Bad question. Rick Adelman has the far superior system. He makes role players look really good at times.
I think basically it's the players that dictate what the coaches do rather than the coaches dictating what the players do. When faced with problems both of them will react different ways (in 2006, the Rockets still played halfcourt, in 2010, they played up tempo). Though I'm not sure how much of that is a function of them doing it because they basically had no choice. Could the 2006 rockets have sped it up with Rafer, Head et al as the primary scorers? Maybe. Maybe not. Not sure if it really matters. I mean, let's say Yao plays 1500+ minutes last year - then the Rockets relatively high pace takes a severe dip. Willing to bet that their efficiency on offense doesn't vary much though (which brings up another conundrum, Yao is a supremely efficient player on offense, yet all of his teams have been supremely average on offense with him on the floor....hmmm..). I think the ultimate thing though, if you look at offensive efficiency is just having good offensive players. I mean look at the top team last year (PHX) - which happens to have one of the finest PG's of his generation and probably the best interior scorer in the league, throughout the top 10 you'll also see Cleveland, Orlando, and the usual suspects. The only real outlier in the top 10 is Toronto, which I'm guessing is due to having some pretty decent offense-only types like Bargnani, Turkoglu, Calderon getting minutes along with Bosh. But then I don't really see anybody pumping Jay Triano as an offensive mastermind. And yeah, I just had to look that up to see who he was, so that's something.
Dude, First, I did pick two similar seasons - both injury wracked lottery ones. Second- If you want to pick two even more similar seasons, take 07 and compare it to 08, see what they did with the same players (except for the fact that Adelman had the luxury of having Scola & Landry: Surprise, surprise: same result. Third - I did this exhaustively in the thread about this last month and I'm not going to do it again, posted a bunch of year to year comps etc - look it up if you are interested. I'm not going to dig up all the info again since I don't feel like it.
I think JVG had inferior talent compared to what Adelman had and has, so it's a bit unfair. As far as coaching, I think they are both very good coaches, and their record is similar though Adelman had overall greater success due to his longer career, but neither won a Championship. If JVG was a little bit more creative with his offense, he'd be the better coach IMO. JVG was more of a hands on coach, and knew how to handle Stars(T-Mac). These are important skills in coaching. Adelman is really only about the "System", and he's hands off as far as managing players. So...here are my ratings: JVG: Defense: 10/10 Offense: 5/10 Player Mgmt: 6/10 Overall: 7/10 Adelman: Defense: 6/10 Offense: 10/10 Player Mgmt: 4/10 Overall: Slightly under 7/10
One ranked 29th, the other ranked 17th. One had both McGrady and Yao played a little more than half a season. The other had McGrady for a total of 45 minutes and Yao never see the floor. What does it prove? BTW, it's funny that you keep trying to sneak Martin in there when he only played 24 games, and completely ignoring Yao's 57 and TMac's 47. meh already answered Carl Herrera's similar claim. It is kind of like comparing a kid's intelligence when he just finished 5th grade and when he just started 6th grade and conclude that there isn't much difference what they learn in elementary and junior high. Players form habits playing under one coach and need time to adjust to another coach's system. Look, I don't hate JVG. (And I don't care what's between you and DD.) I even believe that JVG's defense-defense-defense philosophy actually won us a lot of games. But if you are trying to say that Adelman is not a better offensive coach than JVG, than I can't agree with you. I didn't think your arguments were convincing in the other thread. Still don't. At the end of the day, there might never be decisive arguments either way because most of the time we can only compare apples to oranges. Adelman never has had a worse than average offensive team in his coaching career. JVG never has had a better than average offensive team. If you want to believe that it's all luck, that one coach always had good offensive players handed to him, and the other always got scrubs, then suit yourself.
That's actually the question I'm asking you. I'm saying what does it prove? That both coaches can finish in the lottery out of the playoffs with mediocre teams. Who cares about finishing 42-40? Not me. Not at all. It's also funny that you like to pretend Martin and Landry don't count, since neither played a whole season, even though they combined for about 80 games and are the most productive offensive players on the roster. But no, let's just pretend it was Chuck Hayes out there instead. And also BTW - I was there for one of Tracy's 47 games that season. A home matchup with Utah in December. He pretty much singlehandedly kept the Rockets in the game until half time. Then he mysteriously disappeared due to some nebulous family issue or a back injury, it was never clarified, and didn't come out of the locker room at half time. With no Yao, the offense then devolved into a pathetic farce of Juwan Howard (a TERRIBLE influence on your offense, despite what you may deludedly believe to the contrary) trying to shoulder the load. They went down 20 and never got close. There were a number of games like that that season. But hey, at least he had T-Mac for it right? What I'm trying to say is very very very clear - I've said it many times and I"ll say it again - for all Adelman's supposed superiority on offense, he seems to get the same outcome as JVG out of the same players, and only marginally a better outcome out of better players. If you want to believe this statement is true, when it's actually not, then suit yourself. Do you not know that there are 30 NBA teams these days? His crowing achievement of last year's team was 16th. His highest achievement with the Rockets was 14th in 2008. He's thrown up a number of other bottom half seasons with the Rockets and other teams as well. Either you are reading it wrong or you are simply fabricating at this point. .
