful to our future. It is hurting the players' confidence and planting doubt in their minds regarding our chances of ever becoming a winning team, and their chances of becoming quality NBA players. It also prevents them from learning their roles, which is a vital part of building a team and directing it towards a successful future.
Of course it was speculation, I wouldn't claim it was anything more. It's also speculation that Westphal is hindering the growth of the team, though. I've seen real signs of growth over the last two to three weeks. not only has the team been more competitive and winning more games but players like Casspi and Thompson appear to be making some strides toward becoming more consistent players. Landry seems to be playing much better over the last two weeks as well. Jeter has emerged as a "spark off the bench" type of player and Cousins is generally showing improvement all the time. The only player I'd say is really being hindered is Greene but the fact that he hardly ever plays tells me that maybe there's something else going on there that we don't know about. Maybe he just isn't that good. Maybe he's out of shape. Maybe they know he's being traded. We just don't know.
So you're saying that we should be blaming Petrie instead of Westfail, then? After all, he's the one who put this team together. We have more talent on this team than this record shows, and it's up to the coach to make it work. So far, he hasn't. How long are you going to hold on to the excuse that our play is completely because of our talent?
If we fired Westfail, and hired me, or anyone else with absolutely no NBA/college coaching experience as the coach, would our team still perform exactly the same? Would our record be exactly the same for the rest of the season? Because me, the 1 person, would definitely make our team look worse than it is right now.
I wouldn't blame Petrie because I think the Maloofs limit what he can do. He's drafted well the last few years and put the team in a good position salary cap wise. At this point, I think it's too soon to put the blame on any individual. It's a young team with lots of players that are still in the evaluation process. It's a team that will need to add some players in free agency to complete the rebuild. We really need to let the rebuild process come to fruition before we call it a success or failure and start assigning credit or blame.
Last edited:
If all those things happen and they aren't playing at least 0.400 basketball (ideally around 0.500) at this point next season, then I'd look at coaching. Once the roster is filled out through free agency/trades and another high pick (assuming Westphal is even the coach next season) i think we'll see a lot of improvement. I think you should at least give a coach a chance once the rebuild is complete to see how things go. Firing the coach mid rebuild just seems premature to me. Especially when they team has been showing a lot of improvement as they've been doping over the last few weeks.
I think that firing a coach after we get our FA's + another top 5 draft pick is the worst thing to do. That's why I think we should see what Elie can do, then start over fresh with new players + new coach next season. People will just complain that firing Westfail next season mid-season is a terrible idea since the players just started to play together, need more time to gel, this is a young team, blah blah blah...
I'd keep Westphal. I think he's a good coach and the team has been improving. When the talent level rises, the team will be better, and all of a sudden Westphal will look like a much better coach. Unless there's somebody out there better, let Westphal finish what's been started. The Kings have been spinning the coaching carousel for a long time now and it's gotten them nowhere.
I agree with this. I'm not sure how good of a coach Westphal is, but the players seem to be responding to him and we've won 3 of our last 6 games that Reke's played in and been competitive in almost every game recently. We may need to replace Westphal in the offseason, but I don't see any way it would benefit us to let him go now and have to let the players adjust to another coach and coaching style only to undergo the same process in the offseason.
Westphal isn't going to be fired. If he was to be fired it would have happened already. But if you can step outside the box, and truely be objective, you can only come to one conclusion, he's not doing a very good job. I'm not going to bore you with going into all the details and reasons of why. All I can say is that you can blame the players on any team for failure, and say its not the coaches fault. And that won't get you very far, because when an entire team fails, its the coach that gets blamed. I watched teams under Jerry Reynolds, Dick Motta, and Bill Russel. And some of those teams had far less talent than this team, and those teams played better basketball on a regular basis than this team.
If I, unlike some of you, thought that the talent was't there, I wouldn't be as upset as I'am. But there is talent. Young and inexperienced talent, but talent none the less. And if you don't think so, then I'm sorry, you just don't know anything about basketball. I don't give a tinkers damm about any player or coach. I'm not out to protect a player or defame a coach. I just watch and observe. And I try to do so objectively. I don't have a bone to pick with Westphal. Hell! I was rooting for him to succeed. I don't have a dog in this hunt. But I know basketball enough to know when someone is doing a bad job. Westphal had nothing to do with Landry suddenly finding his mojo. It was more like Landry finding it on his own. He had game when he came here. If anything, Westphal helped him lose it with his crazy lineup changes. Thompson's improvement has nothing to do with Westphal, its more like Thompson overcoming all the obstacles put in his way by Westphal.
