Haha. You're preaching to the choir. That would have been by far the best use of the one slot on the roster for a naturalized player but instead GB opted for a 39 year old, 6'2 journeyman shooting guard called Nate Reinking, albeit one that played pretty well. GB didnt have a lot of better PG options unfortunately, although they could have gone with a guy called Rob Yanders who played PG at Missouri State. It's a shame for GB but at the end of the day it's been a fun ride. Finch has done a lot but it's time for him to focus on just one job.
If I could give you negative rep I would."What would clutchfans be without repetitious lies becoming fact?" is needlessly hostile, disingenuous, inflammatory, and frankly, not actually correct. The original point that was made, by me, is as follows: "I recall one of the issues that led Adelman and Morey to not see eye to eye on RA's new contract was Morey was insisting that RA groom a successor as a coach in waiting and RA felt that Turner and Porter were just that but Morey disagreed. I assumed that Finch was who Morey had in mind which is why Finch got called up from coaching the Vipers to being an assistant under McHale. I never read anywhere that McHale and Finch had a relationship before the Rockets so his promotion onto McHale's staff, I assume, was Morey's doing to have a home grown successor in case or for when McHale moves on." What exactly in the above is the "lie" that I somehow perverted into a fact?
Are you just needlessly insecure or just blatantly hostile? My response was to Seven, not you. And although it should be obvious from my post, the "lie" was simply that he didn't have any prior relationship with his assistants prior to last season. Although McHale was still in Las Vegas during the Lin signing and was in England during the Asik signing, right? That is the type of stuff I'm talking about that is repeated and becomes "fact" on the GARM.
I agree they are doing it wrong. The whole thing about the naturalized player is for you to add someone who is probably gonna be your top 2 or 3 player and far better than anyone you can find domestically. By the way, how does it work with Luol Deng? Seem you can have 1 guy who became naturalized after the age of 16. Wikipedia says Deng was naturalized as a citizen in 2006, so shouldn't he count as the naturalized player? It did say Luol competed for England at the Under 16 and Under 19 level. So, I guess he was "naturalized" for FIBA purposes before the age of 16 while having lived there under some asylum visa? Did he have a British passport back then?
Not to butt in or anything, but there was never any statements that came out about him bringing Finch in to be "groomed" under Adelman. It was all just assumed by the fans, and some media members that brought some attention to it. The main issue that Adelman himself alluded to was the fact that he would have to shake up his assistant coaching staff, and Finch was just someone they wanted to bring in as part of that staff. There was never any mention of Finch being a successor to Adelman, it was more about shaking up the assistant coaching staff more than anything. My guess is Adelman had more than a few staff members that were probably way too comfortable in their roles and relationship with the man in charge on their end and they might not have been pulling their own weight or adding anything of significant value to the team. Cant say I blame Morey for wanting to shake up the coaching staff a little bit if Adelman wouldn't do it himself. Far too often do head coaches get free reign to bring in their buddies to coast through the year holding clip boards and ordering take-out. Actually thats Keith Jones'(the trainer) job if Im not mistaken.
Yeah, exactly, that is the best way to use the naturalized player. Unfortunately the approach you articulated only really works when you have a league that attracts (and can pay for) top players so that they can spend enough time in that country to become naturalized. In the UK, the league is so poor that you usually only attract mid-major NCAA D1 players (at best). Would have loved a Bo McCaleb or JR Holden-type to run the show. Regarding Deng - its actually a great question. He only got his passport in 2006 but was considered a GB resident under asylum status before then. FIBA consider each player on a case-by-case basis and it was never a question that he would be considered "naturalized." I think for FIBA purposes it does make a difference that he played for the junior teams growing up and that he was under asylum status as a child (rather than trying to switch countries later) however I'll follow-up and find out for sure because I'm interested in the answer.
