I find this explanation unconvincing. Did the talent of our roster suddenly increase from December until now, or do you mean that you underestimated how good the players are? In that case, its a player development thing, and coaching is definitely part of it. As for chemistry, that's one of those immeasurable, fuzzy attributes. Inevitably, teams that play well are said to have "good chemistry". I don't think that's a real explanation, unless you can explain it in more concrete terms. If by chemistry we mean players being more comfortable playing with each other, then coaching is absolutely a relevant factor. Coaching determines who's playing together and how long. It determines how the players practice with one another. It can establish certain principles of how the players should play with one another which can impact the comfort level they have sharing the court.
So you played team sports. Want a cookie? I played team sports from high school through college as well. Guess what... players who hate each other contributes to chemistry. Players who like each other develop chemistry more quickly. Can a coach hurt that by being stupid? Sure. A coach however can't make players like each other more quickly or force them to look at the game the same way. Human beings have a base personality. Some personalities mesh easily, some don't. Just look at Howard and Kobe. Polar opposite personalities that will struggle to gain chemistry regardless of what the coach does. We have the fortunate opportunity to have a team of players that like each other enough that they spend most of their off court time together. That's not something you can coach. As for the coach's role, it's the coach's responsibility to implement a system that complements the teams make up, prepare them for games and enforce discipline when needed. It's also the coach's job to know when to get out of the way. Coach's don't make players gel. Players choose to make the effort to gel with each other or they don't, and the coach has limited say in the whole thing at the professional level. And if he was a bad coach, you would see negative posts about McHale every game instead of the occasional ones where he completely blows it.
First, I originally underestimated how good Harden and Asik would be as players. I pegged Harden as a 20-25 ppg kind of guy. Also, I didn't anticipated that Asik would have an offensive facet to his game, which is something that was immediately noted during the preseason in player interviews. Some of that offensive growth is attributable to McHale, but his passing and core offensive skills were something that had not been seen in Chicago. When I refer to chemistry, I'm referring explicitly to the learning curve associated with becoming familiar with another team mate's preferences, skill set and weaknesses. This is not something easily measurable as a statistician when looking at box scores or advanced statistics, but there is a sufficient history of data when looking at players introduced into new rosters (even experienced players) as well as teams with high turnover to be able to form some generalized assumption about how long it takes for the offense to round into form. This is more of a workplace efficiency discussion than anything. There are lots of studies looking at how people integrate themselves into new workplaces or positions, and study after study has shown that there is a multiple month process starting with assessment of coworkers, feeling out of personalities, and interpreting of expectations of one's superiors. While the workplace analogy is not a perfect fit for an athletic team, I do believe it is somewhat analagous. If we look at team duties as similar to workplace duties, familiarity with personalities, process, and people are all part of a knowledge acquisition curve that every person encounters. The main question is how long it takes for this to develop to at least a functional form. From my reading, it seems that 3-6 months is a typical curve depending upon the complexity of the organization, raw aptitude of the team members, and how well the personalities integrate. This is assuming a strong set of systems are in place to integrate these people into their new environments. Part of the reason that the personalities are such a major factor is that people who like each other or at least respect each other are more likely to communicate issues, discuss differences in opinion and method, and to find independent resolution without the intervention of management. So yes, "chemistry" is a bit murky, but not so murky as one would think if you approach it from the angle of behavioral psychology and workplace efficiency analysis.
It adds up because our modest yet glorious GM has been the one acquiring similar high Iq basketball players that play in a team environment. I still feel we're underachieving. I had us drafting the 14th pick before the harden trade/playoffs with harden. And With a george Karl under helm, we'd already have 50 wins. But mchale is also new at this coaching stuff so he should get better with time. I'll happily take 48 wins to finish the season.
So a coach can hurt the chemistry by being stupid, but he can not positively influence it by being smart? That does make your position on McHale make sense though. You think our losses are because of him, and our wins are in spite of him. Just like team chemistry. One easy example of our team chemistry either being destroyed or built up via coaching: We were on a 7 game losing streak and our coaches chose to show the players what they were doing correctly, instead of hammering them on what they were doing wrong. This built the chemistry of the team, took focus off of individual mistakes (bad pass by James, poor decision by Chandler, etc.) and put the focus back on individual strengths. By showing your team what another guy does well, it reinforces to everyone what they should be doing in a positive way, instead of harboring negative emotions. It is commonplace on every team I've ever been on to have guys who are negative and pissed (mostly the guys not playing - surprise surprise, right?). How a coach handles the malcontents is HUGE on how a team comes together. You can divide a team by harboring negativity and playing favorites, allowing it to fester, and then having **** boil over. You can also bring a team together by doing the oppostite. You somehow only see the negative side of things. And predicated upon the posts of yours that I have seen, I would say it's your ethos, or damn close to it.
First of all, we don't really know the extent of the relationship some of these players have off the court. You pointed to Lin and Harden's chemistry being the most important thing, and yet I've seen so many people who criticize McHale argue that there is a lack of mutual trust between them and their games aren't meshing well. Further, to my knowledge there's no evidence that they are buds off the court who hang out either. Also, I feel you're putting the cart before the horse. What you call chemistry can simply be a product of winning. When a team is playing well, everyone feels better about themselves and their place within the team. It could result in them enjoying each-other's company more as well. More than anything else, winning is what creates chemistry. Does it feed-back into winning? Maybe to some extent, but winning -> chemistry has a much stronger causal relationship than the other way around in my view. There are plenty of really bad teams that have players who like each other.
Are you high? We would be 50-24 right now under George Karl? His own team doesn't even have 50 wins and there is no one who would say we have more talent RIGHT NOW than Denver (notice I didn't say potential). Keep smoking that **** they're sending you from Denver amigo...
