User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
|
Demarini, Easton and TPX Baseball Bats
|
AllianceTickets.com has cheap MLB Tickets. Get all your Colorado Rockies Tickets, Seattle Mariners Tickets, San Francisco Giants Tickets and all your favorite baseball tickets here. We also carry cheap Denver Broncos Tickets, Seattle Seahawks Tickets and Denver Nuggets Tickets. |
For wholesale prices on baseball gifts and equipment, check these stores out! |
Page rendered in 0.6123 seconds
50 querie(s) executed
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
I have managed to miss most of the wolves games so far, so I really appreciate the info. I suspect that much of the credit should go to Rick A who is a very good coach. I hoped he could hold things together until Love and Rubio get back and it looks like he might be able to do it.
Mine too.
Yeah he is. The huge wing upgrade helps too.
Edit: Coke to Gold Star. I didn't notice the page had turned, so I clearly need more coffee this morning.
I'm not a huge fan of Brown, and I thought the Princeton offense was a terrible idea, but wow that's fast. Why the hell did they even keep him on through all of training camp?
*This argument not valid if they bring Phil back.
What are the odds that Boozer gets benched for Gibson?
Deng actually sprained/jammed his left wrist at the end of the game last night. This is the wrist with the torn ligaments that hasn't been operated on yet. So, we'll see. That, plus both of their histories and the number of minutes they're already playing so far (both a smidge under 40), means it's going to be a concern all year.
I don't think Boozer gets bench. berg makes a good point about offense, but Thibs is also very, very stubborn. Keith Bogans started all 82 games 2 years ago when he was clearly the worst option. However, his minutes shrunk and shrunk and that's likely to continue with Boozer. Gibson already closes games.
I have been piecing this thought together from Twitter and what Jim Peterson says during games (btw- one of the most truly insightful color guys in the business if you ignore the rah-rah stuff). Adelman has never been known as a defensive coach. He has a few core principles, like channeling dribblers baseline and away from the middle plus aggressively cheating off the weak side to help on the ball, but that is about it. It sounds like he has laid out the broad strokes and is leaving the day to day defensive game planning, matchups, and management to Terry Porter, who is probably the top assistant on his staff. Obviously, he coached Porter (a MN kid) in Portland back in the day and Porter went on to become a head coach who specialized in defense, but struggled with player management and offense. Seems like they could make a good pair if Porter is comfortable in the 1B role.
I have to say, I am shocked that Brown was actually fired. I do not think D'Antoni is a good fit because the team already has gaping defensive holes and the "let Dwight figure it out" strategy is not going to be enough to win a title. If not Phil, then I think McMillan or Sloan make the most sense. Either way, what a weird time to try to hit reset.
Wow, that was quick. I think that its a bit premature, but that is crazy. The worst thing is that the coach that I'd want to replace him is SVG, and that ain't happenning. Buss needs to make the call he could have made a year ago and hire Shaw. That move makes the most sense to me, other than PJ, but I have my concerns about his personal investment.
Oh God no, but the Lakers might be the one team that he could coach to the finish line. Howard and Gasol are enough of back stop against his ignorance of the defensive side of the ball, that the Lakers could succeed. A PHX offense with Howard probably leads the league in offense and is at least a mid-tier defensive teeam.
Buss didn't when they hired Brown, so I would guess no, but who knows. I am guessing D'Antoni gets the gig if he wants it. Kobe likes him, Nash loves him, Phil hates him. Win/win/win for Jim Buss.
I would bet a decent amount of money that Brown could get the Kings to play passable defense and turn them into a respectable team pretty quickly.
Yeah, must suck. He had Lebron, and now he's had Howard, Kobe, and Pau.
Most NBA coaches will never get the chance to coach a star of those talents. And he's done it twice.
We'll see. What I think you are missing is that while Brown was on a short leash, it took the team looking EXCEPTIONALLY bad to get him canned. The Lakers have been waxed four times, and their only win is against Detroit. Also, his decisions to use Ebanks and MWP at the 2, Jamison at the 3, and give Meeks DNP-CDs have been roundly mocked, and given that Buss OKd a two-year mini-mid-level to Meeks to backup Kobe, I think that probably was a big reason for this.
