Basketball coaching is offense, defense and the ability to motivate players long term. Udoka is obviously an elite defensive coach and looks like he'll be in the convo for greatest defensive coach of all time. In this thread I'm not talking about an overall assessment and I'm not discussing his defensive chops. I'm interested in what the board thinks of his offensive capabilities since I've run into a few posters who insist that these are the only good shots we can possibly get and anyone asking for more must have a secret agenda!! They must think that even if we brought an elite offensive coach in here, this exact same offense would unfold. Mind you, I'm starting this thread after uncharacteristic 140 and 130 point outings so that you don't say I'm asking during a bad streak. So, where do you rank Udoka offensively in the league? How are his ATO plays? Who are you ranking as a lesser/better offensive coach than him? Which coach would be doing less than surrounding Sengun with shooters? List of NBA Head Coaches: Spoiler JOE MAZZULLA Boston Celtics JORDI FERNANDEZ Brooklyn Nets TOM THIBODEAU New York Knicks NICK NURSE Philadelphia 76ers DARKO RAJAKOVIĆ Toronto Raptors BILLY DONOVAN Chicago Bulls KENNY ATKINSON Cleveland Cavaliers J.B. BICKERSTAFF Detroit Pistons RICK CARLISLE Indiana Pacers DOC RIVERS Milwaukee Bucks QUIN SNYDER Atlanta Hawks CHARLES LEE Charlotte Hornets ERIK SPOELSTRA Miami Heat JAMAHL MOSLEY Orlando Magic BRIAN KEEFE Washington Wizards MICHAEL MALONE Denver Nuggets CHRIS FINCH Minnesota Timberwolves MARK DAIGNEAULT Oklahoma City Thunder CHAUNCEY BILLUPS Portland Trail Blazers WILL HARDY Utah Jazz STEVE KERR Golden State Warriors TYRONN LUE Los Angeles Clippers JJ REDICK Los Angeles Lakers MIKE BUDENHOLZER Phoenix Suns MIKE BROWN Sacramento Kings JASON KIDD Dallas Mavericks IME UDOKA Houston Rockets TAYLOR JENKINS Memphis Grizzlies WILLIE GREEN New Orleans Pelicans GREGG POPOVICH San Antonio Spurs
You can stack the offensive list however you want, just stick Ime somewhere in the middle of that list and I'll be okay with it. Look at his Celtics' offense and the Rockets' offense under him, and they are practically identical in terms of efficiency. Which isn't a huge jump from the Rockets' previous regime, but combine that with our defense improvements...
It’s hard to tell, but his attitude made me put him lower than he is 21-25 as opposed to around 15 I’d say. We run some more sets now than at the start and we’re also very young, so cannot judge our system fully yet as guys are struggling to execute even simple plays with our lack of good passers. That being said, Ime tells us he’s happy with the shots we’re generating so I don’t know what their idea of an offense is, what our end goal is etc. Are we going to run this system even after a trade for a Giannis let’s say? Are we just going to look for better shooters to knock down those open shots? I do appreciate his vision in terms of limiting turnovers through limited passing, not going full on run-and-gun and crashing the boards.
This is not as easy as ranking teams. But he is somewhere in the middle. He is just too stubborn at times for his own good. Lol typcially butterfingers....he isn't the worst as I obviously fumbled it away.
Speaking about offense alone, his Celtics offense was worse than his successor (his own assistant) and same as his fired predecessor with practically the same calibre roster. That is to say, he clearly underutilized his offensive players. Which is ok for a rookie coach. It took him half a season but even the offense improved mid way because he eventually realized that the most suffocating defense you can play can also suffocate your own offense. You can put 3 rim protectors out there, never drive the ball and have the best defense in the NBA with the lowest turnovers, but you will never get to the rim on the opposite end, leaving you desperate for easier 2's, sending you tumbling down in offensive rating. This is why JB Bickerstaff, JVG, Billy Donovan - these guys make a career out of being the best defense but blaming other things for their offense not working. They can't see that in their pursuit of low TO's and transition defense, they are robbing their team of 8-10 easy points. In the first half of his Celtics season, he called it "mind boggling" that his SG was struggling against a packed paint. Jaylen Brown - we now know - is good enough to be a Finals MVP but was shooting 54% on TS% in his 6th NBA season. Turns out, he's not defined by whether he's a good zone-buster or not. He can make 3's as a counter move, but he is a power player and you have to make room for him in the paint. Same thing happened last season, before Sengun went down you suddenly heard him start to talk about increasing the pace and taking more 3's. Worked immediately. Then Sengun went down and made his life a lot easier because he could play an elite athlete (Amen) or a shooter (Jabari) at the 5. Prior to that change, his offense was roughly as efficient as our tanking offense under Silas. Bottom 5. This is the best offensive season he's had in his career. We should be around mid table and we are 11th.
