After Dunleavy's 1st two seasons they did. During Dunleavy's 1st two seasons, that young team went from a .561%, to a .700 win% (base of Wallace, Stoudamire, Jim Jackson, Greg Anthony, Walt Williams, Brian Grant and Sabonis (Sabonis missed 30 games this year)). After Dunleavy's 2nd season, they ditched Cato, Augmon, Rogers and Williams for Pippen, and Rider and Jim Jackson for Smith. They then went to a win% of .720 in his 3rd season. After that season, O'Neal was traded for Dale Davis. The 4th season, Wallace was suspended for 5 games and benched for 2 others. Pippen and Sabonis both missed around 20 games each. They They don't respect Cheeks either. Do you see a pattern? Those players respect no one but themselves. What philosphy can control a bunch of malcontent criminals??? Please enlighten me here. I think Dunleavy is a lil tougher coach than Rudy. You talked about Dunleavy losing player's respect, yet, isn't that how coaches lose a player's respect sometimes? By being hard on them?
I just don't follow this logic. If whoever has the single greatest player wins final series, you would think whoever has the greatest player should win other series as well. Besides, the Piston's didn't have a Magic, Bird or Jordan--or even close to one--and beat them all. Similarly, Portland's 2000 and the Kings 2002 teams just as easily could have won as lost--both teams had commands of those series and lost, in the latter case a totally unexplainable fluke ball landing in Horry's hand just in time for him to lauch a shot probably saved the Lakers. Those Lakers teams got a little lucky, as did the Rockets 93 team, or the best player might not have won rings those years. 1st, Magic may have been passed his prime, but Drexler had not reached his either and was not close to the equal of Magic as a complete player in 91. Drexler was still acquiring his outside J and his stats were almost identical to Worthy's. Thus the Lakers had a far greater overall star, and a 2nd star about the level of the Blazers key star. Dunleavy might have been able to win in 91 with a healthy team--probably not as the Lakers had to get pretty lucky to win game 1, but perhaps, I'll give you that. Regardless he was brought in by the Laker brass to win a ring, he didn't, thus didn't meet expectations. I will admit you can't really blame him much using realistic expectations or season/playoff record for his Lakers years--but nor did he distinguish himself either, nor obviously impress the Lakers brass much (same can be said for Harris and Rambis in the 90s). I'll just say there is limited evidence either way in LA--certainly limited to the info from his Milw and Portland years. And in 00 Dunleavy's Portland was the returning WC finalist with the big offseason player additions where as the Lakers had less recent playoff success and whose major change was a coach/staff. It cuts both ways in these situations. And the coach who I think has more promise than Dunleavy took a bunch of egos and a team with no interior strength and far less talent than either the Lakers or Blazers to the finals that year and played the Spurs much tougher by playing to their own strengths and bringing tremendous team-defense focus.
The best player thing isn't a formula, it's hindsight. The Pistons have been one of the lone exceptions. Could've, should've...the Portland team was not favored to win that series. You keep avoiding that. Worthy on the same level as Clyde? Oh my. From NBA.com: '89-'90, Pre-Dunleavy: 1989-90 Lakers adjusted very quickly to the absence of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, moving Mychal Thompson into the starting lineup and bringing over Vlade Divac from what was then Yugoslavia. The team rolled to another 60-win season, its fifth in six years, and Johnson claimed his second straight MVP trophy (and third in four seasons). The Lakers won the Pacific Division for the ninth consecutive season. Heading into the playoffs, another Lakers-Pistons Finals seemed likely. in the Western Conference Semifinals, Los Angeles was overpowered by a tough Phoenix team that included Kevin Johnson, Eddie Johnson, Tom Chambers, and Jeff Hornacek. The Suns won the series in five games. '90-'91, with Dunleavy: The 1990-91 Lakers won 58 games but finished in second place in the Pacific Division to the high-powered Portland Trail Blazers. Los Angeles had no problem with either Houston or Golden State in the first two rounds of the playoffs but found itself in the unaccustomed position of underdog against Portland in the Western Conference Finals. The Lakers upset the Blazers by winning the series in six games but then fell victim to the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan in the 1991 NBA Finals. So the year before Dunleavy, with Pat Riley, the Lakers get upset by Phoenix in the 2nd round. With Dunleavy, they upset Portland in the Conference Finals. In the Finals they get ravaged with injuries. What exactly did Dunleavy do wrong again? I guess Rick Carlisle didn't impress the Piston brass either. Dunleavy was brought in to coach the team when Riley left. He did better than they did the previous year, going two rounds farther in the playoffs. The 'evidence' is not limited -- there is definitely evidence that the team had a better season under Dunleavy than they did the previous year. This is indisputable. Yet the Lakers were favored to win the series, won more games, and had the homecourt advantage. Does that mean the coaching sucked all year when they only finished as the #8 seed?
