Thought he was utter trash in Orlando. I still don't consider him among the great coaches of the NBA, past and present.
He's a good coach. He was overrated when there was a big to-do in the offseason with the Clippers paying out the nose to get him. I'd say the Clippers are paying full potential pricing, but at least he's a good coach.
On that note, the impressive thing this year is DeAndre's focus. DeAndre is like someone with a basketball version of ADD. Great defensive followed by terrible defensive plays. A great close out to perimeter --> then gets distracted and doesn't see who has the ball on the next possession --> then soft post defense the next time --> then a block --> then no effort --> then loses focus again, etc. There's far less of that this year. Still a lot of it. But far less. And I suspect this focus and motivation comes from coaching. We can't know for sure of course. Either way, DeAndre is much more focused. Griffin is much improved on both ends. And after a lot of turmoil early in the season, all that team knows where they should be defensively now, and it's all working. A much better team than last year.
They were supposed to be the best in the west, and they are 1 game ahead of us. CP3 is playing our of his mind and everyone else is playing better, and their winning percentage is slightly less than last year. I guess we will see how they do in the playoffs before we figure out if giving up all that stuff to get Doc was worth it.
100% agree. CP3 will be great with any coach, but the other guys stepping up (Blake, DeAndre, Crawford etc) is credit to Doc's coaching. He's the type of coach that can take a very good player and turn him into a complete player. Under Doc, everybody has a role and sticks to it. He's also great at managing ego's (just like Phil). Would love a Doc like coach on the Rockets
I dont believe he is a terrible coach but I do find him to be very over-rated. Rivers has not been able to take bad teams and make them compete night in and night the way some coaches do. He won his first COY award on the back of Tracy McGrady's amazing season and then having the 3 future HoFs and Rondo. Even then his "great" coaching job in Boston I would attribute to having Thibs on the bench more than anything else. The clippers have a better team this year IMO with the addition of Dudley and Redick yet they are still in the pack of 4-6 with Houston and Golden State.
Doc Rivers cannot develop talent or help a young team establish itself. He wont exploit weaknesses in the opponent with precision like coaches like Pops can. He wont craft groundbreaking gameplans or draw up very many high percentage plays. But that doesn't mean he's not good at doing what he's hired to do. The CEO of a garbage collecting company doesn't know how to drive the garbage truck.
I'm sure there were some fans saying he was a bad coach. There are always some fans crying about the coach. Go to any fan bbs for any NBA team and you will find fans complaining about the coach. Fans always think they know more than the coaches. I tend to blame or give credit to the players for a teams performance.
Depends on how good a coach you think he's being considered. I don't think he's a top-5 coach, but I'd rank him somewhere in the 8-12 range, which is still pretty good, obviously. Of course, as folks have pointed out, a coach can only impact so much. Not because coaching isn't important, but because the league is filled with good coaches. I do think that if we were talking extremes, a coach could possibly make up a little more than 5 wins, but pretty much only if you'd replace the very very worst with the very very best coach on a (fairly) bad team. If we're talking Doc Rivers or Kevin McHale though... meh... I don't think results would be much different.
Gotta say I've been impressed with his coaching job this year though. Especially with CP3 out. Jared Dudley is awful and they have no backup bigs. He's not Pop but he is solid. I would say he is top 10. Close to the top 5 honestly.
Exactly. Having said that ummmm you think this team continues winning if cp3 gets hurt last year? I'll be the first to admit I thought they'd fall off and they've played well
There is no sure way to rate a coach. Different coaches do differently with different situations and teams. I don't think there is a coach that is good for every team. People who overrate a coach usually overrate the importance of a supposedly "great" coach. Rivers is not a bad coach. That's all that is matter. "Good coach" and "great coach" aren't that much of a difference.
