The Rockets would love to have Drew Gooden .... because we have Spoon and Pollard and Braggs right now. The Cavs, they'd love to have Carlos Boozer, most likely. Gooden's adequate-to-solid, but not a lot to write home about. Same story with McInnes, he's adequate to solid, not great (and reportedly a horrible mofo in the locker room). But at the end of the day a point guard who gets you 14 points and 5 assists (by playing 40 minutes a game with Lebron) isn't really all that great, IMO. You really think this team should be winning 55 games? They're very young, are 34-30, 2nd in ther division behind Detroit. That's on pace for about what, 46-47 wins this year - with a 19 year old LeBron, I'd say anywhere between 45-50 wins and a playoff appearance is pretty much right on schedule. Again, I'm not saying anything about Silas being fired - calling Boozer a cu-t the other day was pretty uncalled for. But if you think the Cavs season is now sunk because they can't clinch homecourt in the second round - well, you're vastly overestimating their personnel.
the issue is that Black Coaches don't have the past because in the past they did not get the opportunity Rocket River
I'm not attacking you. I just don't understand the logic in canning the coach when you're meeting expectations...and the only reason you're not surpassing them is because, for the most part, your team has been overachieving like crazy and is coming back down to Earth. Before this year, Drew Gooden showed glimpses of being a good player, but nothing close to hinting at this year's productivity; he got traded for Tony Battie, for cryin out loud. They were a surprise team, and just gettin in the playoffs should be a big deal for them, let alone getting in as the #5
It's just baffling to me, race issues aside, how management puts all of this on the coaches. This is the person that the players are supposed to respect and listen to. Why in the hell would they listen? If they don't like what they say, play crappy and get them fired, and bring in someone else. That's shi**y if I ever heard it. How are they supposed to respect these guys knowing they have more power than them. How many players go talk directly to GMs when they're having problems. The order of things have gotten way out of wack.
Better than career journeyman Jeff McInnis? Well he's a little taller and more versatile though less durable - but he was pretty valuable to the Rockets this year (though T-mac and Yao are a cut above LeBron and Z). I'd rate them equal at worst for Sura Don't even bring up Mike James though, it's not even close. For the Rockets, he's scoring more than McInnis in less minutes on fewer shots. So yeah, I think Mcinnis has a tough time cracking our rotation, not even counting his attitude issues.
I think Cleveland should win 50+ games with the maturation of LeBron and the very weak Eastern conference. LeBron has become so good so fast that expectations can be ramped up, especially considering he has a very solid group of players surrounding him. Most 20 year old franchise players do not have the type of supporting cast the Cavs have. Im not saying Silas did a horrible job but it's understandable why Cleveland may have higher hopes than what's happened recently.
i understand, but they are getting the chance now and not being treated any differently than anyone else at this point. unfortunately, like most new coaches, you get to take over a crappy team. and in this era of firing guys after hardly more than a season (white or black), it will take another transition period for them to build up the resumes and credibility that the longer tenured white coaches have. however, the biggest step was getting in the door and getting equal treatment and i would say the nba has pretty much achieved that at this point.
Silas got an opportunity almost immediately after getting fired in New Orleans. This doesn't have anything to do with black or white and why people feel the need to bring this up I don't have a clue.
Well, to make this fair, I'll let you have the assumption that LeBron will resign with whatever team has the roster. In that case, I'll limit my list to the following teams who WOULDN'T trade their roster. Miami - they have D-Wade, and Shaq for x years. I think Shaq is going to stick around for longer now that he doesn't have to put up with Kobe. San Antonio - unless Duncan's ankle is a Grant Hill type of thing, you don't trade. Houston Rockets - Yao and TMac is a better building block for the future than LeBron. We are better now, and should continue to get better. Cleveland has a tough row to hoe to catch up. Questionables: Phoenix Seattle Detroit Looking at this short list of non-traders, it almost seems like I am making your point for you. However, a question of roster change depends on current strength and potential. If you take out the potential factor and ask playoff-bound teams if they would like to trade their roster for Cleveland's going into the playoffs, the list of teams who might trade is much shorter. In the East: Orlando: a playoff berth is questionable Chicago might. Indiana might. Philly might - just to not have to watch Chris Whiner. In the West: You won't find a team that would want to switch rosters going into the playoffs until you get down to the Lakers, and they aren't going to make it anyway. To sum up, Paul Silas did not have that much to work with. Given his record, he should have gotten more rope and time. So why wasn't he? I don't think that it was a race thing. Unless there was some weird back-room stuff going on, I think that it was a "look who is available on the open market for coaches" thing. In other words, it's a PJ thing. They think that they can attract Phil with the bait of a great young player, and they think that this type of move may help them keep LeBron as well. Silas was just in the wrong coaching job at the wrong time. If I was in their position, I would have asked LeBron for a vote of confidence in Paul Silas, and if I didn't get it, I would have done the same thing. If Cleveland loses Lebron a couple of years from now, they would be declaring themselves "Clippers East". All their moves right now are probably predicated on that.
I think they should do a similar comparison and control for coaches who made their names in the previous era. Guys like Sloan, Brown, Jackson, Rudy T and whatnot are going to seriously skew the figures. Do a comparison of guys who got their first head coaching gig ever in the last 5 years and average their tenures by race. Is the discrepancy as large? If so, there is a problem.
Man, what some people will concoct to keep racism alive. Everyone knows that if the NBA coach fire-rate isn't exactly split down the middle, something isn't right.