Even worse was JVG's weird love fest with "hustle" players that ensured Boki played tons of minutes, while a Rudy Gay gets traded for Battier. Same coach that relegates Vspan has no problem signing an aging PG. Adelman would NEVER make those mistakes.
34-year old Brad Miller signs 3-year, $15 million deal with Rockets 36-year old Brent Barry signs 2-year deal with Rockets
JVG's offense was unimagitive and only consisted of Rafer or Tmac running a high pick and roll. This allowed the other 3 defenders to rest on defense and concentrate on doubling Tmac (No need to double Rafer, they gladly let him shoot the floater that never went in - BTW is Rafer out of the leauge now?) Rick's system requires all 5 defenders to play D every time down the court forcing them to use energy instead of saving it for the offensive end. That's why Rick's teams have consistently given the Laker's fits and was a luck bounce (Robert Horry 3) from dethroning the Lakers with Shaq and Kobe.
I just so happens to be reading Dean Oliver's "Basketball On Paper," which had a discussion about whether having a great offense is more of a matter of "system" or "players." Oliver's conclusion, based on data from 1974 to 2002, was that it was predominantly a matter of having good offensive players and has little to do with offensive system. Oliver gave several examples including the following: For all the talks people had about the triangle offense, (a) the Chicago Bulls' offense dropped from extremely efficient in 92/93 to barely average in 93/94 due to Jordan's retirement, (b) the Lakers offense actually dropped by about 2 points per possession the year Phil Jackson got hired (for the first time). More recently, the "Mike D'Antoni System" was transplated from PHX to NY, and results in the Knicks being ranked 17th overall offensively (they were ranked 17th and 23rd under Isiah Thomas). Again, PHX's efficiency had a lot more to do with Nash than D'Antoni. In the end, replacing one coach with another (with a different "system") seems a rather poor way of trying to boost offensive efficiency.
People are making Adelman out to be this offensive wizard. Tell me, what championships did Adelman win? None. What championships did JVG win? None. They are both very good coaches but each has their particular strengths and weaknesses. Do not make this out to be a slam dunk contest between the two. Both are VERY good and VERY close to each other as far as their coaching ability. To me, JVG > Adelman and no one can argue against this because neither has won a championship.
Is that his conclusion? Because that runs counter to how Morey operates. Morey was willing to have Les pay both JVG and Adelman the high going rate as established veteran coaches. If coaches make as little difference as some here believe, then it's stupid to pay a coach $5+ mil a year when you can just hire some young assistant for a fraction of that. Personally, I trust Morey's actions much more than Dean Oliver's words on paper in this regards.
There is obviously a difference between, say, Joe Blow off the street and Phil Jackson, or even, say, Reggie Theus and Rick Adelman. But as far as getting an offense to elite status (or even to, say, top 10 in the league) goes, replacing one competent NBA coach with another isn't going to make that much of a difference without replacing players). This is not to say that coaches don't matter, they matter probably more to thing like team chemisty/ego management, defense, situational game management than to improving offensive efficiency. By the way, Adelman makes $3 mil a year, JVG made about $4 mil a year. None of that money counts against the cap. A "cheap" coach is probably gonna cost a team about $1 mil a year. Think about it, what can you do to improve the team with the $2 mil or $3 mil a year you would save if you go cheap on the coach? Sign an extra Brent Barry or Derek Anderson (assuming you have the cap exception/cap room to do so)? Buy an extra 2nd round pick (assuming someone is selling)? So, frankly, the decision of whether to spend the $3 mil or $4 mil on a proven coach doesn't require that coach to make a huge fundamental difference, it just requires that coach to make the difference typically made by some random role player that would cost the equivalent amount of money, which isn't a whole lot if you think about it.
You're listing a lot of stuff that really doesn't matter given your previous post. In the end, all these things about ego/situational management is irrelevant unless they change the results. How a coach arrive at a record is basically irrelevant compared to the result he arrives at. Odd that you would suggest a baseline for hiring a coach, but not for minimum wage players(i.e. even young guys like CBud and Taylor makes almost a mil). Not that it really matters too much, since I don't know enough to say whether $3-4 mil is really all that more important than $2-3 mil. But I do find it odd. It seems we agree. I never said that coaches make earth-shattering changes to a team. But the role of one role player, even bench players, are important. Just look at the Rockets record without Lowry last year. If a coaching upgrade can give you an extra 2-3 wins a year, that is a HUGE difference and something that you can't just write off.
