Should Nellie Be Fired?

[LRB]

The season is officially over for the Mavs. What's you opinion on Don Nelson. Want him back as coach or not?

[dude1394]

I'm leaning toward no, but right now I'm unsure.

[kg_veteran]

I want Nellie gone, but I don't really want Cuban to be stupid about it. He needs to make sure he can land a quality replacement. I'm all for gambling on another good coach doing better than Nellie, but I'm not really keen on gambling on an unproven guy doing better than Nellie at this point.

[kg_veteran]

It should be noted that both Dirk and Steve said that they want Nellie back in the post-game press conference tonight.

If Dirk wants Nellie back, my bet is that he's back.






Edit for typo.

[MavsFanFinley]

I voted for unsure.

I'd like to see what changes are made first. If they could make the corrections and have it like it was the year before last, I think Nelson should stay. I'm talking about that 2nd half season where it was Dirk with Finley and Nash complimenting him. We had a rotation, we knew who the starters were night to night and he played his centers. Most importantly, the players knew their roles. They had a balance of offense and defense.

[bernardos70]

Is this a rhetoric question? The problem will be replacing him, that's the only thing that has me unsure.

[mavsfanforever]

I voted no. Yes Nellie screwed up this playoffs. I just do not see who would replace him. Who is available? There are not many good coaches left. Maybe Chuck Daly.

[Murphy3]

I don't mind having Nellie back as long as Dirk runs the team.

[EricaLubarsky]

wow this thread isnt redundant. [img]i/expressions/rolleye.gif[/img]

There is one here
and here
and here
and here
and here
and here
and here
and here

two have already been locked because they are redundant

[PepperTheMavsFan41]

Erica is the thread police.


Im for an upgrade at coach, im just not sure there is one out there.

[twelli]

I think the Mavs fans had a lot of fun watching the run and gun style of the Nellie era. Now, we want a championship. I would love to see if a more strict coach like Riley could bring the ultimate success.

[MavKikiNYC]

Someone slap Peggy Hill.

[EricaLubarsky]

Originally posted by: MavKikiNYC
Someone slap Peggy Hill.

funny.

[MavsFanFinley]

Taken from the DMN recap:

Owner Mark Cuban wasted no time confirming that the core of the Mavericks, including coach Don Nelson, is not going to change.

"I think we have the Big Three (Steve Nash, Finley and Nowitzki)," Cuban said. "And hopefully we have the nucleus for the next three. There are no plans to make any big changes. I'm not going to blow stuff up. That's why we have contracts with these guys."

[grndmstr_c]

I'm hoping he's talking about AJ, JHo, and Quis when he says "the nucleus for the next three".

[EricaLubarsky]

Originally posted by: grndmstr_c
I'm hoping he's talking about AJ, JHo, and Quis when he says "the nucleus for the next three".

He said it was Walker, Jamison and Delk

[img]i/expressions/moon.gif[/img]

I really hope it is those three you mentioned. please, please...

[PubaNWO]

I'm sure he means any 3 that doesn't include Walker.....

Walker blows!

[bernardos70]

Devil's advocate:

Do not quit on Nellie now
01:59 AM CDT on Friday, April 30, 2004

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – There are some things with the Mavericks that don't need to be fixed. Professionalism, which seems sometimes to be an increasingly rare attribute, is one of them.

How upstanding are these guys? Remember their performance last year in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals at San Antonio? Down three wins to one and with Dirk Nowitzki out injured, they fought back from a 19-point deficit that night to extend the eventual world champion Spurs to a sixth game.

More recent was the effort they put forth Thursday night on the road facing the same doom against the Kings, plus humiliation from a first-round ouster.

The Mavericks ran. They rebounded.

They got themselves the easier open shots they'd failed to get earlier in the series. They played with inspiration, which is a byproduct of desperation, I suppose.

They even mustered a defensive stop in the last few seconds to give themselves a chance to win. But a Nowitzki jumper hit the front of the rim at the buzzer and the Mavericks' 2003-04 season ended, 119-118, in Arco Arena.

The Mavericks can be accused of being pitiful defenders. They can be accused of being a one-dimensional team, which was on display for the umpteenth time Thursday as they raced to 66 first-half points, while surrendering 63 to the Kings.

But the Mavericks can't be accused of being losers, despite what happened Thursday night.

More to the point, they can't be accused of being quitters. They lost three of their four games to the Kings on last shots that did not find their mark.

That is a fact that raises an important issue for the future of this franchise, no matter how short of last season's success they wound up.

After all, a key factor for an owner who must make a decision about a coach is how the players responded to the coach as the outlook started getting bleak. It is a decision Mark Cuban must make again this off-season about his headman, Don Nelson, who was in his seventh season calling the shots from the bench.

There are factors Cuban will no doubt consider that do not favor bringing Nelson back for an eighth campaign. For one, this whole thing has been going on a long time now. This isn't just the seventh season for Nelson running the show, but the sixth year he's done so with The Big Three – Nowitzki, Michael Finley and Steve Nash – as the foundation. Did they plateau last year? It appears so.

There is the fact the team has yet to master the key element of any championship team: defense. That has been as much a trademark of Nellie's teams everywhere he's been as has been his team's ability to light up the scoreboard. No wonder he's one of the most successful and longest-tenured NBA coaches never to have captured a title.

There is the fact, too, that Nellie has always leaned toward gimmicks for his success rather than tried-and-true methods of coaching in the NBA. He has developed point forwards rather than point guards. He has leaned toward playing smaller lineups with no low-post threats rather than more traditional and balanced lineups with back-to-the-basket big men, which was why he wound up clashing with Patrick Ewing in New York and Chris Webber with Golden State.

But more players than not have liked playing for Nellie. Who wouldn't like playing for a guy who wants you to run and shoot before you do anything else? Who wouldn't like playing for a guy who dares to box with Karl Malone when you do? Who wouldn't like playing for a guy who fights for you throughout the game? Nellie picked up a technical foul in the second half Thursday fighting for his guys.

Ultimately, that was probably as big a reason as potential embarrassment that the Mavericks gave it their all in Game 5 with the long-term odds stacked so high against them. These guys like this coach. He likes them, of course, which is the reason he assembled them in the first place.

Chemistry goes a long way in team sports. That is a factor that Cuban can't overlook, either. He doesn't have a bunch of players who quit on their coach. That's not one of the problems.

[LRB]

Originally posted by: kg_veteran
It should be noted that both Dirk and Steve said that they want Nellie back in the post-game press conference tonight. If Dirk wants Nellie back, my bet is that he's back. Edit for typo.

KG I wouldn't disagree that if Dirk continues with saying he wants Nellie back, both in public and private, that there is a very good likelyhood that Cubes will bring Nellie back. I just hope that this isn't the case.

I also agree that I don't want Nellie gone so we can replace him with any Quinn Buckner or Jim Cleamons wanna be. I do think that Cubes can recruit a good replacement if he puts his mind to it. But I think that the search might be aided if we had a public vacancy.