I'm just happy our old school coach is embracing modern basketball and the versatility of our roster. Plus giving Randle 15 to 20 minutes at the 5 makes the idea of going into the season with Robinson as our only seven footer a little more tenable.
I'm assuming they wanted 06/07 Warriors colours but it looks more like NOP or OKC than the Warriors.
Nike is a menace
Nike is a menace
By You got 14 bricks right there? Go To PostLynx vs Sun was great, if it weren't for A'jas dominance I'd say Napheesa was MVPyup
Also, Aces finally put away an inferior opponent.
Stolen from elsewhere:
Tom Ziller has a fun post on his substack: https://ziller.substack.com/
Tom Ziller has a fun post on his substack: https://ziller.substack.com/
The Era of Collective Competence for NBA coaches and general managers
In which we Remember Some Ineffective Guys
Another day, another GMIB newsletter in the NBA offseason doldrums reacting to a list someone made. CBS Sports’ Sam Quinn ranked all 30 NBA head coaches, putting Gregg Popovich in the middle of the pack and Erik Spoelstra at No. 1. Fair enough. The key takeaway to me isn’t where this or that coach placed, it’s that most NBA head coaches are perfectly fine.
This extends beyond the sidelines, though: a running theme in recent years has been that most front offices are now pretty well-respected. It’s hard to find a general manager working in the NBA that is a true laughingstock. Most NBA general managers are perfectly fine.
Just a decade or two ago, you could find working NBA head coaches who were clearly overmatched and overwhelmed. Certain front offices just made universally panned move after universally panned move. You still have some teams that are stuck in mediocrity — Troy Weaver’s Pistons and Mitch Kupchak’s Hornets come to mind — and there is occasionally a head coach that has a one-season flame-out. But the scale is way off.
Gone are the days of David Kahn — a guy who traded down to draft an ineligible player and who called a veteran Darko Milicic the best big man passer since Vlade Divac — hiring Kurt Rambis to coach his team. (Name a more un-iconic GM-coach duo. You can’t. Oh wait.) Gone are the days when Vlade Divac fires Dave Joerger to hire Luke Walton shortly after his predecessor, the beleagur(ing/ed) Pete D’Alessandro fires Michael Malone to eventually hire an especially cantankerous George Karl. But you know what? Pete D’Alessandro didn’t pass on Luka Doncic to draft Marvin Bagley III. He only invited cameras in the room to document his owner pushing him to draft Nik Stauskas in the top 10.
Walton wasn’t the only Laker Legend to blow a huge opportunity as a head coach in the 2010s (Walton blew two, by the way) — Derek Fisher totally fumbled a high-profile NBA job, then blew a WNBA job too! Do you remember watching Mike Montgomery coach an NBA team? The short-lived Michael Curry era? Brian Shaw? The Tim Floyd eras, plural?
Magic Johnson runs basketball operations for a high-profile team: what a time to be alive. Isiah Thomas almost ruining the Baby Raptors, only to get an opportunity to ruin the New York Knicks for like a decade. (And maybe now ruining the Suns in the shadows? Stay tuned.) Fun fact: Isiah Thomas is the only person mentioned in this newsletter to destroy an entire league.)
Bless you Elgin Baylor, but those Clippers teams. Woof. Speaking of the Clippers: Vinny Del Negro. Speaking of Vinny Del Negro: Gar Forman and John Paxson. Two of those last three names got into a fist fight as co-workers. Bulls fans were praying for mutual destruction.
A perhaps controversial name to include in such a rundown: P.J. Carlesimo. I stand by it: P.J. Carlesimo.
Bless you, Billy King. However: Billy King.
Do you remember Earl Watson coaching the Suns? Does the name Marc Iavaroni ring a bell? John Beilein and those slugs?
Do you remember when Phil Jackson ran the Knicks front office? Jeff Hornacek was his most successful coaching hire, just edging Fisher. Kurt Rambis was the top assistant for both Fisher and Hornacek. Can I share two blurbs from Rambis’ Wikipedia page?
—In 2007, Rambis interviewed for the Sacramento Kings' coaching job. He was a finalist again in 2009 to coach the Kings, and after serious discussions, he was offered the job, but he wanted more than a two-year contract and more money than was offered, so he turned down the job.
Good for you, Kurt. Know your worth.
—On July 12, 2011, Rambis was fired as coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves after compiling a 32–132 record in two seasons with the team.
Oh.
The Kahn-Rambis GM-coach duo can be challenged in sheer ineptitude only by Divac-Walton and perhaps Isiah Thomas-Isiah Thomas. Billy King’s implosion of the Nets is world historic, in my opinion, though contextualized through the horrific reign of Mikhail Prokhorov and his absurd plan for NBA domination. (One more note on the King-era Nets: Bobby Marks, King’s top deputy, having such a prominent ESPN role these days and being regularly self-deprecating about what went wrong in Brooklyn is helpful to the project of whitewashing just how massive a disaster that was for that franchise. That front office successfully did to the Nets what Isiah Thomas tried to do to the Knicks. We should be talking about it more often. Marks being an active media member on the leading media property for NBA coverage these days defangs that a little.)