Not all of it is Brown's fault, of course--there are personnel issues and health issues. But the team has looked bad enough in multiple ways that I do not see this as a crazy move. Between Kobe, Pau and Nash's respective ages, and Howard's contract status, Brown was not on Spoelstra's timeline. Doing it this fast gives them a chance to try to push the reset button.
If I were Kupchak, I would try to add Sundiata Gaines and get rid of Duhon or Morris, if the FO will pick up the tab.
By no-win, I mean the standards were outrageously high (nothing short of a championship) and any setback, even the equivalent of a hangnail, causes the town to rip into you mercilessly. Even if you win a ring, you only get a quick exhale before the wolves are at you again.
Fair point. I would add this: Basically, no one has ever really respected Brown's acumen that I can see. Brian Windhorst, for example, liked him personally, but wrote a lot of stuff about his shortcomings as a leader of men and as a strategist in Cleveland. There were "bad vibes" around Brown last year, but the Lakers got the best results that could be expected with their roster. They were a little lucky--Kobe, Pau, and Bynum stayed healthy, and their PYTH was 36-30--but the NBA is a results business and they went 41-25 and won a playoff series. Hard to can the guy.
This year, the results have been dreadful, and people can also again, like last year, point to specific things that Brown is doing that seem dumb. Also, Brown has been very outspoken about his chops as a D coach
--and the Lakers' D has been very bad (much worse than the O, actually). And finally, with the core old and the picks gone, the future of the org depends on keeping Howard. I can see deciding that Brown was not the guy to facilitate that occurring in his role as coach.
This is true.
I never said he was a bad coach. Nor did I say he really deserved it. But, he's been put in some really prime situations.
I did think he was in over his head. He's not a top 5 coach, he's probably not top 10. I'm just not sure a team that is going for it, yet has weaknesses and limitations, can afford to have him. I also thought the Princeton offense thing was grasping at straws.
there's no reason to compound the mistake of hiring him by keeping him past the point where you've lost confidence in him. and that's especially true considering the age of kobe and nash and ka-pau. those guys just don't have enough left in their legs that you can punt a season hoping that they gel sometime in the intermediate future.
the standard here should not be the 2011 heat who went 9-8, but the 2008 celtics, who started the season 29-3. 1-4 just isn't even close to acceptable.
If we're talking about prime situations, I'd argue that going to Cleveland, where the plan was "here's Lebron, you do the rest" until they started trading for washed-up guys, isn't that prime of a situation. Sure, its better than being Randy Wittman, but I don't see "be the fall guy for every loss, even if Lebron tunes out" is some great role.
As far as the Lakers, as RR said, he did about as well as should have been asked with that roster last year. With Howard's back and Nash's leg, things weren't going to immediately become a-okay.
At the risk of verging into the unknowable, I would suggest that his biggest shortcoming was that he came off as more of a dweeb than a leader of men. While there are obviously coaches who overcame that image, I am sure that there is a tipping point where perception becomes reality and players start to believe the media image.
I have to wonder if he will latch on as the "defensive coordinator" at the side of a more established head coach. Might San Antonio make room for him on their bench and give him a chance to rehabilitate his image while working on a successful team? I recall that he worked briefly in the media after leaving the Cavs, but suffice to say that I was more impressed with his work on the 12-13 Lakers.
How do you really measure that- expectancy of job length? Whether you take over a floundering lottery team or a contender, it seems like you get a one year grace period, then a second year to show some progress, and if you show some progress, you get a third year to make get to another level. Is that a pretty typical trajectory? I guess the exception is guys who totally lose the players, like Kuester or possibly Brown here. I think failing to take a decent team to the Finals does less damage to a coach's rep than stagnating in the lottery, but you might get a third year if the roster was altogether hopeless in the first place. Ultimately, I think I would rather have a decent team if I was a good coach and a bad team if I was a bad coach.
Perhaps, but there were rumors both last year and this about grumbling/behind-the-back contempt for him. I am sure more will be coming out in the next few days. The Lakers are 25th in DRTG at the moment. They are 7th in O. Brown has made a point of saying he is the D guy and that D is his calling card. They were 13th last year.
