Messina is the only coach on the market that I believe will significantly improve our team. If I have any say in the matter, I would throw a large offer his way to get the best coach from Europe, with Spurs training, to change our culture. It would seem that the Spurs are currently grooming him to be the heir to the Popovich throne (3-4 more years on his contract), but he may be available if we give him the reigns now. Tom Thibodeau will revive the Jeff Van Gundy era for our Rockets. Excellent Defense and Horrid Offense. He will wear our players down to the ground, and play an 8 man rotation during the regular and postseason. This will work well for the first season, and we better win the entire thing in the first two seasons, or we will be headed for further breakdown of our players and players tuning him out because of non-stop in-your-face intensity (gets old). One of Messina's quotes (2 minutes in the third video): "What I know is that great organizations in every level, if they had to choose between the principles and the people, they chose the principles." <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VXBSxx_k5Fw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KcCuXT1q0Vw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mvEqZnP2_7w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
David Blatt is considered to be of similar resume and accumen. The benefit of getting Messina now is that he's been an assistant under D'Antoni and Pop w the Lakers and Spurs thus has gotten his feet wet already and should undergo an easisr transition than what the Cavs coach went through last year. I don't know how good of a tactician, player motivator, leader he is but just hearing him speak, you can tell that he 1) principled 2) no nonsense 3) can relate 4) intelligent and 5) likeable
Messina won in Europe a lot, in my opinion much better coach than Blatt. He was the one who coached Ginobili back in Italy. I agree, would love to have Messina with the rockets, coaching FIBA Basketball, knowing a zone, how to maximize it´s value among the new rules. That would be great.
Thanks for sharing the vids Fuzzybear! I honestly didn't know anything about Messina until now. He sounds like a very savvy/intelligent coach, and he also comes across as a down to earth type. I'm intrigued! ....... ....... .......
I'm looking for some defensive videos, This is the closest I could find, a defensive video of CSKA Moscow from 2007 (He was coach from 2005-2009) Also have some more boring (but informative) videos on his individual defense philosophy etc. Anyways, this is the one guy who clearly understands the game. Hire this guy, and I bet we will see a Mark Jackson -> Steve Kerr esque turnaround for our franchise. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F1S0OdGgFIk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cRFzg1gYAis" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9JQV4_qwY_g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Really? You don't think Tom Thibodeau with championship-level defense will significantly improve our team either?
He's a excellent coach. Won a lot in Europe and considered legend by many people in European basketball. Unfortunately, I don't think he will accept our offer. Spurs organization is best place to work for European coach and it seems likely that they prepare Messina for next head coach gig.
Why don't we get Brett Brown to change the culture? He was in the Spur system for almost 10 years and is doing great in Philly. Or better yet, how about Alvin Gentry? He changed the GSW culture in one year to an elite offense. He's currently doing the same in NO.
Rox are really trying too hard to act like Spurs lite but their oversea success are minimal One of the guys that was a success was Scola, an Ex Spur (never played but selected) Hope Messina can help out there but we are clearly not the Spurs, and he has to adapt
Anyone who was here for the JVG days, and subsequently saw the Chicago teams that Thibs ran basically knows what to expect. It will be glorious on defense for 2 years, but unless we have some serious improvements on offense, there won't be much of a net change from where we are now. Then we will watch as our players run into injury problems as they are run to the ground. I'm guessing this is sarcasm. Alvin Gentry got too much of the credit in GS, I personally have never been that impressed by him as a coach anytime before the GS run, but he can coach a decent offense. Brett Brown coached primarily in Australia, nothing against Aussies but I just don't know how well that translates. Yeah, I personally don't ever want to see another "coaching only makes a difference of +- 5 wins" statement ever again. As someone else said, 16 wins in the playoffs versus 11 wins in the playoffs (Okay so there's less playoff games, so lets just say 1 playoff game, well that's still the difference between clutch and choke city). It is incredibly hard to quantify the value of good coaching, because there is an extremely fuzzy line between what the player learns and develops on his own, versus what can be attributed to the coaching staff. What is blatantly obvious, is that when Terrence Jones still can't seem to put a body on anyone, Dwight/Terrence still set soft lazy screens, Ariza still isos and goes to the rim, no one moves off ball on offense, and Harden still holds the ball for 15 seconds, the coaching is terrible. Just bring back Tmac and put him on the bench as an honorary assistant, wait nvm he has no videos.
You must've just watched and read ESPN. If you watched those Bulls teams, they were better and more creative offensively than we were. And in regards to being run down, oh like we aren't a team full of injuries constantly? You do realize we ran our players to the ground too, right? And on top of that, the Bulls were much more professional on how they approached the game. Let me not even get into the defensive side of things. If you did not see it, you probably never watched a Bulls game.