Lest this have turned into a whole newsletter issue devoted to Remembering Some Ineffective Guys, it’s pretty wild that disasters like those mentioned aren’t really happening any more. Weaver had become persona non grata in Detroit by the time he was relieved of his duties, and Monty Williams — a recent Coach of the Year — had a nightmarish season (in that he gave Pistons fans nightmares with his coaching). We had that whole Adrian Griffin thing last year. That was weird.
The Hornets have been a mess for a while, but haven’t really had poorly-reviewed coaches since Sam Vincent and Mike Dunlap. The jury’s out on Joe Cronin, the GM of the Blazers, and further out on Chauncey Billups, the team’s coach. I’m curious to see if the wind wavers on Sean Marks in Brooklyn, James Jones in Phoenix, David Griffin in New Orleans. Doc Rivers is always a debate topic. There are critiques brewing around Lawrence Frank in L.A, Monty McNair in Sacramento and Mike Dunleavy in Golden State. Rob Pelinka is subject to critique. Calvin Booth is subject to critique. Tim Connolly will not escape critique until and unless Rudy Gobert wins him a championship.
But this is what we’re debating now: whether L-Frank overplayed his hand, whether Doc is coasting off his personality and one championship, is it Pelinka or LeBron making personnel mistakes in L.A., is Pop overrated, is Spo overrated? With more scrutiny in the internet age, the coaches and general managers that NBA team hire and empower are normalizing to a certain extent. Eccentricity is being washed out, and mediocrity is being dismissed more quickly, and as such there becomes a certain sameness and professionalization to the professions. These coaches and GMs are mostly normal now, making mostly normal decisions, which creates a little less entertainment for us blog folk but likely a better experience for fans, players and all of the non-marquee professionals in these organizations.
Another possibility is that NBA owners are more boring these days. The financial stakes are higher than ever, so hiring a friend or hero to run the team is too risky. So we edge a little closer to meritocracy (though true meritocracy absolutely does not exist in professional hiring in this sports league or probably any other).
In any case, this is a good development that makes me a little sad as someone who once reveled in the misfortunes of individual teams. Alas. Here’s to collective competence!
By DY_nasty Go To PostPortland getting a team is coolaye
By friskySHOOKface Go To PostShams gonna get 10-20 million a year in the bidding warHe most definitely sent a "u up?" text to the ESPN execs the moment the last WojBomb dropped
Wild
By reilo Go To Post
Lol
I’m definitely going to some games but come on man 😂
Then again I might get Remix season tickets so 🤔
making hating your profession when youre a former player is even lamer than what Skip did imo.
Skip was just trolling for entertainment Sheryl is in absolute shambles over Caitlin. she cant even do her job properly
Skip was just trolling for entertainment Sheryl is in absolute shambles over Caitlin. she cant even do her job properly
By domino Go To Postmaking hating your profession when youre a former player is even lamer than what Skip did imo.It really makes sense she got on Gilbert's show. Same same.
Skip was just trolling for entertainment Sheryl is in absolute shambles over Caitlin. she cant even do her job properly
Last night there was a gathering of the biggest Pels journalists and bloggers at a small local joint last night where they basically did an AMA for the local fans in attendance. I still need to watch/listen to it, but the fact that something like this happened is pretty cool.
By domino Go To Postmaking hating your profession when youre a former player is even lamer than what Skip did imo.
Skip was just trolling for entertainment Sheryl is in absolute shambles over Caitlin. she cant even do her job properly
The big dickhead of hating is back at it
Sheryl gotta step up and talk about how much Caitlin gets if she wants to be on this clowns level.
By You got 14 bricks right there? Go To PostThe big dickhead of hating is back at itSp Shaq is saying without him, tv contracts that inflate contracts would have been stagnant.
Sheryl gotta step up and talk about how much Caitlin gets if she wants to be on this clowns level.
By You got 14 bricks right there? Go To PostWhere is the homie Sharp at? This should also be relevant to your interests reiloYeah AJ went crazy but Boozer doesn't really know how to lose.
Dybansta vs Boozer
Full game
Highlights
https://www.the-sun.com/sport/12493415/inside-the-nba-shaq-charles-barkley-tnt/
I'm putting money on it: Shaq is causing the drama.
"…the final year could be a turbulent one with stars acting "selfish" and "not caring about other workers," a source claimed.
"This ‘we are family’ speech is only for public relations," a source who works on the show told The U.S. Sun.
"The Inside The NBA crew is a mess, everyone is leaving the sinking ship and it’s a huge tense environment.
I'm putting money on it: Shaq is causing the drama.