If this was true the Rockets would have PG: Tony Parker SG: Manu Ginobli SF: Andrei Kirilenko PF: Dirk Nowitzki C: P Gasol/M Gasol That would be one stacked team....
Great Britain finally getting a win over China. You could see good coaching from Finch. The team stayed disciplined in defense, moved the ball well on offense, and knew how to attack different defenses. He also shuffled his men actively and did not blow up when players committed glaring errors. Too bad they were too inexperienced to steal a win over the favorites.
Do you have any evidence of that? Interesting that you say there were "never any statements" about Finch taking over, but then allege that some of Adelman's staff "were probably way too comfortable in their roles and relationship with the man in charge on their end and they might not have been pulling their own weight or adding anything of significant value to the team" right after that comment. Don't you find at least a bit of a contradiction here? -
Hopefully Finch pushes the Rockets to take a long hard look at England man/Blazer Joel Freeland who could fill in a critical gap for the Rockets at the PF slot.
Sure there is some contradiction there. Ill own up to it when I write a lazy post that doesn't read clearly. Dont want anyone to think Im the second coming of a unnamed poster who has gone hiatus or anything. -My thinking is just that... my thinking. I saw Adelman carry along one of the largest coaching staff's in the NBA with the same familiar faces doing their bit year after year, and thought to myself that there is a clear distinction of Adelman's guys vs. the Rockets guys, and in the past with traditional NBA coaching staff's there have been plenty of assistant coaches that get the job, and keep the job by being... well buddies with the head coach, and the front office knows that its a package deal, and there's really nothing they can do about it. So I see this more of a breaking of the traditional way of doing things rather than a personal vendetta. Maybe thats the way that its supposed to be because thats the way its always been, but at the same time I really dont blame Morey for wanting to shake up the supporting cast if he feels like the balance is better for having people in the group that don't all do things the exact same way to try and add value to the equation. At this point, it really doesn't matter so why not try something new? You pretty much know all along what you were getting with Adelman, but you also know your ceiling at the same time. -As for "my thinking" on whether Finch was the successor vs. what was formally quoted from the coaching staff, it is safe to assume that Finch was the successor/apprentice just as I "assumed" what Morey's plan was in relation to the supporting cast. Truth is we wont know for sure until either someone from Adelman's huddle or the Rockets huddle opens up about what actually the case was. When Adelman previously opened up about it, he mostly alluded to the lack of communication with ownership, but also said that there was never any ill will towards Morey. The only thing I can remember about the conversation was something about how they wanted to make fundamental changes to the assitant coaching staff that he could not agree to. To me there could be alot of different interpretations to those changes aforementioned. What we do know is that either way, the relationship had run its course. It was good while it lasted, but its time to move on. Im not necessarily the biggest McHale fan in the world, but I like organization and structure of the assistant coaches that was put together way more than I like the organization of Adelman's assisstants. It definitely has more volitility in the balance of power, but I think it also has the ability to make the coaching staff much stronger by having a group of coaches that have the ability to balance each other out at the end of the day, and each can add something unique to the organization rather than just being role players. However, this is just how I see it. Feel free to pick this apart for contradictions if you want to. Its during the lull of August anyways.
That would be nice. Sadly he just signed a 3 yr deal with the Blazers. http://m.espn.go.com/nba/story?storyId=8164865
Yeah, it was a nice win although much of the shuffling of players was due to foul trouble, injuries and I dare say fatigue from GB's top players. Overall a very professional Games from Finch who had his team ready to play at a level far higher than their lowly FIBA rank every night except for the inexplicably poor meltdown against Australia where they blew a chance at the QFs. He's basically announced he's quitting now to focus on the NBA so we look forward to seeing the next chapter in his career.
Isn't a GB passport still valuable for an American playing in Europe but not in Britain? My understanding is that some of the higher level leagues have quotas for non-European passport players, so a GB passport will help. For example, Bo McCalebb's Macedonian passport helped even though he didn't play for a Macedonian pro team.