It does appear that I was wrong about the bench, with the caveat that Brown was misusing several guys. It seems that Kupchak concentrated too much on adding shooting and experience and not enough on adding guys who can D up a little. With Howard not back to what he was in terms of explosiveness, things have cratered. Some of that is on Brown; some isn't. One way to look at it is this: would you be excited if your team hired Mike Brown as head coach?
Ebanks was arrested last night on a DUI; they may use that as a way to replace him. We will see.
The FA tracker I used to look guys up did not seem very accurate, so I apologize if these guys signed.
PG- Gaines or Farmar vs. Duhon (or Blake really)
SG- Anthony Parker vs. Meeks
SF- Chris Wright vs. Ebanks
PF- Derrick Brown vs. Jamison
C- Fesenko vs. Hill
I will be interested to see if Bickerstaff uses a different rotation in tonight's game.
Yup.
Gaines just signed in China (like a day or two ago). Think Brown did too. Farmer signed in Isreal (gave up a decent NBA contract to do so). Parker retired.
I'm trying to figure out exactly where the defense is letting them down, and while the numbers aren't good, they aren't that bad either. Teams are shooting FTs very well against them, but that's only an extra point or two a night. Their turnover margin is one of the worst in the game, are they giving up a lot of easy points off turnovers?
Whatever the case is, it took over a year for Brown's defense to finally click in Cleveland, so I'm not sure expecting instant results, or overvaluing the small sample so far this year is appropriate. Though, maybe the expectation is instant results regardless of how fair that may or may not be.
Well, the names out there are Jackson, Sloan, McMillan, Shaw (who supposedly laughed it off today when asked), and D'Antoni. And maybe SVG would like to reconnect with Dwight (kidding). I don't see that there were better options over the summer. Also, let's face it
--while there was some variation in how good people thought the Lakers would be, no one expected this. FWIW, Brian Kamenetzky, usually very level-headed and a Brown defender, mostly agreed with it, as does the guy who runs the Laker TH affilliate site, and he is usually opposed to quick moves. It is easy to say "it's just five games" but the team looked dead, awful, and disorganized. Awful bench or no, some of that is on the coach.
As to the D: the Lakers are historically weak at forcing TOs. Part of that is being old and slow; part of it is Brown's philosophy. They lose the TO category badly every game and almost never score in transition. It is a big issue. They also have a hard time closing on 3s. Brown's decision to play Jamison at the 3 and MWP at the 2 made the issues worse. Also, Howard is at about 70% or so and is not the awesome all-over-the-place anchor they need.
As to Meeks, no one has an explanation, and I suspect it contributed to Brown's dismissal. If Bickerstaff plays Meeks tonight, we will know for sure.
Please no. I don't want to have to cheer for another Lakers superfriends team. I felt dirty enough doing it in 2004 when they had Malone.
Wojnarowski tweeted earlier today that D'Antoni just had knee surgery, and won't be available until late December.
Anyway, sloan in LA would be hilarious.
Hey Bickerstaff, this is just like your old team, huh?
Like I have said, on something like this, I would go more with guys around the team, like the KBros, then with random guys on the net or with pundits. The Lakers had a pretty good year last year; even if people didn't like Brown, it would have been tough to fire him with three years left on his deal after a 3 seed and playoff series win. Here is a link to the ESPN 5/5 on the subject:
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/page/5-on-5-121109-brownfiring/nba-next-los-angeles-lakers-mike-brown-firing
And here are the answers to the question "Was it a good move?" Respondents are Abbott, the KBros, the Lakers TH guy, and Windhorst:
Now, you can argue that guys closer to the team (Soriano has team sources but is not an access guy) are biased or need to maintain access, but with those three guys, plus Windhorst, who dealt with Brown daily, on the "good move" side, I would lean that way.
The Lakers do have roster issues that a new coach won't solve; Beckley Mason, snotty about the Lakers as always, Tweeted today that Brown's firing will make everyone see that the roster "makes little sense." I think that is the wrong way to put it, but I see what he is getting at. And, as Abbott suggests, Nash needs to be Nash and Howard needs to be Howard for this team to be good, no matter who the coach is. But between the #25 DRTG, the weird rotations, the overload on the core, and the dead and uncomfortable atmosphere around the team, the grumbling, and the abysmal on-court results, I think the move was warranted. I wanted Shaw or Adelman to begin with, and I said so here the day Brown was hired.