You tell me. You go out an score 22pts and grab 7 boards, but your not good enough to go in at the end of the fourth quarter and guard Villanueva. No, Casspi gets that job. Your getting killed on the inside and you have Thompson with 1 foul, Cousins with 4 fouls, and Dalembert with 5 fouls sitting on the bench. Please tell me. Just what the hell are you saving them for? The last 20 seconds after the game is already out of reach. Please tell me. Just who the hell's fault is that?
Most teams I watch aroung the NBA, its their starting five thats on the floor at the end of the game. The reason being, because your starting five are usually your best five players. And if not, then why are they your starting five? I mean you picked them! So here's a thought. Why not trust them? I'll tell you the reason. Westphal doesn't trust any player at any given moment. He rides by the seat of his pants hoping to get lucky and find a group that works. You can't coach a team like that. You have to make a decision and then stick with it.
I have played professional sports. There is nothing you can do that is worse than jerking players around to where they don't know what to expect. Where good play means nothing, or is forgotten rapidly by your coach. There is nothing worse for a player than to sit on the bench when he knows he can help his team win. A good coach picks his starters, and picks his rotation. And then he sticks with them. He trusts them. They're going to fail at times. They're going to struggle at times. But if the coach gives them his trust, they will start to reward that trust. I've been there. And I would play my butt off for a coach that stuck with me when I struggled. A coach that patted me on the butt and and told me don't worry about it. The next game will be different. A player can't play scared. He can't play with someone looking over his shoulder waiting for his first mistake.
When this team wins a game. Its not because of Westphal. Its in spite of him.
If I, unlike some of you, thought that the talent was't there, I wouldn't be as upset as I'am. But there is talent. Young and inexperienced talent, but talent none the less. And if you don't think so, then I'm sorry, you just don't know anything about basketball. I don't give a tinkers damm about any player or coach. I'm not out to protect a player or defame a coach. I just watch and observe. And I try to do so objectively. I don't have a bone to pick with Westphal. Hell! I was rooting for him to succeed. I don't have a dog in this hunt. But I know basketball enough to know when someone is doing a bad job. Westphal had nothing to do with Landry suddenly finding his mojo. It was more like Landry finding it on his own. He had game when he came here. If anything, Westphal helped him lose it with his crazy lineup changes. Thompson's improvement has nothing to do with Westphal, its more like Thompson overcoming all the obstacles put in his way by Westphal.
You tell me. You go out an score 22pts and grab 7 boards, but your not good enough to go in at the end of the fourth quarter and guard Villanueva. No, Casspi gets that job. Your getting killed on the inside and you have Thompson with 1 foul, Cousins with 4 fouls, and Dalembert with 5 fouls sitting on the bench. Please tell me. Just what the hell are you saving them for? The last 20 seconds after the game is already out of reach. Please tell me. Just who the hell's fault is that?
Most teams I watch aroung the NBA, its their starting five thats on the floor at the end of the game. The reason being, because your starting five are usually your best five players. And if not, then why are they your starting five? I mean you picked them! So here's a thought. Why not trust them? I'll tell you the reason. Westphal doesn't trust any player at any given moment. He rides by the seat of his pants hoping to get lucky and find a group that works. You can't coach a team like that. You have to make a decision and then stick with it.
I have played professional sports. There is nothing you can do that is worse than jerking players around to where they don't know what to expect. Where good play means nothing, or is forgotten rapidly by your coach. There is nothing worse for a player than to sit on the bench when he knows he can help his team win. A good coach picks his starters, and picks his rotation. And then he sticks with them. He trusts them. They're going to fail at times. They're going to struggle at times. But if the coach gives them his trust, they will start to reward that trust. I've been there. And I would play my butt off for a coach that stuck with me when I struggled. A coach that patted me on the butt and and told me don't worry about it. The next game will be different. A player can't play scared. He can't play with someone looking over his shoulder waiting for his first mistake.
When this team wins a game. Its not because of Westphal. Its in spite of him.
Well it seems that in this case the very first impression was right: Westphal might be only the cheap transition coach that holds the team until it's talented enough to attract a big name coach in the offseason. I'm still glad we didn't get Kurt Rambis, not that happy about not hiring Thibodeau when we got the chance, but was probably asking for big money, and we all know that now the Maloofs will spend big money on big names only.
Of course this theory will fall down if Westphal stays for 2011/2012, that would make me a very angry fan.
Of course this theory will fall down if Westphal stays for 2011/2012, that would make me a very angry fan.
