I find it very interesting that simultaneously the media pimps Kerr as an amazing 1st year coach and that Blatt a bad first year coach who the media even thinks should be fired, despite the fact that that both coaches are 1st year head coaches who took their team to the Conference Finals. In fact, Blatt is up against bigger odds given his 3rd best player is out for the playoffs. If suddenly Draymond Green had an injury, would anyone blame Kerr if Golden State lost in the next round? Yet it seems Blatt is already going to be portrayed as the scapegoat if the Cavs don't win the finals. Not to mention, Kerr had Curry who just entered his prime, while universally everyone has accepted that Lebron showed some decline this year. But yet, if the Cavs won the finals, even though everyone universally accepts that Lebron is starting to show his age, people will still not given any credit to the Cavs' coach, the narrative is "oh well Blatt had Lebron who carried the team". Its almost as if Blatt can't win no matter what, an impossible situation for the guy. Just an interesting dichotomy of two first year head coaches.
Blatt has lebron and is in the east, getting to the ecf doesn't make him a good coach. Mike brown took a lesser lebron in the east to the finals... Kerr nade a scrappy dark horse team to the best team in the league by a wide margin. I thought the Kerr signing was r****ded at the time he proved me wrong.
I think Kerr did an amazing job, not taking anything away, but I do think it is interesting that Kerr gets an ass load of credit, even though he inherited a team who won 51 games last year, and whose core has played together for 3+ years now. Whereas Blatt had to basically slap together a championship team on the fly, and now has Kyrie at 70%, no Kevin Love, a headcase in JR Smith, and now relying on the likes of Matt Dellavedova to basically save their season. I'm comparing narratives. At this point in time Kerr is seen as a god and Blatt as some guy who deserves to be fired when the odds are seemingly stacked against him.
I'm a former diehard Sonics fan who has always respected the Rockets organization....that's why I post around here.
Any coach of Lebron always was and always will be on the hot seat. It is somehow supposed you don't loose a game if you have Lebron.
Kerr is a good coach the Warriors got better and won 60+ games. The Warriors were not this good before, with out him they would be out of the playoffs by now. Kerr does deserve the credit for most of their success this year Stephen Curry is 2nd.
Kerr is only good because he's not stubborn, he's pretty smart, and he has a good team of assistants. Credit him for learning and letting his assistants do a lot.
The difference is Kerr's best player is not constantly trying to undermine him publicly. LeBron is a great player and carries the team, but he and his group are always telling people and the media that LeBron is in charge of the whole franchise. Curry and the gang are not doing anything like that.
If Blatt had Kerr's gold-plated assistants (Ron Adams and Alvin Gentry), I bet the Cavs would have had the best record in the NBA with 65+ wins instead of the Warriors. But to Kerr's credit, he's a very good, high-character leader and has the right perspective on things. He's not driven by ego, is not insecure and is the kind of guy who allows players and coaches under him to feel valuable and thrive. This just happens to be the exact opposite of what Mark Jackson represents.
By the way, my memory may be poor, but the last 1st time head coach to lead his organization to the conference finals I believe was Phil Jackson's 1st year with Chicago. And this year we have two coaches who have done that at their 1st NBA coaching jobs.
Did you see Kerr almost getting a tech at the most important part of the game and was lucky to not cost his team a game, because he couldn't count the number of timeouts? Did you see Kerr asking Curry NOT to take the game winning shot? Did you see Kerr basically not having any system but have his player undermine him and call plays? Blatt was supposed to be a Princeton offence coach but instead the Cavs haven't played one lick of his system. Why then respect a coach who a) gets no respect from his own players b) can't have them play his system c) makes awful mistakes that can very well cost his team their season and get eliminated in the PO? I don't think Kerr is even the best coach remaining in the playoffs. That to me is coach Bud. But this narrative against Blatt is not without reason.
Blatt has a new team. Most people would credit Cleveland's success to LeBron. Kerr took pretty much the same team from an also-run in the West to the top of the league.
They're not the same situations at all. How can you not see (fair or not) that most everyone will equate the Cavs' success with LeBron coming? I mean, where LeBron goes, success follows. No coach will argue that. Look at the impact at the teams he left and the teams he went to. Not even trying to diss Blatt here. As for Kerr, he turned the Warriors into a defensive juggernaut. The improvements w/o player additions were huge. Also, he put Bogut on Allen in game 4 and that just confused the crap out of Memphis. That was pretty cool to watch.
Blatt commands no respect from anyone. He's little more than a puppet who just so happens to hold the title of "head coach". Mike Brown, part II. LeBron is the guy who really runs that franchise, both on and off the court. I'm not sold on Kerr himself either. I think he's mainly successful this season because he has a great stable of assistants, and is smart enough to trust their wisdom. We'll see how good Kerr really is once his assistants leave for more lucrative jobs elsewhere (and yes, other teams from both the pro and college ranks will try to pry them away over the next few years). Kerr is an obvious and substantial improvement over Mark Jackson, but I'm not yet convinced that he has what it takes to be a legit top-tier HC. Correct. Neither side wants to burn that bridge.