The top Offenses this year ..... Kenny Atkinson Joe Mazzulla Steve Kerr Decent outings JJ Redick Mike Brown Mike Malone Jason Kidd Started out slower but we know from the past they are innovative coaches Gregg Popovich (prayers) Mark Daigneault Mike Budenholzer Chris Finch Surprised to see that Thibodeaux and Tyler Jenkins have a Top 6 Offense....... Honorable mentions: Carlisle, Quin Snyder, *Ime Udoka despite having no creativity
Really odd sets. He is once again relying on a 2 man FVV Sengun game either off high screen and roll or Sengun in the high post DHO with a dribble drive option. He’s reverted back to exactly what they did a year ago. Jalen was scoring more in the first few games because of opportunity. He ran double drags, staggered screens, and farther screens from 30 ft for Green allowing him to score. But last several games almost every set Green is in the corner coming to the top of the key for a DHO from Sengun which goes nowhere because its not a tight handoff and the Center simply switches and blocks off the driving lane. Not sure why Udoka always runs this when it’s not effective at all. He needs to run tight DHO’s at the elbows. But this is part of the reason why Green isn’t scoring as much-again. Really frustrating to watch.
Here is what was being said about Ime's offense during the playoffs from a players perspective. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/3269792/2022/04/25/celtics-nets-ime-udoka-offense/ Ime will progressively diversify the offense as this season moves along. Very similar actions that the elite Spurs teams ran. Fans don't understand Ime and what he is trying to build. He gets mocked for asking for more effort when fans just want to see their favorite players cook. He couldn't fix everything at once. Similar to Boston he comes to a team that is immature, me first, unprofessional and low effort. His approach has been consistent. F your offense if you won't give him what is required to be a winning player. F your offense if what you are doing in other parts of the game don't translate into championship level basketball. He treats everyone the same When he sees that his players have bought into being complete basketball players, you will see more diverse offensive sets. You're starting to see it now. Is Ime MDA or Adelman? Hell no. But he's 10 times the coach. Rank his offense where you may. On a side note I will put $500 up against anyone that he finishes this season in the top 5 for coach of the year. Only fans are preferred. Instead of talking sh*t about him after every game put your money where your mouth is. If he is a clueless as many here believe him to be offensively, this should be easy money for you.
I don’t know how to rank him relative to other coaches, but I think it’s remarkable that a team that shoots this poorly is 12th in the league in points per game.
This article is hogwash my G. Go catch another team playing, no one is playing harder for their coach than this team. Everyone who doesn't play defense has been banished. As with the Celtics, he is just obsessive about these things and takes too long to figure it out. The Jalen Green of coaches. His offense will get good after the ASB.
We just see his approach differently. If we don't play this hard we get crushed. The collective defensive effort and the insane amount of offensive rebounding that we get from Tari and Amen are what is keeping this team afloat offensively. So yes that has to the primary focus(playing your ass off) until we can knock down open shots and our players learn how share the ball and score efficiently mainly from behind the arc. The offense is creating wide open looks for our perimeter players now. Any uptick in 3 point shooting, primarily from Jalen and Jabari and this offense starts humming. Reed's shooting is coming. Of course Ime is obsessed with defense and effort. He's built that way. It's contributes to winning basketball as we have witnessed over the last season or so. All I'm saying is that this fuss over his offense is being overblown. I don't think it's that complicated. Make open shots. The team is doing everything else it needs to to contend. It always comes back to is the offense that is creating wide open looks, or the guys shooting the wide open shots. I read your posts so I know where you stand. And I want Jalen to get downhill more too. I just see these games through a different lens. I think your more focused on Jalen. I more focused on the team. This only fans stuff is dangerous.
