The team managed to finish over .500 despite JBB being just brutally awful at being a head coach. D'Antoni is garbage, but he's considerably better than JBB. Basically JBB redefines what it means to be a terrible head coach. He took a WCF team and through his leadership and in game decisions managed to make them struggle to make the 8 seed. I wouldn't have thought that level of incompetence was possible till JBB.
I'm going to fall short of calling this an abuse of an appreciation thread, but really it's lowering the bar. It would be like calling for Trevor Ariza's jersey to be retired. I'm sure JBB did the best he could, but should we be really appreciating that? Aren't we supposed to do the best we can? The fact is those guys are paid handsomely to play and coach a game. It's a results based business. The results weren't there. All his fault? No. Mostly? Maybe but that's neither here nor there. Either he wasn't competent enough to turn it around or wasn't strong enough to stand up to the players. Either way, there's not much there to appreciate.
I dont think too highly of JBB either, but his predecessor has a worse record than him and started tge season with 3 straight 20pt blowout losses, and was the coach that took the Rockets to the WCF, albeit a bit of luck with Mavericks trading for Rondo and having to sit him after 2 games in the playoffs and having gutted the team's bench to get him, and of course Josh Smith catvhing fire against the Clippers. JBB sucks, but lets not act as if McHale did a great job.
Yeah, this is true. Regardless what anybody thinks of D'Antoni, he's going to blow JBB out of the water. I don't know how good the Rockets will be next season, but I think it's ridiculous how many people are thinking next year is going to be an unmitigated disaster. We won't contend, but we should very easily improve just by better coaching and (hopefully) an improved roster.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Hearing new Grizzlies coach David Fizdale is trying to close deals with both J.B. Bickerstaff and Nick Van Exel to join his coaching staff</p>— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine/status/738083560070905856">June 1, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sources: Memphis has reached agreement with JB Bickerstaff as associate head coach. Lakers were among teams pursuing him.</p>— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticalNBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/WojVerticalNBA/status/738493544734695424">June 2, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I don't understand all the hate and vitriol for JBB Let the man be. He was thrown into a difficult situation and tried his best. Although his rotations were sometimes questionable, I don't believe he was intentionally tanking games. No one who gets their first shot in the drivers' seat would do that. Let's move forward with the fresh start and wish him well. It's over. Give it a rest and let's show some class Houston. Save your blade for D'Antoni. There always seems to be an axe to grind on this forum. He's already taking heat just for showing up
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28878892/cavaliers-coach-jb-bickerstaff-agree-multiyear-deal Clap clap clap clap clap clap