But why is this on Brown? As I said, I've been a Kobe defender, but why isn't this on the players, particularly the veterans like Nash and Kobe and Dwight? Why should there be a dead and uncomfortable atmosphere unless they're just passing the buck on trying for their coach, much as Melo was criticized for last year with D'Antoni?
In CLE and LA, according to media guys around the team, the players did not feel that Brown was a very capable in-game strategist, nor did they like the way he handled rotations. He took criticism for this during the Cleveland loss to Boston in 2010 as well, as he was seemingly unable to adjust and appeared to be casting about. If the players don't think the coach has a handle on these issues, that will undermine the atmosphere. Also, as Brown said when he was hired, "I'll define the culture." And, personally, I think the atmosphere on a team has a lot to do with the coach, no matter how many big names are on the roster.
As Jimmy said, in some ways, this is not fair to Brown. Windhorst said the same thing. But I can see why the FO did it, and, predictably, the net is abuzz with Phil and D'Antoni rumors.
Also, Shabazz Muhammad was ruled ineligible by the NCAA today, and I am laid up with a back injury. I knew I picked the wrong week to quit drinking.
OTOH, everything went right for me this week in all other areas of life, so I shouldn't biatch too much.
KNICKS VS. WOLVES
1, wright and turner combined for 40 points, 15 rebounds, 7 assists, 5 steals and a block on 13/28 shooting in 76 combined minutes. again, if they can continue to put up those kinds of numbers while jrue holiday and andrew bynum play up to their potential, this is a hell of a team.
2, jrue holiday put up 21 points and 14 assists. he's now averaging 19 and 10+ assists per game in ~40 mpg.
and 3, your nightly dispencer hawesome update: 8 points, 6 rebounds, 5 fouls. i'd say that's a 30:70 hawesome:HAHAwes ratio. he played well, but he got hit with some cheap fouls, and with kwame brown and andrew bynum both in street clothes, he put the team in a bind by getting his 5th foul in the 3rd quarter.
oh, and one bonus, the sixers still aren't very good at getting to the foulline, but they are doing a really good job of converting when they get there, as they're hitting on 81% of FTs on the season.
Memphis is off to a good start. Marc Gasol is putting up like 18/7.5/6 on 58% shooting. Dude is incredible. I'd argue that with Howard banged up he's the best center in the league.
It seems improbable that Jon Barry the color guy could be even worse than Jon Barry the studio analyst, but yeah, he is.
And just now, a turnover when he failed to be out of bounds after taking the ball out of the basket.
They've been a completely different team at home than on the road so far this season. It's really frustrating.
I don't have any data to back it up, but I have read IIRC that young teams are sometimes prone to that. Also, Denver is a tough place to win.
wright: 4 (PER, D-rating, TRB%, STL%)
iguodala: 5 (TS%, O-rating, AST%, MPG, PPG)
push: 1 (BLK%)
I thought this was mostly due to altitude, which shouldn't be an issue for the Jazz.
1) it's like 5-6 games
2)
DW - 5 g, 31.0 mpg, FG: 3.6-11.2 .321, 3PT: 1.8-6.0 .300, FT: 3.2-3.8 .842, REB: 7.0, AST: 1.2, BLK: 0.8, STL: 2.0, PF: 0.6, TO: 2.2, PTS: 12.2, PER: 16.5, avg or so d
AI - 6 g, 36.0 mpg, FG: 5.8-12.7 .461, 3PT: 1.3-4.2 .320, FT: 1.5-2.2 .692, REB: 6.5, AST: 3.3, BLK: 1.0, STL: 1.5, PF: 1.3, TO: 3.8, PTS: 14.5, PER: 14.4, excellent d
I'll take guy #2 every time.
if dorell wright plays ~80 games this season and finishes with a 32% FG%, i'll gladly come in here and eat crow. but when he gets that FG% up to ~45%, it's a whole different ballgame.
i'm sure it'll be written off because i'm the one who's saying it, but that's really not an entirely accurate portrayal of their current abilities.
I would not be surprised if wright's improved this year - he has the frame and lateral quickness to do so. He's not better than iggy on that end.
