Putting the McHale Coaching Malcontents to Rest (Hopefully)

What worries me about McHale is that when things go bad...it goes bad at bad times...Like having a 8(??) game spread of losses could be a bad thing down the stretch...even last years collapse still irks me...

I shudder to think what our team would've looked like without Harden??? anyways...Go Rockets

 

Which is pretty sad considering he's a locker room cancer himself after what he said in the press and throwing Dwight under the bus.

 

I never said Jordan and Kobe would not be superstars without their coaches. That's a straw man. I said teams don't always perform to the expectations based merely on their personnel and talent, and that coaching can have a significant influence on how the team performs. I then I gave examples that I would like to see how your theory deals with. And you can't just dismiss my questions by claiming I said something I never said.

And that Bulls team without Jordan you mention -- do I need to remind you who their coach was when they defied the expectations people had for them based merely on talent?

 

Okay, see, we have common ground here. I'm not a fan of McHale and I'd like to see someone better as coach, but I also dislike the knee jerk posts against him after a loss (especially a close one against one of the best teams in the league). And I think the 5 criteria you gave earlier are great and reasonable, and I hope people use them in the future on McHale (and I think he does poorly precisely in regards to a few of those criteria by the way).

My main beef was with the conclusion that switching great coaches like Pop or Jackson for coach x would not make a significant difference to the win loss record. History really seems to show that this is not the case. There may not be much difference between McHale and coach X, but there is a huge difference between coach X and a great coach.

So, yeah, most of the criticism of McHale is coming from a pretty ignorant place -- but the conclusion that there have not been a small segment of coaches that have had a huge impact on their team's success ignores a lot of basketball history.

 

For someone I so often completely disagree with in D&D, it's strange to be sharing the exact same thoughts for once.

 

As someone who have watched basketball for 20 years, although probably too young to analyze the game when I first started watching, I find the study more confirming my belief than disprove it.

Take for example, Rudy T. By far the "best" coach in Rockets history. The coach who took us to the promise land with Hakeem. Yet if you look at Hakeem's individual numbers, he didn't grow all that much for the championship years compared to before. So what was the difference? The answer lies in Rudy putting everyone on the team in the position to success. Hakeem certainly improved, but he had always been a superstar. The biggest difference was that the Rockets took advantage of Hakeem's abilities by spreading the floor, allowing him to work, and have role players shoot 3s, something which are natural abilities of role players. The Rockets also accumulated defenders(Thorpe, Horry, Maxwell, Elie) to complement their system. Did any of these players become better under Rudy? Not really. But the system allowed them to succeed as a team. And that is why I will always respect Rudy T as a great coach.

If you look at this year's team. Forget the youngsters, since they are growing. Take Delfino. He's a generic role player. Can defend a little, shoot some 3s, has decent handle. So what do the Rockets do? Accentuate his strengths by having him shoot 3s at a career high clip, by having his veteran presence to close games under high pressure situations, by having him bring up the ball at times as a "PG" to run breaks. Delfino's not doing anything he was incapable of before. He's simply doing more of the things he's good at. And in the end, that is what a coach brings. And I feel McHale and the rest of the staff has brought to the team.

 

An argument this study is leaving out is how important the micro managing for important games. Sure, over 82 games the difference just may be a handful of wins/losses. But come playoffs, teams will adjust and have strategies targeted at defeating your team, that's when each win is critical, and thus cannot be ignored.

 

How is McHale in the middle statistically?
0 playoff appearances in his career.

While Phil Jackson and Popovich aren't available, Stan Van Gundy and Jerry Sloan are available.

 

While I agree with you that players > coaches in terms of influencing the game of basketball, you'd also have to consider that the coaches don't get paid as much as star players do. Consider even Phil Jackson's way higher than avg. salary at 11 million, factoring 16.7 wins is paid less than Harden, 15 million, factoring 16 wins (based on current winning percentage and your assumption).

 

This is the aspect of the study that needs to be carefully digested. Individual performance versus team performance. The argument I quoted suggests that the key skill a coach needs is the ability to identify who his best players are and the ability to ge those players on the court the most.

This may require an offensive or defensive philosophy that facilitates getting that talent on the court. But, in the end, player talent is player talent and most coaches can't change that.

 

Quote for points and reflection to the OP

 

And again!

 

You just over exaggerate the affect Harden has on this team. Vegas had us 33 wins pre Harden, post Harden, a 38 win team.

You lose credibility by pulling numbers from thin air.

 

And this is exactly why judging and having opinions about McHale's substitutions and rotation patterns is a valid topic for discussion about his abilities as a coach.

thank you sir!

 

Here is an example of how coaching affects wins and losses. I would agree with you under the mandated man to man system that coaching plays little but under the new rules , a good coach has more impact on the outcome of the game. http://hoopspeak.com/2011/05/why-dallass-zone-defense-will-decide-finals/

 

Eric Spoelstra learned a lot from the zone defenses Dallas pulled against them in his first finals appearance and they used it to perfection against the Thunder.

The heat mastered the zone and flustered Kevin Durant and the Thunder with their hybrid man -zone defense.

A coach has more options under the current system where he can play man to man defense, zone, or combination of man-zone defenses and frustrate superior offensive players.

If you notice how Kevin Durant got blocked by Chris Bosh during last year's finals it was because the Heat were playing a hybrid zone wherein Bosh was just waiting near the rim to block the layup. Under normal circumstances, Bosh will not be able to block Kevin Durant.

 

Pretty much reinforces what Morey says:

Great coaches can only have a small positive effect over average coaches. Most coaches are simply competent/average and one simply can't squeeze out of players what's not there. Bad coaches, on the other hand, can have a big negative effect over average coaches.

When you run one type of offense for half the games and your team consistently suck at it and you run another type of offense for the other half of games and your team consistently rock at it, yet you still keep going back to playing the offense your team suck at, it's called misusing your players. That makes you one of those big negative effect bad coaches.

That's Paul Westphal/Kevin McHale.

I mean, yeah, the dude may be good at many things when it comes to coaching, but what he is bad at has such a huge negative effect, the little good things he does aren't even remotely enough to bring him into the "competent/average" category.

You know the old adage about how a competent coach is one whose coaching you never seem to talk about? Yeah. McHale isn't one of those.