Silas has lots of time to turn things around, but so far it’s validation of having a “gimmicky” system that actually works, instead of whatever the hell is going on here. I’ve been worried from the beginning about his unsuccessful stint as interim head coach and I‘m getting more worried now. Still early though.
Apparently coach Silas agrees with what basketball should look like. MDA may know a lot abt basketball, but he gets lost in the game, couldn’t really control his star, got stuck in short/bad rotations and failed to make adjustments — repeatedly. Of course he’s a “real coach,” but he’s not a real championship coach. At least not in this man’s opinion. And I played professional basketball for 28 years in Guatemala. Not really.
Yea that only got us one 65 win season, 2 WCSF appearances and multiple top offenses in the league. Harden was fine, he did what was asked of him. Silas isnt "controlling" him either. What bad rotations? No Hartenstein you mean? No offense man but yall dont really know what adjustments were and were not made. If it were not for injuries and BS league suspensions Mike would have multiple championships. The only series where Mike failed us was the Lakers series where Westbrook was hot garbage. I like Silas and I hope his way works but so far the returns havent been super great.
This is what I'm talking about, we had sets and actions here. You guys dont know what adjustments are. You coulndt tell me even if it was happening. Give me one example besides the Lakers series where we failed to "adjust."
We got what many posters were asking for - more ball movement, more player movement, more involvement from roleplayers, less predictability, less iso, and for what? The offense is way worse. And our defense is really bad too. So we're worse offensively and defensively than we have been in years, despite what many claim is a roster upgraded hugely by Rafael Stone (good thing we got rid of that dumb nerd Darren Morley), and a great coaching upgrade from Dumbtoni to Stephen Silas. What exactly are we celebrating? Pump the brakes with this sentiment and save it for when the team actually looks good. Silas deserves time to figure it out but the results haven't been good so far.
Oh i forgot to respond to this gem of a comment LOL. You guys are the ones praising Silas after A LOSS and how crap Mike is. Yall dont move on from guys who have left the Rockets.
That's the thing, I am not sure he does. Harden, for the moment, seems in the mood to give his all on the court. Ok, so far, so good. But his generosity will turn to pouting or worse eventually as time goes on with him still in Houston. Silas has only till then as far as Harden in Houston goes. If instead, we are assuming Harden is gone at some point, and we are talking about Silas winning over and improving the play of everyone else not named Harden, then, yea, he has time.
Again(for the 3rd time), I liked D'antoni - think he is a good coach. I'm certainly not the straw man you are railing against and I have seen few who think the blame rests solely on D'Antoni. I agree with all the circumstances you listed - its possible D'Antoni may win a title elsewhere, but it just didn't work out in Houston for a number of reasons including his coaching, the personnel he had to work with. Harden's head scratching crunch time play, injuries, and facing a historically great team....but even if Houston won a title that year that they should have beat the Warriors, I would still be asking for a new coach this year. The man was actually great at drawing plays after timeouts so I know the guy can coach but the offense after a timeout looked a lot different than the offense during the course of the game and like I said - I think that is because he relies on an offensive philosophy more than a "set". I think he fundamentally approached his coaching job as a set of basic principals to adhere to and thought the offense was better when there weren't sets to 'scout' because by nature they were contextual and unpredictable in nature. That is a strong philosophy if it works - but obviously not every player can become "one with the philosophy". Some players need to be told what to do and where to be, and have simplified reads. This is especially true with players who have limited offensive skills - in other words, the very one dimensional players that Morey would bring on board because they fit the mold of "undervalued" - guys who produced at a level greater than the sum of their skills or guys who traditional scouts might shy away from because they had some particularly ugly holes to their game that belied their production on the court. I believe this is ultimately why D'Antoni kept such a tight rotation. And that is what brings me to my main criticism of D'Antoni - that he didn't seem to have a counter to his philosophy to suit the players he had at his disposal to execute it. By contrast, you look at a guy like Coach Pop and you see that San Antonio has played like 10 different ways under Pop - all to maximize the skills of guys on his roster at the time. When I look at a D'Antoni led team - it looked the same regardless of who runs it. Obviously it's more successful if Nash or Harden are generating that offense rather than lets' say Jeremy Lin but my point is - D'Antoni is a lock who hasn't yet found just the right keyhole and until he can learn to be a more universal key, there will always be limits to his team's ceiling when the roster is out of alignment with his philosophy.
Why? Why would you? That woulndt make any sense. Youd bring in a new coach over a dude who beat the GOAT team. And I have yet to see any one circumstance where coaching lost us a sereies(maybe the Lakers). I mean...it's still like that now, only now those guys who are doing more are now hurting our offense. In the end it can work out. But Im really not seeing how this philosophy has hurt us in the playoffs. Like people need to give me examples besides "0-27" before I buy this argument. Pop is the GOAT coach. But POP also has HOF backing him up at every corner. You need good players to win. Im sure Dantoni has never asked for one dimensional players on the roster.
i was just thinking he had time to turn around my opinion of his coaching, a very egocentric perspective, lol. Agree w this post.
Honestly I think conceptually with a compressed offseason, James not returning in time, a lot of new players on the roster, and the quarantine protocol that held out half the roster to start the season, he has had real limits to his opportunities to implement any sort of radically different system. We lost to Dallas last night because the offense reverted to old habits in crunch time, some players weren't totally familiar with the sets(saw Nwaba & Tate sometimes standing right by Harden in a set which should never be the case) and the defense had poor communication on their rotations on account of a bunch of players who have yet to develop the type of report needed to communicate efficiently in real time.
Pop has HOF style players backing him up because he grows them. Duncan is the only lotto pick he ever had that anyone else would have wanted. Kawhi, Manu, Tony - all those guys were passed on by many teams. ...and I just gave you a HUGE example - every D'Antoni led team looks the same regardless of personnel. That should be a big tipoff on his willingness to adjust his style to suit the roster. That means something when the team you coach shakes up the roster yearly. The Rockets, Suns, Knicks, and Lakers ALL were very differently constructed teams yet played the same under D'Antoni because he lacks that counter. Maybe he had more success with some rosters than others, but his job is to maximize the talent on his roster, not 'only use the players on the roster who suit his style'.
What HOF did Dantoni fail to groom??? Tony Parker and Ginobli are ultimately here they had the talent to be were they are. POP gave them guidance but how about now? Derozan and Aldridge, how's that working out for him??? We were maximizing our talent? What do you mean? No matter what roster you have if you have players who are not good enough you arent going to win.
the defense looks mad shaky...communication seems to be very poor if we play a team that does a lot of cutting, u can assume there will be several defensive breakdowns at this point offensively, sometimes u see a difference, and sometimes it looks like guys just aimlessly driving and kicking with sprinkles of some simple PnR still early tho, and there’s been a lack of practice time with the full squad
interesting to say the least. could you give me a break down on this? who were the lesser teams we lost to in the playoffs? which average teams were beating his suns as they couldn't play in the playoffs?
Short rotations burning out players for regular season wins. Not getting Harden to move the ball and relying on the three and nothing but the three. Yes, he got close twice with CP3 and Nash. He was a better coach in PHX. He was more of a Harden chaperone and partner than a coach. And his complete lack of defense definitely removes him from the list of great coaches.
