Welcome! Please take a few seconds to create your free account to post threads, make some friends, remove a few ads while surfing and much more. ClutchFans has been bringing fans together to talk Houston Sports since 1996. Join us!

"If you think you’re a playoff team why don’t you just forget it"-- Adelman

Discussion in 'NBA Dish' started by Carl Herrera, Jan 16, 2014.

Page 1 of 2

Carl Herrera Member

Joined:

Feb 16, 2007

Messages:

45,153

Likes Received:

21,575

http://m.startribune.com/?id=240601021#

Wolves coach Rick Adelman, not surprisingly, was still annoyed Thursday after putting his team through a lengthy film session. But that made for some fairly insightful and direct comments about the Wolves, who have lost two straight and three of four games. Here is a selection of some of the things he had to say today:

On his team’s lack of aggressiveness against Sacramento: “There is no doubt,” he said. “There were a couple of instances last night that they had a bigger guy, whether it was Rudy Gay or Derrick Williams, were posting up on a smaller guy. Number one, we didn’t come over with any urgency to just to help, and two, why would you let him take a big power dribble? Just foul him. Don’t let him score. But our tactic is that we don’t give resistance, and if that doesn’t change we’re going to be in trouble. I think it’s very evident in the games that we’ve lost that we’ve had leads in that we have a tendency just to relax, ‘we’ve got this one.’ Before we know it, they’re back in the game. And now any mistake or anything can happen. That’s kind of been the MO of this team and it has to change. We’ve talked from Day 1. They’ve got to get out of their comfort zone. Whatever that it is it’s got to be better than what they’re doing. We just seem to be going back and forth. We have a good game and then we just drop right back.’’

On his team’s current situation: “We’ve got to face fact that we’re a .500 team,” he said. “Right now we’re below .500. I told them today that if you think you’re a playoff team why don’t you just forget it, because you haven’t proven that you are. You haven’t gone out and really established yourself yet. You make some changes, and it looks good on paper, but it means nothing.’’

On responding to physical play: “Well we’ve been talking about it forever. It’s been pretty evident in some games where teams get into us. The league has changed. For whatever reason, I don’t know why, the last couple of years there hasn’t been any post defense. It’s more of a wrestling match. It’s just the way it is. You’ve got to respond to that. Players usually always respond to the way the game goes, because in our league in 82 games every game is different. You have a different officiating crew, everything is different. You’ve got to respond to it, but if you’re not going to go into the game ready to respond, if you’re going to back off you’re in trouble. You’ve got to take it on. You’ve got to be more aggressive.’’

This is a guy who wants his team to have more of an attitude, come out with more consistent effort, and defend people. Kevin Love, for one, said he completely agrees his team needs to get a bit nastier.

“One hundred percent,” Love said. “I think we need to develop some sort of edge. We talk a lot of trash. We are edgy in practice, we just need to transition that into the game. We have it in us, we just need to go out there and do it. And hopefully now that it’s out there, we can kind of hold ourselves accountable.”
Click to expand...

#1 Carl Herrera, Jan 16, 2014

KingStevo10 Member

Joined:

Jun 27, 2009

Messages:

3,400

Likes Received:

147

Good ole the Rick the Ruler

#2 KingStevo10, Jan 16, 2014
shastarocket Member

Joined:

Jul 18, 2006

Messages:

13,773

Likes Received:

1,082

So edgy

#3 shastarocket, Jan 16, 2014
Patience Member

Joined:

Apr 25, 2002

Messages:

8,279

Likes Received:

10,799

They are edgy in practice. Riiiiiight....

#4 Patience, Jan 16, 2014
Outlier Member

Joined:

Mar 25, 2006

Messages:

8,529

Likes Received:

1,351

Thank God we have McHale.

#5 Outlier, Jan 16, 2014
swyyyguy Member

Joined:

Jan 7, 2008

Messages:

8,068

Likes Received:

3,323

looks like adelman is taking the timberwolves to another lottery appearance!

i don't like mchale but i'm glad we shipped adelman out of houston.