Come on, there isn’t anything more objective about your opinion that he’s doing a poor job than there is an opinion that he’s doing a decent or good job given what he has to work with. Both opinions (as opinions are by nature) are wholly subjective.
That something is widely practiced or widely believed to be true does not make it correct. To suggest or imply it does is a form of argumentum ad populum.
Furthermore, the entire team isn’t failing. They’ve been playing better and even in their losses there’s always a few guys who had really good games. They’re a work in progress, and lately, they’ve been showing progress. To expect more than that from them at this point is unreasonable my opinion.
That sounds an awfully lot like an “I’m an expert so I’m right and you’re wrong" type of argument. The problem with those type of arguments is that there’s always an equal or greater expert that will have the opposite view. Grant Napear and Charles Barkley surely have as much, if not more knowledge about basketball as you do, yet neither one of them thinks Westphlal is the problem.
So when players suck, it’s Westphal’s fault but when they improve, it’s in spite of him? That seems incredibly biased and unfair to me.
The problem with those types of observations, is that they only look bad if they lose the game. It’s very easy to say, oh, they lost because the coach played this guy and not that guy. All fan bases do this and all fans bases have a sizable subsection that think it’s the coach’s fault when their team doesn’t do well. Just recently, I’ve seen it on the Phoenix and Memphis forums when those teams lost to the Kings. Many fans of both those teams blamed the losses on the coaches and had ideas about how they would have won had the coach just done this or that. Coaches make very convenient scapegoats. That’s why they’re so often fired from bad teams.
Players have to earn a coach’s trust to become solidified starters. There isn’t 5 Kings players who’ve done that with any type of consistency yet. Part of that is due to young players who are wildly inconsistent and part of it is due to the team simply lacking starting caliber players. Westphal was basically given a team with 3 starting caliber players (2 of who play he same position) and about 9 or 10 bench caliber players, and people expect him to come up with a concrete starting 5 out of that. It’s not the coaches fault that he wasn’t given sufficient tools to work with. He’s given a roster that comprises the lowest payroll in the league, lacks veteran leadership, and that’s most consistent player is Bedo Udrih, and he’s expected to work miracles.
I have a question for you, and anyone else who think Westphal’s lineups are the main problem with this team.
If Westphal had started the season with one lineup and consistent rotation, and at this point, the record was the same as it is now, would you be saying why doesn’t he try a different lineup, why does he keep playing the same lineup when they don’t win?
That something is widely practiced or widely believed to be true does not make it correct. To suggest or imply it does is a form of argumentum ad populum.
Furthermore, the entire team isn’t failing. They’ve been playing better and even in their losses there’s always a few guys who had really good games. They’re a work in progress, and lately, they’ve been showing progress. To expect more than that from them at this point is unreasonable my opinion.
That sounds an awfully lot like an “I’m an expert so I’m right and you’re wrong" type of argument. The problem with those type of arguments is that there’s always an equal or greater expert that will have the opposite view. Grant Napear and Charles Barkley surely have as much, if not more knowledge about basketball as you do, yet neither one of them thinks Westphlal is the problem.
So when players suck, it’s Westphal’s fault but when they improve, it’s in spite of him? That seems incredibly biased and unfair to me.
The problem with those types of observations, is that they only look bad if they lose the game. It’s very easy to say, oh, they lost because the coach played this guy and not that guy. All fan bases do this and all fans bases have a sizable subsection that think it’s the coach’s fault when their team doesn’t do well. Just recently, I’ve seen it on the Phoenix and Memphis forums when those teams lost to the Kings. Many fans of both those teams blamed the losses on the coaches and had ideas about how they would have won had the coach just done this or that. Coaches make very convenient scapegoats. That’s why they’re so often fired from bad teams.
Players have to earn a coach’s trust to become solidified starters. There isn’t 5 Kings players who’ve done that with any type of consistency yet. Part of that is due to young players who are wildly inconsistent and part of it is due to the team simply lacking starting caliber players. Westphal was basically given a team with 3 starting caliber players (2 of who play he same position) and about 9 or 10 bench caliber players, and people expect him to come up with a concrete starting 5 out of that. It’s not the coaches fault that he wasn’t given sufficient tools to work with. He’s given a roster that comprises the lowest payroll in the league, lacks veteran leadership, and that’s most consistent player is Bedo Udrih, and he’s expected to work miracles.
I have a question for you, and anyone else who think Westphal’s lineups are the main problem with this team.
If Westphal had started the season with one lineup and consistent rotation, and at this point, the record was the same as it is now, would you be saying why doesn’t he try a different lineup, why does he keep playing the same lineup when they don’t win?
Last edited:
