History lesson. Steve Kerr fired Mike D'Antoni from Phoenix for losing to the Spurs four times in six years. Spurs won 3 championships in those six years (although they did not face the Suns each time). When D'Antoni was finally ousted, Phoenix beat the Spurs but lost to the Lakers -- and had a sub-.500 record the following year. Kerr gave D'Antoni the following playoff roster after trading Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks mid-season for a 35-year-old Shaq. In order of playoff minutes with game 1 starters in bold: SG Raja Bell PF/C Amare Stoudemire PG Steve Nash (at 33 y/o) SG Boris Diaw C Shaquille O'Neal (at 35 y/o) SG/PG Leandro Barbosa SG Gordan Giricek SF Grant Hill (at 35 y/o) PF/C Brian Skinner In short, Steve Kerr screwed over D'Antoni with this roster (ironically, Pop played his bench less).
If there is one thing that armchair experts are worse at then analyzing the basketball they are watching it’s correctly identifying what or what not a coach is doing(strategy and adjustments) and why or why not they are doing it.
Something I saw mentioned somewhere on here. Coaches are usually expendable if they do not win in their first three or four years. I thought about this and decided to take a peak at the previous years from 2005-2018. Warriors, Cavs, Heat, Mavericks, Lakers, Spurs and Celtics are the only teams to win since 2005. Warriors : Kerr won in year #1. Cavs:Lue won in year #1 Heat: Spoelstra won in year #4 was on the hotseat constantly following LeBron's arrival though. Mavericks: Carlisle won in year #3 Celtics: Rivers won in year #4 Spurs: Popovich won in year #3 Lakers: Phil won in year #2 with chicago and #1 with LA So. MDA is entering year #4. If the Rockets come up short in 2019/20, recent history says he does not get it done. I think the move is to bring in a new Associate Head Coach whether it's Messina or some other fresh voice. Groom this person to be the next head coach but allow MDA another season to get it done.
This holds true for the NFL as well. Not sure about MLB. It's an interesting stat that probably points to the impact of organizational culture and tuning out a message if it hasn't proven successful after a number of years. Despite evidence of contrary examples - Hakeem notably, but also Dirk - its one of the same issues I have with Harden. After a while the inertia just slows down mentally.
