Paul Westphal and other thingsl...

LakersStink

G-League
Isn't the right coach for this team. Bottom line.

What really caught my eye about Paul Westphal:

"In 1992 he became the head coach of the Phoenix Suns. For several years prior, he was an assistant coach with the Suns under head coach Cotton Fitzsimmons. With players such as Kevin Johnson, Dan Majerle, Richard Dumas, and the newly-acquired Charles Barkley and Danny Ainge, the Suns made it to the NBA Finals in Westphal's first season as a coach, but they lost to the Chicago Bulls in the sixth game, 98-99. Coincidentally, Game 3 between the two teams went to a triple-overtime and is likewise considered one of the greatest games ever played.

While the Suns made the playoffs during each of Westphal's seasons as coach, the Suns did not make it back to the Finals and Westphal was replaced during the 1995-96 season. He served as an assistant coach for a high school team in Arizona for two years before he returned to the NBA as a coach with the SuperSonics for the 1998-99 season. He coached in Seattle until he was fired during the 2000-01 season. He returned to the college ranks in the fall of 2001 at Pepperdine University. At Pepperdine, Westphal lead the team to NCAA Tournament in his first season, but after a 7-20 season in 2005-06, Westphal was fired on March 15, 2006."
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So in summation, either Westphal inherits already good teams, or his coaching style works for a year and then he fails in the subsequent years. My NFL comparison would be to Mike Singletary or Childress. They have similar "my way or the highway attitudes" and it seems both teams under such a coach have fallen off the wagon. Opinion or not, based on his past, it's only a matter of time before Westphal is fired, and to that I will happily say "good riddens". Jeff Van Gundy would have been a better pickup than Westphal, and Jeff is an below average coach.

Also I agree with what another poster said earlier, Kings should have tried to get a big name FA this offseason, but you get what you pay for. Where is the verteran leadership supposed to come from when almost all the players on the team are under 30 and all of the players are prospects/projects who are still trying to develop their talent and find a niche. At least with players like Wall and Griffin they are NBA ready. Cousins reminds me of the NBA version of Jamarcus Russell. Kings should have traded that pick for a proven veteran. But whatever, being a Raider fan also has taught me one thing. Hope for the best, but ALWAYS expect the worse.

Looking at how the Kings draft, they seem to draft players that have 100% talent, but in terms of development and maturity those same players are at about 20-30% so with the law of averages, the players overall potential is very low. Look at the teams that are successful, they draft NBA ready players (due to high picks mostly), or they build around veterans at each major starting position and they can afford to draft projects/prospects because along with the coaching in place, the veterans on the roster can progress them along, no matter how much of a project that player might be. I just don't see that type of leadership here, mostly because of how the front office works here.

If you wanna flame feel free to. But this is most likely my last post. Take care y'all.

Something to chew on written in 2008:

http://enough-lupica.blogspot.com/2008/06/fun-facts-about-lupicas-good-friend.html
 
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Uh, okay. Well at least this thread wasn't titled, "Paul Westphal needs to go." :rolleyes: (That little face is supposed to be rolling its eyes..Ugggh.)
 
i wish you would have just started it off with "being a raider fan." that would have saved me the time from reading the rest of the post :p
 
I was going to respond, but then I decided it would be a waste of time. Were six games into the season and we might as well just hang it up according to this guy. Cousins is a bust. Our coach stinks. All our draft picks stink. ARCO stinks. Hell, I might as well just shoot myself. Wait, I've got a better idea. I think I'll use the ignore button...
 
I was going to respond, but then I decided it would be a waste of time. Were six games into the season and we might as well just hang it up according to this guy. Cousins is a bust. Our coach stinks. All our draft picks stink. ARCO stinks. Hell, I might as well just shoot myself. Wait, I've got a better idea. I think I'll use the ignore button...
Good choice. It was such a ridiculous post, there's certainly no point in responding.
 
Did Paul Westphal run out of candy when you were trick or treating or something. How bizarre to post a 2 year old article from an "I hate Mike Lupica" Yankees fan site (???) almost word for word, how do you even go about finding that?

Is Paul Westphal going to take us to the promised land? Of course not. But after a string of coaches who were more interested in themselves and their long term career prospects than the team they were hired to coach I think its fairly safe to say we have a guy who knows his role in the NBA and is going about doing that job.
 
Some good points but I don't agree at all that they should have traded the DMC pick. Not unless they could get a Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Deron Williams caliber player for it, which wasn't happening.
 
We can't keep blaming the coach here, I we can have the greatest minds pool in the bench and create stratagems and dazzling plays but it all falls to his players,

not his fault donte's inconsisstent/came in camp out of shape
that his starting center is a rookie that is foul prone and forced to switch it up with a vet in dally

We can win... it just takes time to gel this team together... i'd give it 10 more games before we make an assessment.
 
Just in case that wasn't your last post, who would you like to see coach the Kings?

Two coaches I always admired aside from our fave Rick adelman

Rudy Tomjanovic "Don't ever underestimate the heart of a champion"
Greg poppovic :D His discipline... nuff said :D
 
Just joined, too. Oh well. As Neil Young famously sang, "It's better to burn out, than to fade away."
 
Isn't the right coach for this team. Bottom line.
What really caught my eye about Paul Westphal:

So in summation, either Westphal inherits already good teams, or his coaching style works for a year and then he fails in the subsequent years. My NFL comparison would be to Mike Singletary or Childress. They have similar "my way or the highway attitudes" and it seems both teams under such a coach have fallen off the wagon. Opinion or not, based on his past, it's only a matter of time before Westphal is fired, and to that I will happily say "good riddens". Jeff Van Gundy would have been a better pickup than Westphal, and Jeff is an below average coach.
It is too early to tell.

We don't even know for sure what is really going on behind Greene's benching. We have a very young team, a good mix of veterans and youngsters, and they are just on their first 6 games playing together. It is not crystal clear who can play better with who, who among the young guys are really worth starting, and we don't know who needs more time at the bench for discipline, etc., etc. etc.

There is really too many unknowns in the team right now and it is too early to put the blame on Westphal.

I will give coach Westphal upto the middle of the season before I call for his head.
 
We're sloppy on offense and nonexistant on D.

But Westphal had to deal with a rediculous amount of injuries over the summer, we are a very inexperienced team, and we dont have a whole ton of talent on our roster. We have Reke, Beno, Cisco, Dally, and a whole bunch of inconsistant potential. We are extremely weak at SF and PF. And not super deep at the PG/SG.

Way too soon to call for Westphal's head. One thing I like about this team that has carried over from last year is the fight. It is annoying that we're down by 15 by the second quarter of every single game, but the fact that we're 3-3 despite that is remarkable (other side of the coin is that we could just as easily be 5-1). Regardless, we havent had a team with this much fight in awhile. Even the latter Adelman teams were kind of rollovers (at least until Ron Ron came into town).
 
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