Could've, should've, no, the Pistons proved the theory has holes. The Kings and Blazers near triumphs provide further evidence. The team with the best player usually wins, but the other team has a great chance when it is loaded and better everywhere else--as the Pistons, Blazers and Kings (you could add the 93 Knicks) too, all had great chances at rings, some delivered (2 times with the Pistons), some didn't. Worthy was certainly at lose closer to Clyde as an overall player than Clyde was to Magic. Worthy and Clyde are both top 50 players, Magic is top 10. Further, in 91... Magic 19.4 PPG, 12.5APG, 7.0APG, 1.6SPG, .3BLG, 48%FG, 91%FT Drexler 21.5PPG, 6.0APG, 6.7RPG, 1.7SPG, .7BPG, 48%FG, 79%FT Worthy 21.4PPG, 4.6RPG, 3.5APG, 1.3SPG, .4BPG, 49%FG, 80%FT --Magic and Worthy look even better adjusted for MPG. Again Magic was by far the best of the 3 statistically in 91 or via intangebles/ leadership--but Worthy is a lot closer to Drexler than Clyde was to Magic in 91 (or over their careers). Portland might have been favored by some versus the Lakers, but Magic, Scott, Worthy, Perkins, Divac versus Porter, Drexler, Kersey, Buck and Duckworth? I don't know who in there right mind really thought Portland was better, you could make an equal or better argument that Dunleavy should have won more than 58 games (underachived in the regular season) as you can that it was a surprise they beat the Blazers. As I said before though, I will give you the Laker era performance wise does not reflect badly on Dunleavy (certainly compared with Milw or Portland), but I don't think it adds a big plus either. How much coaching did a team need after coming off a Riley era and having one of the best floor generals of all time and other long time league vets. So recordwise it is not overly impressive or unimpressive--but the best front office at the time obviously wasn't that impressed based on workings inside the org. Yet the Blazers had the talent to win 3 games and build a huge 4th quarter lead in the deciding game. We can go circles here--I guess you can try to say it was Dunleavy's coaching that lead to that position but lack of talent lead them not to finish it off--my opinion is they were loaded with talent and were a nearly impossible team to match-up with at one spot on the floor or another and if they used half of the match-up advatangous in the final 10 minutes of game 7 that got them to that point they would have won. The didn't need to play a great last 10 minutes, if they play mediocre while the Lakers play great they still win. 100 wins in 2 years and a EC finals appearence with no HoF or allNBA caliber player and mostly a roster of journeymen is an incredible record of getting the most out of your talent. Dunleavy has nothing of record that rivals this. On the latter, no, that Knicks team wasn't that talented, weak at the 1, 4 & 5 (Ewing was injured most of the time). JVG did an incredible job to get them in position to beat the Heat with a dominant Mourning (and in fact they beat them) and played the Spurs pretty well. Despite huge holes in the line-up JVG got the team playing outstanding--better than a far more loaded Dunleavy Blazers team did against the Spurs. In sum both of these coaches have shown flashes of brilliant team performance relative to the talent and (in)completeness of what they have to work with. Dunleavy just doesn't have this. A further plus is JVG is also thought of well by brass, and Carlise has only had 1 set of brass with problems (which could be Detriot PR--who knows--either way his record is hard to argue with), where as Dunleavy has been fired, forced to resign or bailed in multiple head coaching positions.
