Pleasant surprise??? The results of MDA hire have been nothing short of phenomenal until this season. COY, MVP, best record, historically great offense and pushing the best team ever assembled to 7 games in WCF are not just a pleasant surprise.
I don't know about MCW... but Melo... yes that blame goes on MDA. Ultimately it goes on DM, but you can be sure DM asked MDA MANY MANY times, "can you make this work?!?". I mean it already didn't work once. Of course DM had to ask him that. One can assume MDA said yes, emphatically. He certainly said as much publicly. Maybe, behind closed doors they privately discussed how it was 50/50, and they needed a plan in case it didn't. That would have been prudent. You'd still think DM would have a plan, even if MDA was emphatic about it working. As far as I can tell, the current plan is to get everyone healthy. And truth be told, that will definitely make a difference. But they clearly need a plan beyond that.
It boils down to managing people... some managers are cheerleaders - meaning they can manage receptive people when things are going well... 'rah rah clap clap keep it up!' All about positive reinforcement.... Then there are those that can get in somebodys face as needed... have the difficult conversations.... manage people through adversity and deal with difficult or problematic employees.... employ some tough love - and a little fear... ideally you want somebody that can wear either hat as needed...
Former owner Les decided to hire this coach because Les already decided to sell his team within a year or two. The MDA team can get a very good record on regular season by shooting three ball, and the rockets value was all time high, then Les sold his team before overpaying CP3 money to cash his big money. There is nothing to do with winning a title with MDA when he was hired, so there should no a blame game right now. JVG was never in the Les mind during that time.
MDA has been great the last two years, but this team was clearly not ready to play coming into the season. Are MCW and Melo trash? Yes, but we still have Paul, Harden, Gordon, Capela and Tucker from last season's rotation. This team should not be 1-5. Their lack of defensive preparation is evident. MDA has to be responsible for that.
He's a great coach overall, but he screwed up this offseason. Any other person of any other profession who would have showed up to their job with this obscene lack of preparation would have been fired immediately. Whatever they were doing in training camp and preseason, they were either doing it wrong or not enough. The players did their part, they got together and started working out early. Most of them were healthy in training camp and preseason. This team was just not prepared, and that lack of preparation turned into some horrible losses to start the season, and those losses are now festering in the players' minds psychologically and putting pressure on management to give up more assets for Butler. He might fix this, and he's earned some leeway with this franchise, but that's a big blunder. A rookie mistake from a veteran coach, and I am irritated every time he acts like it's just an issue with player effort. Do your f'ing job, don't be the manager that blames all 15 employees.