Also, if you're gonna count things like wright's advantage on the boards, you've got to count the bricks too.
Make no mistake, I think Philly is a good place for Dorell - but you're going way overboard.
http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/8616281/sources-phil-jackson-frontrunner-los-angeles-lakers-job
and where exactly am i going overboard? by measure of PER, wright was a league average player last year while iguodala was only slightly above. if i think wright will get a boost from playing more minutes on a better team, while iguodala will take a hit from being a year older (with arthritic knees) and playing on a team with a significantly less disciplined defense, i don't think it's unreasonable to think they'll pass each other in going in opposite directions.
New Orleans shouldn't be. Especially without Davis and Gordon.
I'm hoping the youngens don't get too discouraged by their slow start. With a 4 game Eastern roadtrip next week, things'll probably get worse before they get better. I'm still confident they'll eventually learn how to harness what they did against Dallas and LA and apply it on the road, but I'm guessing there are gonna be a lot more road L's before they do.
that shouldn't be much of a surprise after that slugfest in boston last night. pulling this one out is gonna take some effort.
I read this as "I shouldn't Blatch too much", which, missing "e" or no, was hilarious.
The context of the remark was, of course, Phil and the Lakers.
just a few things:
1, player of the game: nick young. +25 with 16 points on 7/12 shooting.
2, evan turner and dorell wright combined for 23 points, 18 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and a block.
3, dispencer hawesome: 12 and 11 in 23 minutes. i'd call that an 88:12 hawesome:HAHAwes ratio.
1
2
3
Also, with a CBA with a more prohibitive luxury tax, doesn't it make sense to spend a ton of money on a high-leverage coach like Phil Jackson? I know his salary has been a sticking point with the Lakers before, which seems idiotic to me.
Jim Buss' a much hands on 'owner', and I put that in scarequotes because Jim Buss is not the owner, he's just the owner's son.
Ok, ok, I get it...he wants it to be _his_ championship team, not Phil Jackson's. (I think Phil Jackson has been in this situation before...)
I guess this is where that ownership conflict is. Buss is the owner (or owner-by-proxy), and he _is_ the Lakers as much as anyone can claim to be. OTOH, I think everyone but other sports owners would agree that the Lakers are bigger than Jim Buss, and championships are bigger than one person's ego.
But really...you have to be the guy-who-hires-all-the-guys? And its not enough to be the guy-who-hires-the-guy-who-hires-all-the-right-guys?
Phil would be a good choice to coach the team, provided that he can adjust, and modify the Triangle/not run it sometimes in ways that allow Nash to do his thing. The Lakers are too old and slow to be a great team on D; their bench will do a little better, as it did Friday, if utilized correctly, but will never be good with the current personnel. For the Lakers to actually be a really good team and not just a theoretically good team, Nash and Howard have to be Nash and Howard. In Howard's case, that depends on his back, and the jury is out there. But assuming Nash is OK after the injury, in his case it depends on getting the ball in his hands. As I mentioned earlier, Nash himself needs to make adjustments sometimes as well--this is a different kind of team than other ones he has been on. But there was no point in getting him if they are not going to let him be Nash.
D'Antoni, if it's him, will also need to make some adjustments. This team has neither the speed nor the floorspreaders that his best teams in Phoenix did. Neither guy is a guarantee of success--no coach is--but I would rather have either of them than Brown.
As to Jackson's "parasitism", he didn't trade for Howard and Nash and than make himself coach again, and he didn't fire Mike Brown. Jackson can be a diva and a manipulator, and he has a huge ego. But it is perfectly understandable that he would seriously consider coming back to coach this team.
Right. He didn't fire Mike Brown, but I'm sure he made it known he'd be willing to come back if they did. He walks away from a team on the downswing and makes himself available when they get the biggest fish not named Lebron, and makes it known that he'd be willing to come back. I'm sorry, but there's no way that's not undermining a guy trying to do his job who hasn't gotten a fair shake yet (in this situation). Good for Phil that he's that good and will get brought back on his terms ('cuz I don't see how LA goes in another direction). But you'll have to excuse me for rooting for him to fail this time.
Is there any actual evidence of this?
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main