They all had great chances, but they just happened to lose. I don't think the Pistons prove much other than there are always exceptions. I just disagree. Magic Johnson made Worthy into what he was. Clyde Drexler carried his team to the Finals twice. Worthy was nowhere near that kind of a player. Worthy was a great finisher on the break with a great post-up game (albeit always against single coverage) for a small forward. That's all he was. Take away Magic and Worthy is just not that good. Clyde was the focus of the defense, great on the break, great scorer, great rebounder, and a great defender. He led two teams to the Finals, something even Barkley couldn't do. The Lakers were all on the downside of their careers. The Blazers were all either in their prime or before their prime. I can't believe you won't let this go. Now you're saying Dunleavy underachieved by only winning 58. The team did better than before he showed up. What more can I say? If it doesn't add a plus, then nothing Phil Jackson, Adelman, etc. have done adds a plus to their careers. Since their teams were already good, they obviously didn't need a lot of coaching. You missed my point about Carlisle earlier. You say the LA front office wasn't impressed with Dunleavy, when it's clear that coaches aren't always fired because they didn't succeed. Was Carlisle fired because he didn't impress? What is Dunleavy supposed to do? Put the ball in the basket for them? You way overstate a coach's role. What was Dunleavy supposed to do in the last 10 minutes? A coach can't make a player be clutch. If you don't have a go-to guy, you don't win. A coach can't change that. Matchups mean nothing in the final minutes of a playoff game. What was working in the first quarter isn't going to work late against a good defense. Yet Carlisle was fired. Guess he didn't impress the Piston brass with that performance. Why do you give all the credit to the coach? I don't understand. You seem to place way too much emphasis on what a coach can do. Are you saying Riley was just that bad of a coach when they played the Heat? JVG was SO good, that he was able to get the Knicks the series win? You don't think it possibly had more to do with the Knicks getting on a role and the Heat choking? If JVG was so great, why didn't the Knicks do better than an 8 seed? Was he only a great coach in the playoffs? Carlisle only had problems with one 'brass'. He's only coached one team! Guess he's 1 for 1 there in pissing off the brass. JVG has only coached one team as well. Yet you penalize Dunleavy for leaving multiple positions, when he's the only one of the three that has coached more than one team. Hmmm. This is all moot, though. Apparently JVG is the guy. I personally don't think it makes much difference either way. It's mainly about the players. Great talk Scar, as always. You're the best.
I was waiting to see if you would respond to the last one. Couple of points: I do think Drexler was better Worthy. But my point was the difference between Magic and Drexler is greater than the differences between Worthy and Drexler. Magic was one of the best 10 players of all-time, and lead his team to like 5 titles. Neither Worthy nor Drexler could win a title without a greater player on the court--though if I am not mistaken Worthy has an MVP finals MVP and is top 5 ot top 10 in playoff FG%--so I think you underrate him somewhat. Finally, I just see nothing "distinguished" in Dunleavy's 3 head coaching positions. You more or less got me to agree the Laker era wasn't a negative (at least in terms of performance), but I certainly wouldn't call it distinguished or inspiring either. The other two stops IMO look real bad on Dunleavy, but again that is me. I would rather have someone with no experience or a mixed experience than be 0-2-1 or at best 0-1-2 over 3 stopss--where I have seem some impressive and inspired team ball 2 years strait by the overachiving Pistons, and seen the overachiving Knicks of 99. JVG also kept a team with Spree (this alone is enough), Thomas, an injured/complaining Ewing, and a point guard mess to play inspired team ball and get the most out of their strengths and limit their glaring weaknesses. I just saw a lot more promise in each of their 1 stops than in Dunleavy's 3 and I think the Rockets need to be risky and take a pretty strong and different type of leader, otherwise their was no reason to remove Rudy at all--this is what it boils down to for me.
Sure there is...it's called Workers Compensation (Unemployment benefits). Could you imagine seeing Rudy T in the unemployment line? Man, I'd be all like, "wow it sucks that I was downsized and all, but seeing Rudy T. really makes it worthwhile!"