#6 swyyyguy, Jan 16, 2014
apollo33 Member

Joined:

Feb 27, 2009

Messages:

20,803

Likes Received:

17,369

being this edgy

#7 apollo33, Jan 16, 2014

rocketblood713 Member

Joined:

Apr 14, 2011

Messages:

3,428

Likes Received:

57

Outlier said: ↑

Thank God we have McHale.
Click to expand...

:grin::grin::grin::grin:

#8 rocketblood713, Jan 16, 2014
conquistador#11 Member

Joined:

Jun 30, 2006

Messages:

39,229

Likes Received:

28,433

Outlier said: ↑

Thank God we have McHale.
Click to expand...

where is that jennifer lawrence gif when you need it

#9 conquistador#11, Jan 16, 2014
Raven Member

Joined:

Jul 24, 2002

Messages:

14,984

Likes Received:

1,025

I don't think that stuff works anymore, since different players have different agendas (see Assik).

#10 Raven, Jan 16, 2014
Panda23 Member

Joined:

Jul 2, 2012

Messages:

8,566

Likes Received:

620

conquistador#11 said: ↑

where is that jennifer lawrence gif when you need it
Click to expand...

#11 Panda23, Jan 16, 2014
rocketsballin Member

Joined:

Nov 23, 2012

Messages:

8,041

Likes Received:

1,483

Outlier said: ↑

Thank God we have McHale.
Click to expand...

#12 rocketsballin, Jan 16, 2014
SF3isBack!! Member

Joined:

Oct 2, 2007

Messages:

10,163

Likes Received:

1,879

Rockets do the same thing we just have better talent.

#13 SF3isBack!!, Jan 16, 2014

meh Member

Joined:

Jun 16, 2002

Messages:

16,221

Likes Received:

3,433

Prompted me to check the Wolves board and see what's going on over there. It's not pretty.

http://www.canishoopus.com/2014/1/15/5313552/wolves-kings-recap#comments

Some green comments, which means they were rec'd and likely reflect more the sentiment of the community.

It's a big list dump so I'm spoilering it. But it's kind of funny to read other teams bash their coach. Makes me less annoyed at the McHale hate.

I think I'm coming to terms with the idea that Rick Adelman is (somewhat) overrated as coach.
Click to expand...

I think he's getting old and mostly just phoning this season in
It seems like he has a reasonably good game plan, but is completely inflexible with it. He keeps saying that we just aren’t playing like we want it, but he doesn’t seem to be coaching like he wants it. There is almost no in game experimentation. Just put the starters in here, bench in here, and then starts back in again here. The whole thing feels very scripted start to finish in every game I’ve watched this year. When you see something is just not working, you should try making changes. When things persist to not work, you tinker with it until it does. When you have a combination of players out there that are not able to score, or defend, you mix it up. But he’s just not doing that, and it starts to seem like he can’t be bother to expend the mental energy require to do that on the fly. At this point I think that Adelman could be the greatest assistant coach we’ve ever had, but someone else should be in the drivers seat.

And honestly, it’s not just bad rotations that are killing us. It’s also that our offense seems completely stale. We stick far to rigidly to the same offensive motion over and over with a handful of variations. I feel like the kind of creativity and spontaneity that made Ricky Rubio look like one of the best point guards in the league is almost entirely gone. And although I’m not in the locker room or in practices, it sure looks like we just aren’t seeing that kind of stuff anymore because it’s simply not part of the game plan. The fact that D Will came out playing basically better than anyone on our bench, and better than half our starters, and in our system he was so bad that we wouldn’t even give him minuets is a very bad sign.
Click to expand...

Bolded part I found incredibly funny because McHale is bashed here for NOT doing what this Wolves fan is pissed at Adelman for doing.

This game was different than the usual 50/50 game
in which the Wolves manage to choke a close one down the stretch due to poor execution. This was a mostly lifeless performance that only a brief increase of intensity brought close. Where was that intensity the rest of the game? Why did they allow the Kings to do whatever they wanted offensively until the end?

I don’t want to be all “chicken little-y,” but this is one of the schedule “wins” we were looking forward to during the rough Nov/Dec schedule. Now it’s here, with the Kings on the 2nd night of a B2B and the Wolves coming off 2 days off…and yet the Wolves looked completely disinterested. Yes, there’s still time, but that time is ticking down and the margin for error is getting slimmer while the Wolves keep taking one step forward and one step back.
Click to expand...

