Putting the McHale Coaching Malcontents to Rest (Hopefully)

If there was a minimal amount of truth in what you are saying then Coaches Pop and Jackson were dam poor coaches and relied on the the raw talent and intelligence of their players . For sure I do not believe it to be the case! Yetti

 

I was thinking it would be pretty cool if like the little Einsteins, we had little McHale's running around everywhere.

 

I'm all for a more thoughtful and less reactionary appraisal of McHale as a coach, but I think the part of the conclusion of that study is highly suspect.

The idea that really good coaches do not make a difference seems very false to me. I know I have not dug into the stats , but how can someone say that Popovich or Jackson or even someone like Thibodeaux is not making a big difference on their team. Take Thibodeaux for instance -- his teams have been significantly better than the rest of the league at defense almost every year he has been a head or assistant coach. This has been so with vastly different rosters, who performed very differently once he was no longer coaching there.

I don't want to dismiss the study, but I am interesting what those subscribing to the study's conclusions say about someone like Thibodeaux.

 

Interesting, you're saying most coaches don't make a difference.....however, what's there to say that McHale's not a below average / horrible coach, and did in fact makes the team worse? The article pointed out, if I read it correctly, moving away from Isiah Thomas results in estimated wins of +13.2. So.... what if McHale is indeed incredibly, at Isiah Thomas' level?

 

Ha, I didn't even realize the study in the OP is only measuring impact on the performance of individual players, which makes this thread even more irrelevant.

 

it takes a 'team' to develop players - an entire orgnaization.

if phil jackson has sh!tty assistant coaches, he wouldn't make a difference either.

 

No, the effect of most coaching is minimal. And only on the performance of individual players.

It doesn't follow that McHale specifically has no effect, nor does it mean that his poor rotations have no effect on the teams' success.

 

Would you rather have Phil Jackson or Gregg Popovich coaching the Rockets?

 

It would be expected, but what is expected based personnel and talent is not always what occurs -- and this is often because of coaching.

Let's go back to Thibodeaux. Not many people expected the Bulls to have the record they have right now sans Rose. But there they are, in the playoff hunt, still one of the toughest beats in the league. People didn't expect the ancient Spurs to maintain this level of play this long...but they have. Even when all the big time personnel on that team is out of a game, they still play at an elite level. Pop has to get a lot of credit for that.

Jordan and Kobe did not play up to expectations people had on their careers until or unless Jackson was their coach.

Heck, look at my Longhorns. Rick Barnes had teams stacked with NBA caliber talent. People expected them to contend for a championship, but Barnes is an awful coach and crashed multiple seasons of high level talent into the side of a mountain.

 

I do agree with the general premise that fans overstate the importance of coaching as far as wins and losses go. The reality is that there are a lot of different factors that go into wins/losses. But at the same time, I also wouldn't dismiss the notion that there is a real difference between "good" and "bad" coaching. It may be difficult for an analyst to quantify that difference in a manner that's statistically significant because all the different factors that go into a team's record, but that doesn't mean swapping one coach in for another doesn't make a difference. Its just that most of the time, we're probably talking about the difference of a couple wins over an 82-game season.

 

OP: what is your basis in concluding that McHale is one of the "generic coaches" and not one of the "very worst-rated coaches"?

 

McHale has definitely overachieved with this young team. His run and gun strategy is perfect for a young team. Lets NOT lose sight of the big picture.

Imagine if Brown's Princeton, Sloan's PnR, Phil's Triangle is force feed into this team without a big who can't catch and/or pass? Rockets will be a lottery team.

Yes, there were games we should've won b/c of his 'questonable' rotations, but there were games we shouldve lost. If we blame the coach for losses after leading big, we also should give credit when we made big come backs.

There are things about McHale I don't like:
- Take accountability.
- Not a player coach (Adelman is a player coach).
- Getting along with players (Lowry and Budinger)
- Slow game time adjustments. (inexperienced)
- Terrible at Xs and Os. He let his assistants drawing up when he was coaching the Wolves. (I was shocked when he actually drew up a play during final timeout in Miami game.)

Overall he is still a good coach for this young Rockets.

Pov, Doc, Carlisle, are constantly criticized by the fans. The day fans don't criticize the coach is the day they lose their passion in their team.

 

If you really hate McHale, just ask yourself, "Would you rather have Mike Brown or D'Antoni instead?"

 

Terrible example! More than half 2012ers would want MDA for this team.

 

Kobe? maybe, Jordan played a lot of years with a lot of scrubs as a superstar before Jackson became coach.