More minutes ruins players. Why is it that people still argue about this? Look at every team ever coached by Dantoni and Thibodeaux. They run extremely short rotations and their teams always run out of steam in the playoffs. It is like I am living in bizzaro world.
As a Hawks season ticket holder, I think they made a mistake hiring Quinn so quickly. They should have waited for Udoka, who I think is just the guy they need. Quinn is a good coach (I would actually take him for the Rockets over Nurse) but I think that in Atlanta's case, Udoka would have been a better fit. Wolves definitely need a new coach. That team has talent but its inconsistent play is a sign of bad coaching. In this day and age, literally the coaches main job is to develop a culture and to get buy in from players. Finch has done neither. I personally think he is probably gone after this season. Cavs - nah they good. Nuggets - I could see them making a move, although I personally think Malone is a good coach. Its the Nuggets so who knows. Clippers - Lue is not the problem, its Frank/Ballmer. They gave two injury prone players $350 million over 4 years. Stupid. Sixers - highly unlikely they fire Doc. Owner is trying to buy the Commanders and there is no one else out there of Doc's stature, unless they hired Udoka. If the Sixers make the ECF, he probably gets an extension. If they make the second round and get to 7 games, he stays. If they make the finals, its likely they win so he will retire with the Sixers, get a front office job and a statue at WFA a la Billy Cunningham. Nets - Vaughn is fine and I think he is doing as well as can be expected. Definitely an upgrade over Nash. I think their issue is management.
Why do they go for 2nd round of interviews for coaches? What else is the next process that they couldn’t figure out in the first meeting?
I just don't think FVV has improved more than the average since his second season. We may disagree, but to me a normal progression with average development would dictate that you can increase your shots each season and maintain your %'s. With bad development you would see those %'s decline. With great development you would see those %'s climb. So if what we're discussing is whether Nurse did an excellent job with FVV, my opinion is that he did an average job. Having said that @apollo33 sold me with his bigger picture argument. Siakam, FVV and OG were late to undrafted prospects and can easily be the 2nd, 3rd and 4th best player on a contender. Barnes has been pretty good for 1.5 seasons. When I look at it in the big picture, I can see the case for Nurse's development being better than average. He's not the best development guy we're interviewing but he's one of the best and that's plenty. We have given our guys enough heavy minutes and games and we are not in FULL development mode anymore.
Sometimes in a 2nd round of interviews for many jobs, you will ask questions that reveal internal things that you may not want ALL candidates to know about. I imagine in the NBA it's things about particular players and also discussing how the actual workflow would be structured (i.e. how would you feel if I was at every practice and gave feedback as the GM?). That kind of stuff you don't mention in a 1st interview for a multitude of reasons. Also: money. You talk about money last.
The concern with Nurse is he’s had an underwhelming season. He bounced back the year prior getting his team the 5th seed after a 27-45 in 20-21. But in each of the last 3 years Raptors ppg has declined going from 19th place to 20th to 24th in ppg. Is this coaching or roster construction? There are reports saying Ujiri was not happy with the lack of development of the younger players on the team. Nurse did lean on his starters and they logged the most minutes in the NBA with Siakm playing over 37 min a game. Van Fleet played over 36 minutes. Meanwhile Jalen and KPJ played 34 min a game last year under Silas. The Raptors are oddly constructed and I’m not sure if Nurse helped built that roster. The team features a lot of long 6’8 6’9 guys that can’t shoot (Achuwa, Boucher, Scottie Barnes) and limited offensive ability (no post game etc). They didn’t play a true center until they got Poeltl. And they didn’t have a backup pg. This is a far cry from the 18-19 championship team and the 19-20 team when they had Gasol and Serge to anchor their defense and a hard nosed Lowry and a lights out shooter in Powell plus Danny Green and Kawhi in that championship year. It’s interesting if the Rockets are high on Nurse because the roster construction and record hasn’t been working there for quite a while.
Nurse expelling Watson without the GMs consent is a red flag. Specially if you know Watson because he's very humble and a player's coach. No wonder Nurse lost the locker room.
Nurse has a year left on his contract, so he can sit on a beach in Mexico this year and make $7m - he will take his time and have his pick of jobs as they become available. DD
Based on things Nurse said, I'm guessing he didn't really have a lot of say on roster construction. He didn't even get to hire all of his own staff, so I doubt he'd be able to push for his own players or whatever. Seems like Masai (Bobby Webster) handled those things. I'm guessing Nurse had some input on things, but not sure how much the front office listened to that input. I posted this in the other thread, but there's a video where Nurse points out that one coach was rated as being a problem by his staff (the assistants all rate each other, so he can see who is a problem). This was during Summer 2022, and I assume that is Watson. Honestly it sounds like Nurse handled it fine if that's all true, and this was another thing Masai screwed up IMO. As mentioned above, Nurse did not get to pick all of his assistants. Maybe Watson was one of those he didn't get to pick, which further complicated this all (i.e., Watson did not feel he had to listen to/respect Nurse?).
I will say that after listening to Nurse a bit, he *really* likes coaching. I don't think he'd want to go very long without coaching. Maybe he just coaches some kids at a local YMCA, but he'll need to scratch that itch somehow before too long.
This isn’t true. Barnes ran full court breaks coast to coast in college. He had handles and passing ability 4.1 assists/game and was a highly touted 2 way player. He just couldn’t shoot.
People put so much on development. Players are people. If someone doesn’t want to work enough on a deficiency or issue then they won’t improve just like a diet or marriage or a college student not studying. But also there are things like physical limitations or psychological aspects to the game (making shots in practice but not game situations). Or simply some guys just aren’t good shooters. There’s many reasons for a player not “developing” or plateauing and we don’t know why guys like Barnes or Tate can’t shoot. But this idea of putting a premium on development and blaming coaches is over dramatic, overrated, and unrealistic.
