Coaches you'd rather have over rick Carlisle

[Five-ofan]

Originally Posted by grndmstr_c

Even granting that, it's not definitive for an evaluation of overall team talent, particularly in the cases of the Pacers and Spurs, because neither George nor Parker are anything like as good as LeBron. Durant's at least a consensus #2 guy league-wide so the comparison there is closer to valid now, but it's been two years since the Heat and Thunder met in the Finals, and when you go back that far not only do you have to account for the relative inexperience of that Thunder team, but you also have to acknowledge that an argument can be made that Wade was, at the time, not only a solid step above Westbrook, but was overall still the second best player on the court for either team.

There wasn't an honest argument to be made that wade was better than durant at that point and I'd have taken westbrook over him. You are right that Lebron is a huge advantage. He's arguably a top 10 player of all time already but again he's done everything he should have done with him.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by yahyes

Great. This thread is opening a can of worms.

Better here than splashed throughout the gdt and the pgt if the mavs lose.

[dude1394]

Hmmm...our gm puts together an atrocious front court defensively and signs an underachieving dalembert and a 6'3" blair for center positions. But that damn Carlisle...because.....well just because.

[grndmstr_c]

Originally Posted by Five-ofan

There wasn't an honest argument to be made that wade was better than durant at that point and I'd have taken westbrook over him.

Just because you disagree with the argument doesn't mean there isn't one to be made.

You are right that Lebron is a huge advantage. He's arguably a top 10 player of all time already but again he's done everything he should have done with him.

I'm not saying Spo's underachieved with the talent he has. I'm saying you're going too far in knocking the talent that he's had over the previous three years.

[j0Shi]

The one gripe I always had was that Rick is a bit rigid when adjusting the rotations based on ingame performance. I mean, he never does that (unless someone isn't rebounding).

I'm going to say Pop as well. Amongst other things: He will play his bench for 48 minutes if he thinks his starters suck on any given night. I like that.

[Five-ofan]

Originally Posted by grndmstr_c

Just because you disagree with the argument doesn't mean there isn't one to be made.

I'm not saying Spo's underachieved with the talent he has. I'm saying you're going too far in knocking the talent that he's had over the previous three years.

For the record you are saying that in 2012 you think durant and wade was a legit discussion? I didn't say that I don't think there was an argument about wade and Westbrook. There obviously was one and I'd even say my Westbrook opinion was probably in the minority but wade vs durant? Not close

[Five-ofan]

And for the record, the heat are an incredibly talented team. But they aren't significantly if any more talented than the spurs, pacers or thunder. So to say that having been to the finals three times and won 2 titles in 3 seasons with said talent is an incredibly impressive feat. Especially when he's never had a bad coaching season.

[Five-ofan]

And btw I'd also like to point out, cobbling a semi respectable defense out of the parts that Carlisle has here is one of the great coaching fears Iv ever seen. It drives me absolutely nuts that he won't play wright more, but this roster should be the worst defensive team in the nba. Getting them to 19th is incredibly impressive.

[grndmstr_c]

Originally Posted by Five-ofan

For the record you are saying that in 2012 you think durant and wade was a legit discussion? I didn't say that I don't think there was an argument about wade and Westbrook. There obviously was one and I'd even say my Westbrook opinion was probably in the minority but wade vs durant? Not close

Wade put up a PER of 26.3 as compared to Durant's 26.2 that year. Wade also had a higher on-court and net +/- than Durant, and in my opinion was and still is the smarter player of the two. Just the preceding summer Wade, who was only 29 when that season started, had been overall the most effective player in the NBA finals (Dirk's crunch-time heroics notwithstanding), and he was only a couple years removed from posting a PER of 28 (and 30.4 the year before that) - a threshold Durant didn't crack until the year after the Heat and Thunder met in the finals. To be sure, Durant had the better playoff run and was the breakout star of that postseason, which is probably sufficient grounds on which to justify giving him the nod over Wade at the finish line; but to answer your question, yes, I feel very comfortable asserting that there is a legitimate debate that can be had about whether Durant had quite overtaken Wade as an effective NBA performer that season, and I think the statistics and facts I cited above offer abundant support for that perspective.

[#41 Shoot em up]

How bout nobody… and that includes the "great" Greg Popovich. It's not Carlisle's fault this team sucks and has no defenders. Thibs up in Chicago couldn't make these Mavs worth a darn defensively.

[dirt_dobber]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Hmmm...our gm puts together an atrocious front court defensively and signs an underachieving dalembert and a 6'3" blair for center positions. But that damn Carlisle...because.....well just because.

this.

[jthig32]

Originally Posted by j0Shi

The one gripe I always had was that Rick is a bit rigid when adjusting the rotations based on ingame performance. I mean, he never does that (unless someone isn't rebounding).

I'm going to say Pop as well. Amongst other things: He will play his bench for 48 minutes if he thinks his starters suck on any given night. I like that.

I think this is a slippery slope, though. On one hand, it could be that a certain matchup is working and is being exploited, and that's why subs are working more effectively than expected. But the other side of that coin is that a couple players are simply "hot", and there's a decent amount of data out there now that says the myth of the "hot hand" doesn't really exist. So if you fall into a trap of playing someone because they're "hot", then you might be playing inferior players additional minutes because of their effectiveness in a tiny sample size.

Also, I think we've all already seen the negative aspect of Rick's "always be ready mantra". I'm not sure you can play fast and loose with rotations from game to game AND within a game itself. That would just be utter chaos. It seems to me that if you want to adjust your rotations within games based on what is working, you better be pretty set in your game to game planned rotations. I don't have enough knowledge of the Spurs rotation history to know if they do this, but if they don't then I would just chalk it up to a generational level coach in Pop being able to pull something like that off.

[dude1394]

Deandre Jordan - 18 Rebs, blair 15 Rebs.
Dalembert/blair/wright/dirk - 17 Rebs.

Front court ain't getting it done.