In terms of motivating, inspiring, holding players accountable, managing egos, etc...Doc is one of the best. His intensity is always there, which many coaches just don't have. It doesn't come from yelling. It comes from demeanor and being able to will your team back from a 15-point deficit. Doc is also a players coach, but again, he does scrutinize his stars, too. Well, that is, according to the Celtics. I think his X/O game is underrated. During those Celtic years, especially in the playoffs, his adjustments were good, though simple. It might not be a play out of a time out, but Doc is good at reading mismatches and continually going at them. He would run everything through The Truth at times because he was on fire. It seems logical, yet most coaches don't do it. McHale still does not seem to realize the HUGE advantage we have in Dwight Howard. There have been so many games where the mismatch was in the C position, yet Dwight rarely got the ball. Other coaches would stop that immediately and make sure the mismatch was addressed every time down until it was fixed by the other coach. Doc may be overrated in terms of the players he had during his championship years, but that team wasn't Kobe, Shaq, MJ, Pippen etc... They were one level below (IMO) but Doc had them working TOGETHER. I think that's what the Clips wanted more than anything: A cohesive group. N more ISO's and "Lob City" being all that the Clips are known for. Now, they have an identity, DeAndre is taken seriously, Blake doesn't play around and CP3 is the leader he should have always been way back in NO. I'd take Doc every damn day of the week of McHale.
Rating/ranking coaches is really no different than ranking players, though. You look at the information that's available to you and project how they'd do in different situations compared to their peers. It's obviously no exact science and as you pointed out some coaches may fit better coaching certain players/teams, but the same is true for many players -- especially role players, where it really is all about fit.
I don't like this 5 wins attributable to the coach thing people like to quote from Morey. Maybe coach contributions to tactics has an effect in that order of magnitude. But, head coach is a key spot to drive the culture of the team. And the culture of the team is worth a hell of a lot more than 5 wins. It's the reason why Morey can say the Rockets couldn't tank even if they wanted to. Teams with a strong culture won't turn in 10- or 20-win seasons no matter who is on the roster. In that regard, I think Doc's good for the Clippers because they had a terrible culture, which was driven from a terrible owner. Things have changed with them more recently. They seem to have a competent GM and it's been a little while since Sterling has stiffed an executive on payday or dumped a good player coming off a rookie contract for another draft pick (well, there was the Bledsoe trade, I guess...). I think transforming the Clippers to a franchise with a strong winning culture though is still a precarious proposition. Chris Paul is a good star for it, and now Doc is a good coach for it. If they keep stability, continue to hire good professionals and Sterling can keep his nose out of operations, they may do quite well. But, I think it's still a possibility that a severe injury to Paul could make the whole thing unravel -- Doc jumping ship, Sterling ordering trades to cut costs, and a return to the perpetual lottery cycle.
He is a tad overrated. And this is coming from someone who has watched him closely during his tenure with the Celtics. He is terrible at developing talent and relies too heavily on vets even if its quite clear they are not the players they used to be. Thankfully for the Clippers, they have players in their prime and ones that are already developed. The Clippers team as currently constructed should look better than they do. Sure there are injuries, but they would be where they are currently regardless. The Clippers team isn't as good as the team Doc coached to a championship in 08'. However I reckon that Doc simply left the Celtics because he did want his win percentage affected and wanted a team that would e in the postseason. This team does not look like a title winner this season, but going forward with some moves it may be.
Great points. I think Morey is probably thinking of X and Os. Because proper culture and long term player development has to be worth much more than 5 wins. When Jim O'Brien was the Pacers coach, they were running small ball lineups and shooting 3s, playing little defense. Even Hibbert was practicing 3 point shots because if he didn't hit his long shots, he didn't play. His confidence was shaken. Troy Murphy and Solomon Jones started a bunch of games at center instead of Hibbert. Then Frank Vogel takes over and the culture and player roles change drastically. I doubt Hibbert and George are good defenders right now if Jim O'Brien is still the coach, Hibbert would be someone like Zydrunas Ilgauskas at best. That's worth more than 5 wins.