(Btw I edited my previous post to say it's the article that is hogwash, not your opinion. Did not mean to dump on your opinion) I don't think you're being fair here. He's never had a full good offensive season. Ever. That's the point of this thread. Let's see where we are. Are we over-judging or is there a chance he's a bottom 10 offensive coach and we are onto something? Is it crazy to think Joe Mazzulla would have this offense running better? Mike Brown? Steve Kerr? Come on be reasonable, you know there are 15 better offensive coaches and they're better because they would do something different. Look at the Cavs dude everyone was acting like their offense was at its ceiling. Kenny Atkinson shows up and has them #1. They're still giving effort and playing defense. They still have some guys struggling with efficiency. This is regular NBA stuff. It's reasonable. Defense and effort is expected, it is absolutely not sustainable to keep yelling it out as we've seen with Doc Rovers and JVG and Thibs and so on. The players are KILLING it on effort and defense. You tell me, who is playing better or harder defense? Literally statistically almost no one. It's a distraction from his full job. His tactical job is offense and defense. He can be specialized in one but he can't be horrible at the other. You say it's generating open shots, but it ain't generating ****. That shot is available to the worst coach running the 30th offense in the NBA. The defense is allowing that as a rule. He just can't get it in his mind he simply DOES NOT HAVE an average shooting team. Instead of doing what excellent offensive coaches do - try to carve out 8-10 different shots so as not to be dependent on doing what you're worst at to win games. It's obvious RIGHT NOW dude: on average we will not shoot well. How come Memphis and Milwaukee know what to do with guys who can't shoot? Are they summoning wizards or doing magic? MDA said it best when he was here. We don't change our offensive identity based on the opponent defense. YOU create the mismatch. YOU change the strategy. YOU force the tempo you want for your offense. You take what the defense gives you AFTER you've done everything you can. It's lazy and Ime is not lazy. Our shooting won't change except for stretches. On average we WILL BE BAD at shooting. We will keep missing shots that average shooters make at a higher rate than average shooters. You know how I know he knows this? Because he ALWAYS ends up changing his offense mid season. Like last season, when you started hearing him talk about pace and space mid season when the team was EXHAUSTED and floundering and he kept preaching more offensive rebounds and MORE effort and the team's soul collectively said: F*CK YOU, I've been working my ass off and I expect the same of you. There is no coaching necessary to get Jalen Green an open 3. He did some homework and got his **** together. Same with Celtics. It's clear dude. I love him he's easily one of my favorite coaches but like a brother I'm telling him: you're not doing great at offense and there's no one on your staff who seems to have that skillset, change something or hire someone so we can reach our optimal potential. Don't sit here and be fooled by an easy schedule early in the season and run into the same droughts we did in the middle of last season. Be proactive.
#1 in offensive rebounds and #6 in turnovers. The former due to mostly the team being one of the most athletic in the league, and the latter due to FVV and to lesser extent, Jalen Green. The Rockets do a lot of little things well on offense. They just can't shoot. So not sure if this is favors Udoka or not, since you can argue both sides. Whether he's a good coach because he's making the best of the players weaknesses, or that he's terrible at getting players good shots, but is bailed out by how athletic this team is and how stable FVV is.
I'd prefer to rank him holistically with offense, defense and record based on his roster. He's been excellent and as of today offensively we"re 14th, defensively 3rd elite there and the 4th seed in the dominant West. That's excellent considering, aside from vets our core is around 22 years old.
Objectively Udoka would tell you to only assess him after the Playoffs as he is big on the Playoff picture.
For me personally, if the Rockets make the regular playoffs, I'd already count it as a successful season and fully onboard with Udoka. I wouldn't be surprised that in a playoff setting, the Rockets' shooting woes get magnified if their opponent decide to just dare Jalen/Jabari/Brooks to beat them with jumpshots.
Chicken or the egg Is Udoka's offense this year bad because of Jalen Or is Jalen's offense this year bad because of Udoka
You see this the way I do. This team is never gonna be a great halfcourt offensive team with that personnel...with so many guys who can't shoot. They have to force turnovers and they have to get second chance buckets in order to create offense...and they're clearly well coached to do that. Watching these games where guys miss open shot after open shot after open shot is frustrating as hell...and if we didn't put such a focus on offensive boards and defense we'd be in big trouble. Our offense generates open shots. Lots of them. Our roster doesn't hit them frequently enough. Despite all that, with limited offensive players this team scores 1 point less a game than a team that has Luka/Kyrie/Klay and .3 more per game than a stacked Thunder team...like you, I think the offensive issue is entirely overblown and largely a product of people being disappointed that the system isn't designed for their favorite player.