I hesitate to criticize Rick Adelman
because he is so obviously not only competent at coaching in the NBA, but great at it. And he is almost certainly the biggest reason for the jump from worst team in the league to .500ish-when-healthy team that competes.

But his “player’s coach” style might not be what this particular team needs. Sure he gets frustrated and they’ll go over what went wrong and he will explain what they need to do differently. And he will almost certainly be correct in his assessments.

But he might not demand improvement the way that some others might.

Bob Knight helped honor Pat Summit a few years ago and he said that the thing that they have in common is that each is extremely demanding. It looks like he wrote about her again in similar terms, recently.

That isn’t a quality that players always like, and it is probably an extremely unlikeable quality when you work in the same office (or live in the same home!) as that person. But it is a common quality among successful coaches.

The NBA is a totally different world than the NCAA and Bob Knight would not succeed in it. You just can’t treat grown men that way and expect positive results. But there are current NBA head coaches (Gregg Popovich and Rick Carlisle come to mind) that seem a lot more demanding than Adelman does.

The Timberwolves are not a self-motivated crew. They don’t have a Jordan or Kobe personality. (Well, other than Barea, but that doesn’t work for leadership purposes, for obvious reasons.) They could probably benefit from a more intense coach.

Problem is, that guy needs to know what he’s screaming about. Unlike, say, Wittman.

Anyway, my two cents.
Click to expand...

Re: Adelman.
I have two problems with him, both of which were apparent last night. 1) Luc is one of this team’s better players. He is deeply flawed, but his defensive skills are legitimate. Get his ass out there on Rudy Gay if he is making Brew and Bud look helpless. 2) Playing Barea down the stretch at the expense of Rubio is a terrible idea. I don’t care how hot there respective hands are. Ricky is a drastically better player. The effective court size grows about ten feet for the opposing offense when JJ is out there. He offers no horizontal coverage.

Other than those issues, Adelman is consistently on point. Maybe I’ve just been anti-spoiled by the Whittman and Rambis eras, but I think anybody calling for Rick’s head looks pretty silly.
Click to expand...

Did Rick take McHale's school of "How to piss off fans by benching the popular PG?"

#14 meh, Jan 16, 2014

2 people like this.
JuanValdez Member

Joined:

Feb 14, 1999

Messages:

35,103

Likes Received:

15,314

I feel bad for Adelman his team isn't doing better.

#15 JuanValdez, Jan 17, 2014
Raven Member

Joined:

Jul 24, 2002

Messages:

14,984

Likes Received:

1,025

Now Rubio is saying he's losing his love for the game. Sounds like a guy planning to head home once his contract is up.

#16 Raven, Jan 17, 2014
NotChandlerParsons Member

Joined:

Nov 11, 2012

Messages:

4,013

Likes Received:

127

Raven said: ↑

Now Rubio is saying he's losing his love for the game. Sounds like a guy planning to head home once his contract is up.
Click to expand...

Maybe if Rubio would develop a love for making layups, the Wolves would be in a better situation. Five year max player for sure.

#17 NotChandlerParsons, Jan 17, 2014
Nook Member

Joined:

Jun 27, 2008

Messages:

60,288

Likes Received:

134,569

JuanValdez said: ↑

I feel bad for Adelman his team isn't doing better.
Click to expand...

Why?

He has had say in the building of the team. He choose to go to Minnesota. He is paid extremely well and he gets to employ his children.

#18 Nook, Jan 17, 2014

Carl Herrera Member

Joined:

Feb 16, 2007

Messages:

45,153

Likes Received:

21,575

Nook said: ↑

Why?

He has had say in the building of the team. He choose to go to Minnesota. He is paid extremely well and he gets to employ his children.
Click to expand...

And this is true for both his biological children and his adopted children, Chase Budinger and Kevin Martin.

#19 Carl Herrera, Jan 17, 2014
mvpcrossxover Member

Joined:

Aug 13, 2008

Messages:

32,393

Likes Received:

16,229

Reversed psychology?

#20 mvpcrossxover, Jan 17, 2014

(You must log in or sign up to post here.)

Page 1 of 2

Share This Page