Frank Lee wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:Pretty even game so far between OKC and NOL.
How do you not like OKC? They just play hard and what a crowd. Shades of the old madhouse. Theyd run us to into the ground. They go eight-nine deep and almost all would start on our flimsy squad
I think they are really well coached.
I think the best coaches are:
Ime Udoka
Erik Spoelstra
Ty Lue
Mark Daigneault
There are some other good ones but I'd have to think more about it. I think Nick Nurse is good, but not as good as those guys. Hard for me to really judge guys like Pop, Mark Malone, etc...some of the guys who have always had huge superstars, making their jobs a lot easier.
I remember Slim wanted Udoka...and I really would have liked him, though I mentioned at the time no way Suns would hire him with the controversy stuff...of course no one talks about that now. Though he is also an offensive coach.
If we stick with our team, we need an offensive genius. A lot of people blame Vogel, but we shouldn't have hired a defensive coach without the personnel...I blame Kevin Young far more than Vogel. Young was the guy running the offense, and he did a piss poor job.
Vogel, to me, actually ended up impressive getting THIS team to like the 13th best defense. He has his issues, with rotations sometimes and stuff, but is defensive minded.
I have always thought you need a coach to really maximize your strengths and get the most out of that...instead of focusing on weaknesses while not maximizing strengths....case in point...D'Antoni..fans and people complained about defense despite it not being terrible for a run and gun team..middle of the pack...some great defenders, but then they hire Porter and the way we clobbered teams got destroyed....went back with Gentry and got back to the WCF.
I think the most well rounded best coach for vets is Lue...he got Harden to let others move the ball at times and utilize their strengths and told him he HAS to shoot more spot up 3s...and Harden said he hadn't done that since his OKC days...but he adjusted and they went from 0-5 in his first games, to winning like 18 of 20 or something and getting up near the 1 seed for a bit. And Harden had his best 3 pt shooting season for most of the year, but it went down a tad to end up his 3rd best out of 15 years. But he clearly has been playing at a higher level than he has in a while and is not as much of a ball stopper. Lue can actually coach superstars and get them to buy in.
Vogel can do that, but only with guys who can play D....like with AD, Caruso, KCP, LeBron even played his best D that year, etc. But then they trade those two great 3&D guards, Kuzma, Harrell, etc, for Westbrook and mess it up.
He was also great when he had George, David West, George Hill, Lance Stephenson, Hibbert. He had these guys playing way over their heads...best record...but of course they ran into the LeBron/Wade/Bosh Heat in the ECF.
I just don't know who that offensive coach is...D'Antoni's getting too old.