It proves that JVG was able to avoid dead last on offense with McGrady and Yao playing more than half a season each. It's really a mystery to me why you want to compare a season when we were at the bottom with a season when we were in the middle. What does that prove? Don't change the subject. You claimed that Adelman was not a better offensive coach than JVG. Now perhaps the evidence doesn't fit, so you change it to winning. I care about winning. But that's not what we are talking about. Stick to the subject please. If your position was, JVG and Adelman are about the same overall as coaches, then I would have no problem with that. A lot of people on here have that opinion. Even though I still don't agree, I think it's debatable and I respect that view. I am not one of those who think Adelman is hands down better than JVG. But no, you said Adelman had not shown that he was a better offensive coach. That's something else. Did I really pretend? I wrote, "We only had three above average offensive players last season in Brooks, Scola, and Landry, and two of them played the same position." Did I not mention Landry as one of the three guys? But you put in Brooks-Landry-Scola-Martin-Lowry as if Adelman was able to use Scola, Landry and Martin at the same time. Well, Landry and Martin were never in the same lineup. Guess what, they were traded for each other. Well, since TMac quit in a few games, he's actually a worse offensive player than Landry and Martin. Is that what you are saying? Or are you saying that McGrady-Yao's combined 104 games were not as important as Landry-Martin's combined 80 on offense? If you insist that #16 is not "average" then I have nothing to say about that. I think 99% of people here know what "average" means. Let me define it for you here: bottom 10 is worse than average, top 10 is above average. JVG never achieved top 10 but has been in the bottom 10. Adelman never fell to bottom 10 but have been in the top 10 a lot of times. That's a fact, not fabrication. Again, if you believe that's pure luck, then no argument can counter that. You win.
You are right. And my point is that those things a coach does may have an impact, but will not take what was an average offensive team under another coach who is not totally terrible and turn it into, say, a top 5 or 6 offensive team. That kind of improvement requires significant talent injection. Defensively, I think a coach could have more of an impact for a number of reasons, though defensive talent is still needed.
Nothing, other than that it's probably players rather than systems that matter. Again the "Adelman is a genius and it's not even close!" crowd is the one that keeps citing to 2010 as a crowning offensive achievement - because they confuse pace with efficiency. I haven't changed anything. The evidence in a ceteris paribas state shows that he was unable to make a difference. Definitively. You can claim somebody is more creative, more pleasant to watch, whatever, but at the end of the day, if you take the same players, and produce the same result as Adelman has, then how the hell do you quantify his Rockets offenses as better? Please explain to me. With respect to their tenure as Rockets? Again, he definitively has shown, ceteris paribas, that he wasn't able to do this. You're parsing too literally - again go back to my previous statement that it's laughable to compare teams that were as limited on offense as the 2003-2007 Rockets to a far more capable supporting cast on the 2007-10 teams. No - I'm saying the opposite Yao and Tracy missing 60 games on a team when the next best option was Juwan Howard is far more damaging than Landry/Martin missing 80 . If you insist that #16 is not "average" then I have nothing to say about that. I think 99% of people here know what "average" means. [/quote] What? Ok now the definition is terciles? OK so why don't you do a ranking of terciles between the two and get back to me. I know that with the Rockets there's not a lot of variation there at all.
First, Morey wasn't even here when JVG was hired, nor was he GM for more than a few days during the time when Adelman was hired. Second, without a salary cap, most of his moneyball metrics aren't relevant to coaching at all. Third, IIRC, evidence indicates Les personally handles the head coaching negotiations & decisions, not Morey. That's just the beginning. I've got a 4th, 5th and 6th but enough for now.
Offensive efficiency Adelman Portland 89/90 110.5 #9 90/91 112.8 #2 91/92 111.4 #7 92/93 108.3 #14 93/94 108.1 #10 Golden State 95/96 108.4 #14 96/97 107.2 #11 Sacramento 98/99 102.7 #13 99/00 105.0 #11 00/01 105.6 #9 01/02 109.0 #3 02/03 105.9 #6 03/04 110.3 #2 04/05 110.5 #3 05/06 106.7 #11 Houston 07/08 106.8 #17 08/09 108.4 #14 09/10 107.6 #16 In his 18 full seasons as head coach, Adelman has achieved top 10 ORtg 9 times, never in bottom 10. His ORtg dropped lower than 105 only once. Van Gundy New York 96/97 104.4 #25 97/98 103.0 #20 98/99 98.6 #26 99/00 102.5 #21 00/01 101.2 #19 Houston 03/04 100.9 #24 04/05 106.2 #15 05/06 101.6 #29 06/07 106.0 #15 In his 9 full seasons as head coach, JVG never achieved top 10 ORtg (highest #15), 6 times in bottom 10. His ORtg got over 105 only once (with McGrady and Yao missing only 6 games combined). This is a very large sample size, especially with Adelman. Limiting the samples only with the Rockets is really not accurate at all. The most telling is JVG's 04/05 season. With both Yao and McGrady fullly healthy, and with good offensive role players like Sura, Barry, and Mike James, he had the best offensive season of his career, a whopping #15.
