Screw you les. It was never about an offensive or defensive coach.

That 08-09 team was great, but hardly on Television and was ignored by Refs. Don't get me wrong... your right in every aspect... the problem is management is held hostage at times by their borderline All stars....

 

I agree. When you let superstars go do whatever they want, you don't win anyway. What's the point of keeping superstars or getting superstar treatment if you don't win? I'm looking at the list of past NBA champions for an example of a team that won despite letting the inmates run the asylum. Maybe you can make an argument for Lebron James and the Heat (tenuous) or Kobe and the Lakers (despite Phil Jackson?). Not the Warriors or Spurs or Celtics or Mavs.

 

Excellent observations here, JuanValdez.

I'd only add (because I am, at best, lukewarm about the hiring of Mike D'Antoni as Rockets head coach...but will allow for the requisite acclimation/transition period of personnel and playing philosophy) that the litmus for how the organization rebounds form last season's catastrophe (expectation-wise, at least) will be how well that Coach/GM dynamic is finally resolved.

I've said before on many occasions that the GM of any pro sports franchise is only as good as his coach...and vice-versa. Both positions have to have the same goals in mind, in terms of building a team...but I have always personally thought that GMs are, by default, once removed from the team proper in most instances. And I've never thought that was a problem.

Daryl Morey has been criticized often for his "detachment" in regards to player relations...and whether or not that is right or wrong in and of itself isn't as important to me as the relationship between players and coaches are.

Again, coaches are in the trenches...and see more of the total competitive landscape of the game than just about anybody else, GMs included.

Pat Riley and Greg Popovich have been part of the game for decades...as both players and coaches. And while those resumes don't necessarily always guarantee a translatable pattern of success from an upper management perspective...I think it becomes more and more obvious that the head coach should be considered more than just a figurehead...or a lieutenant, as you say.

I don't think a yes-man or a sympathetic thinker is what the relationship should be between GM and head coach. There doesn't need to be a vicious acrimony (as what eventually transpired between Phil Jackson and Jerry Krause back in Chicago's hey-day in the '90s), but some philosophical friction is hardly unhealthy.

I would much rather the GM take the lead from the coach in team-building, in an ideal world.

Daryl Morey, unfortunately, gives Charles Barkley all the legitimacy his analytic buffoonery needs...because at some point, if you're going to fire a coach for not doing his job...then the least that should happen is to actually let someone DO that job on more-or-less their own terms.

There are some things about the game that numbers can't or won't ever reconcile. A smart guy who loves the game (and Daryl Morey is both, I believe) has to know that, and accept it.

He can crunch his numbers and "manage assets" to his heart's content. More power to him, I say. He's been better at that for the last few years than most people.

But get a coach and let him BE the coach. PLEASE.

This politicking has gone on long enough. Daryl Morey is once removed. Les Alexander is too, for all intents and purposes. Sure...between the both of them, they make the financial decisions and cut the checks...

...but they're not coaches or players. At some point, that's as big a part of the equation as anything somebody drags out at an analytics conference...

...and games are won and lost, ultimately, by the players on the floor and the coach who's leading them.

Sometimes, "Les" is really "more-y"...(o.k....that was bad...)...