Portland was "exposed to his coaching" when they got to 63 wins AND the previous season when they got to 59 wins. Before that? Crap. Those are declines in win totals, but getting to 50 and 55 wins is not shabby by an stretch of the imagination. After he left? Crap.
By that measure he leaves your team in a very poor state when he leaves. I still don't see a positive argument there. It seems you get a good start from him and a steady decline until the team is so poor he leaves. Why would it be a good thing that he left and - crap? You can't see that when you leave a team that has degenerated into crap - this is a bad thing? New does not always mean better. The grass is not always greener on the other side. Lets use some logical thought process to determine if this is so rather than purely different = better.
They got to 63 wins after reaching 59 wins, both under Adelman. Your "exposed to his coaching" argument is fundamentally based on the talent level remaining consistent. It doesn't. The benefit of the event study I laid out is there is at least some modicum of consistency in a two year time period- not perfect or even close to it, but much better than over a longer time period -- which 5 years in NBA time certainly is. Again, corresponds to the talent level -- as in the health of Divac/Webber/Peja. See above. And considering he took them from 27 wins, leaving them at 44 wins (which would have been a franchise record when he took over) is not shabby. Uh, no. I think Van Gundy is a fantastic coach, and I don't think Adelman is much of an improvement from a coaching standpoint. I just think your attempt to belittle the quality of Adelman on arbitrary statistical grounds is phony. Again, by your metric -- small, steady, drawn out improvement is "better" than explosive improvement followed by pull back, and considerably so. Penalizing Adelman for not improving on a 63 win team is silly.
In all cases, he won more games in his last season than the season before he took over. And if that's what you're looking for, why don't you look at that metric for all coaches? Rudy won 55 games in his first full season, and 43 games in his last -- is that a function of him losing the ability to coach?
As you say the bottom fell out from all the teams he coached after he left. There's no doubt that JVG will leave a team on the rise to his successor, which is just the opposite. My argument is merely that we interviewed one guy, with seemingly little thought process behind it. Seems emotion governed the process.
We could have a poll, but I think the consensus would be this: I was concerned about your new stat, until I read NIKEStrad's post. Good job breaking it down NKEStrad.
How do you improve from a 60+ win season? This the dumbest application of statistics ever. Van Gundy has never even won 60+ games.
Why didn't you compare the change between the team's record before and after his took over? edit: never mind, NIKE already pointed that out.
Hey Rocket Scientist, I guess Phil Jackson let his team down after they won 73 games and fell to 69 to 62 games won. Loser Coach. You obviously have no respect for what it takes to win 50 plus games on a consistent basis. During those declines, the Bulls won titles each year.
why are you guys being so overly critical? his pointing out a legtimate trend that is interesting to observe. I would be interested to know during his declining trends what type of offseason action occurred. Who did they bring in, what happened in terms of injury. Im particularly interested in the type of personnel that went through his Kings team in what years too.
I honestly don't know how many coaches can leave their team in a better state. Coach Popavich is the only one I know that has the consistency to keep his teams at such a high level. Phil Jackson had MJ, then Kobe + Shaq, but his current laker squad is in a free fall. Coach Sloan had his rough years since the departure of Stockton/Malone, and have just recently enjoyed success. The problem is, the stats don't factor in the decline of the players, nor do they do favors for teams that are in rebuilding. To me, when I look at those stats, it shows me that he has an knack for getting the most out of his current crop of players, but is not a good candidate for teams that are rebuilding. We are currently in the win now mode, so I think his strengths play to our needs.
Rockets under JVG: 03-04 W45 L37 -> Lost first round 04-05 W51 L31 -> Lost first round 05-06 W34 L48 -> Not qualified 06-07 W52 L30 -> pretty impressive record but lost first round yet again !! At the end of the day, it's playoffs performance that counts ...
Is it an interesting trend or is it just a statistic without much meaning? Sacramento perhaps lost more games because they had players miss an extra game here or there. Or maybe they were getting older and couldn't play as many minutes. Or maybe Doug Christie's wife didn't let him play one night. Or maybe Webber made a few poor passes one season. Or Maybe Divac didn't get a charge call in a few extra games. Or maybe they had a playoff spot wrapped up earlier and rested guys sooner. Etc, etc, etc. Win totals are really a poor way to evaluate anything because different things can lead to variation in that number. It is similar to evaluating an MLB pitcher based on his win total. Way too many variables involved beyond the pitcher's talent to do so. Same logic applies here.
Excellent job NIKE....you saved me a lot of time sifting through the stats! Let's momentarily ignore your extreme desire to have kept VG, OK? And further, there is a very large volume of evidence to support Rudy T being healthy and happy in his current role as a Lakers' scout. Scouting seems to be health complimentary. And further, let's agree that Larry Brown is a comet in the night sky...impressive at first but likley to burn out... If the owner of the team (and a large section of the fan base) think a change in order....rightly or wrongly...given the precepts laid out...who on earth would be more appropriate than an experienced former NBA coach? One who missed a trip to the Finals on a Vlade rebound tip back to Horry. Yeah...we could talk about ex-Rockets all day...Mario, Scott Brooks, even Calvin...any one would be nice as an assistant. If you have committed to taking the risk...who would be better?
One thing I am curious is that can Adelman mold Novak into a Peja for us? I could be wrong, but I don't remember Peja being a good defender either...
sure, go 82-0......but wait, if adleman leaves after that, they would win less games cause they were exposed to his coaching, and he would be leaving the team in complete and utter turmoil, and they'd win less games, meaning he did not have any positive impact on that team
Huh? How is the bottom falling out after he leaves a reflection of his coaching? Did he ingrain bad habits or something? It may again be a reflection of the talent level continuing to drop off, but that's more a function of the GM than the coach. Huh? Part 2. Take a look at what happened to the Knicks after he left. Van Gundy's team declined after he left -- they haven't even made it back to 40 wins in 6 years. This isn't a reflection of a poor coaching job by Van Gundy (in fact, it's the opposite -- someone else couldn't do any better)...but your statement is completely baseless. That's fine. It's just completely different than anything you've attempted to prove with statistics. Arguing the process and the merits of Adelman are two completely different things.
