I disagree, Avery is the main reason the Mavs went to the Finals and followed it with 67 win season. He turned a strictly offense team into a great offensive team with an above par defense. As much as I hate the Mavs, they probably should've won in 2006, beyond the choking and suspect foul calls. Also, the team has not been as good as it was in 2005-2007. He was not perfect and was not what we call a player's coach, but he is part of the reason Nowitzki started to use his post game and to play defense (along with some other notorious, "I only play on one side of the ball players"). That team went into SA for game 7 and won decisively, while being able to put the breaks on high flying Suns. For some reason, he knew how to light a fire under those guys and got them to play really well (enough to challenge for NBA Title).
Last two years, he's fielded an All-time great scorer, a top 5 power forward, a borderline all-star who is a hybrid of a point forward/power forward, a sometimes decent small forward who can play pretty good defense and be underrated scorer, and a top 5 center (even though he has been injured at times). He's never coached a team, like the Bobcats or even the Rockets. Though, you could throw the 93-94 season to his credit where the Bulls almost pulled off upset over the future Eastern conference champions.
Good players make coaches look good. It's always been that way. A coaching upgrade is worth 5 more wins at best; we've seen players add over 30 wins to a team.
Shaq faced the rockets, and the Dream, if Phil Jackson would have faced the rockets in the finals, the bulls could lost. Shaq won a title without Phil Jackson. I think now kobe could win a title without Phil Jackson with the same lakers team.
Can't discredit Doc Rivers that much. At least in the 2008 Finals. Doc Rivers (+ Tom Thibodeau) outcoached Phil Jackson that series. He had the sense of urgency, leadership and motivation, the aspects that come through good on tv .... Then had the on-court strategy on Phil. Celtics were almost on life support going into those finals. They opened up their bench going with fresher players when you generally shorten the bench. (Now for the other 90+ games....) As compared to the following year of Stan Van Gundy against the Lakers and Phil, with Van Gundy bungling the Jameer Nelson situation. I think coaches are like driver's licenses. Not a big deal when you have one (a decent coach). But when you DONT have one, its a big deal.
Pops is a great coach. And the Tim Duncan complex is mostly about the team not meshing together. When Timmy decides to retire I think Spurs will still be a playoff team.
Because of what he's done collectively throughout the years. I don't care how good the player, if the team does not have a great coach then there is no possible way to win multiple championships.
I agree, he gets a little too much heat. He has coached a very good team defensive scheme, he is just clueless on offense Avery was an excellent coach, idk what you are talking about
What's the difference between the very best coaches and the very worst coaches in terms of wins? Consider the Knicks. Is there any coach who's good enough to lead that team to, say, 45 wins? 40 wins? (and not by a fluke ... you'd actually expect that coach to be able to win that number of games)
I think a good coach could have gotten that Knick team to 40 wins. The Knicks have 6 games and lets say they win the last 6 to set the high limit. That means they end up at 33-49 for the season. They have/had the players that could have turned 7 losses during the season into wins if they had a coach that didn't have personal agendas. D'Antoni benched Robinson, Hughes, and other players without reasoning or simply because he didn't like the guy. He might have thought he was trying to set an example but those guys are gone now and what kind of example did he set at the end? I still think "What if the Knicks didn't hire D'Antoni, ergo, did not draft Gallinari and had went with Brook Lopez instead?" This is not an insult to Danilo but if you had a chance to draft a great center, why wouldn't you?
The jury is still out on whether Lopez is a great center. The Nets don't seem very far behind the Knicks talent-wise, and they've been awful this year. Offensively, I'd rather have a player with Gallinari's skillset than Lopez's. And Lopez doesn't seem to be a particularly adept defender.
Oh don't get me wrong, Lopez still has a way to go to become a great center. I just think a guy like him (gets to the FT at a high rate and actually makes them, decent game from 12-15 ft, can rebound and block shots) would have helped the Knicks moreso in the long run...especially if they want to lure any top swingmen this summer. This would have given the Knicks the luxury of losing Lee without having to worry about that big hole in the middle they will no doubt have.
Doc Rivers has been successful in two different situations. He made the playoffs with McGrady and no names and when he got talent he won a championship. What's the problem
adelman is only giving this team five more wins. its ridiculous that this team was even talking playoffs in the west just two months ago. and they still can finish .500 or above.
That's true but then Phil happened to get each player 5-10 years into their careers, which has generally proven to be a superstar's peak performance years. Hell of recent superstars only Dwyane Wade and Tim Duncan have led teams to titles as the "main man" and been only a few years out of school.
