I don't watch enough of the Mavs nor have I in the past to pass judgement, but I know he's viewed as one of the best in the business. I get that he has injuries to deal with, but to be dead last is shocking to say the least. The media projected them as some great team, which we all knew was rubbish, but with the likes of Matthews, Barnes, Bogut, Mejri, Deron, Powell and Anderson he should be able to get more out of them no? So what I'm wondering is, has your opinion about Carlisle changed so far or was he just never that great to begin with? I know it's tough to judge, because it's always the coach as well as the players. Even the best coach cannot make a team full of nobodies win and a team full of all-stars can be coached by an average coach and still win. Just wondering what people think, nothing more.
Mavs are playing boring basketball. They usually pass the ball for 23 seconds in a very predictable fashion where the ball will eventually end in matthews' or barnes' hand and they jack up a contested shot. Extremely uninspired offense. Their defense is the only thing that kept them alive so far and the only reason why they won 5(?) games. Ugliest team to watch this season.
Plenty of media, starting with ESPN and NBA.com who claimed they were 5-8 or borderline play-off team. Almost as good as the Rockets! Great was meant sarcastically since they are at the bottom and projected to be much higher. Care to elaborate?
They won 42 games last year, and added Harrison Barnes. Suggesting they would be a fringe playoff team wasn't that outlandish a thought, but nobody thought they would actually be good, I remember pretty much everybody projecting them around .500. Even at his advanced age, Dirk is their best player and he's missed the entire year. If he was heathy they wouldn't be quite as terrible, but they would still be bad. Carlisle is an excellent basketball coach. Right now they have guys who are role players as their leading scorers, no team is ever gonna be good in that scenario. You can only coach and hide things so much. Wesley Mathews is largely a support scorer who isn't great at creating his own shot, Deron Williams hasn't been any good in like 5.years. The fact that Barrea is averaging 16 PPG in the games he has played (easily the highest of his career) shows you how down the overall scoring punch is for that team. Harrison Barnes is OK, but he's probably the 3rd scorer on a good team. When he's easily your top scorer, your offense is in trouble.
Carlisle is a coach who typically gets the most out of his teams... his squads definitely don't underachieve. He's only finished sub-.500 once in nearly 15 years with 3 different franchises. His '11 Mavs made one of the most epic Finals runs in league history. The Rockets didn't even blow them out in '15 (when they should've)... that series ended 4-1, but only a 5-point/game difference overall. This season would be his worst in 15 years.
D'Antoni and Carlisle are right about the same level. Rick gets the edge due to Mike's failure in NY and LA. MDA seems to have nice defensive coaching support this time around. Hopefully the combination leads to big, big things.
There was definitely talk before the season started that the Mavs would finish at a better record than the Rockets. No one thought the Rockets would be this good. That being said, I think Carlisle is a good coach, but I think Cuban screwed that team over continuously after the championship year.
NBA basketball...it can be one of the most unpredictable and frustrating things. When Dantoni was announced as Rockets coach quite a few people were crying out that he was a horrible coach. If you go to LA or NY you will find people there that will say he was horrible. Go to Phoenix and you might hear a different story. Our judgment of coaching ability as a fan base is in many ways based on the success the coach has with our own team instead of what his resume may say. To the question of how good Carlisle is? He took a Mavs team to a title against a Lebron led Miami team and that in itself, he has my respect. People may argue that Miami only lost because it didn't fully develop into the juggernaut that it became, but my argument is that going into the season how many people were counting on the Mavs to even have a chance. He is also the current president of the NBA Coaches Association so he at least has enough respect of his peers to get elected.
This may be going off on a tangent, but I have always felt that too much emphasis is placed on the head coach as a individual instead of looking at it as a group unit. Assistant Coaches and secondary personnel of the coaching unit are a lot of the times overlooked. Another question is do we value more the in-game crunch time do or die decision making, or the coaching done outside game-time and hoping to gain an edge entering with it.
The Mavs' goal over the last 4-5 seasons has been to poach other teams' 3rd or 4th scoring options and feature them heavily. I mean let's not forget that they actually wanted to make DeAndre Jordan a focal point of their offense.
Yeah, gotta consider the suspension against the Spurs that one season. The West would've rolled anyone from the East easily.
The Mavs have an old roster, when an old roster gets injured you can expect an implosion...i mean, yesterday their starting five was: Mejri -> lul Finney-Smith -> lul Barnes -> ok role player who's trying to become something else (kinda reminds me Trevor when we brought him here to be our star) Matthews -> good role player coming back from achilles injury Deron Williams -> still ok overall but his body is done and plays like what? Half of the games? They really are in a tough spot also cause they never cared to develop young players, while we have Clint, Sam, Trez, KJ, maybe D.Mo ( ) which is basically half of the rotation as today, they have only Powell and Anderson, and i really can't remember other young players in these past years playing for them aside from Crowder which got traded with picks for a bad fit and a risky guy for the locker room like Rondo...so, in the end i think Carlisle is a great coach, and certainly the last problem they have.
Their team doesn't have enough scoring talent to win games. Matthews = hasn't really played as well as he did on the Trailblazers, his Achilles injury seems to have affected his game/confidence. Barnes = even though he's an upgrade from the often injured Chandler Parsons, he isn't the passer Parsons was. Plus its his first real season playing starter minutes + I feel like he's a jack of all trades versus a player who does one thing well. Bogut = He's still playing pretty well Deron = hasn't been effective since he's dramatic divorce from the Jazz (so glad the Jazz crashed and burned, hated them during our rivalry) lol @ Powell + Anderson. Their coach though is a pretty good one, he typically makes different players work in his system, someone mentioned Dirk was out. Even if he wasn't, he's a huge liability. Maybe with the addition of Bogut things might be different but they're in need of a big trade, free agent signing or high draft pick. Looks like they're going after a draft pick, regardless of if they want to go that route or not.
My opinion of Carlisle hasn't changed. He has a sorry roster. There isn't a single alpha player on that team.
Bogut's been in and out of the lineup. Dirk's been out pretty much the entire start of the season. But the biggest problem I think is Deron Williams. He may still be effective as a complementary cog to an otherwise solid core, but if he is your team's second or fourth best player, you're going nowhere no matter who's your coach.
