2013-14 NBA Thread part 1

The Heat have looked completely out of sorts; turning the ball over with some of the sloppiest play I can remember seeing from them.

 

Wade is older than Otis Nixon

 

Pistons fire Mo Cheeks halfway through his first season as coach:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/pistons-fire-coach-maurice-cheeks-165831433.html

 

Brandon Jennings: Coach Killer.

 

Dumars is apparently hot to hire Lionel Hollins, a button-down former non-scoring point guard, as coach, to replace Mo Cheeks, who replaced Lawrence Frank, a button-down former non-scoring point guard, as coach, who replaced John Kuester, a button-down former non-scoring point guard, as coach, who replaced Michael Curry, a button-down former non-scoring point guard, as coach, who replaced Flip Saunders, a button-down former non-scoring wing guard, as coach, who replaced Larry Brown, a button-down former non-scoring point guard, as coach, who replaced Rick Carlisle, a button-down former non-scoring wing guard, as coach, who replaced George Irvine, a button-down former non-scoring big gumpy forward, as coach, who replaced Alvin Gentry, a button-down former non-scoring point guard, as coach, who replaced Doug Collins, a button-down former scoring wing guard, as coach, who replaced Don Chaney, a button-down former non-scoring point guard, as coach, who replaced Ron Rothstein, a button-down former non-scoring point guard, as coach, who replaced Chuck Daly.

I seem to be spotting a pattern here. A certain lack of imagination.

 

7:58 left, third period. Clippers 83, Sixers 33.

It's worth it for the unintentional comedy.

 

Oh the humanity!

 

Not entirely sure what your point is. Who are they supposed to hire? Former tennis playing hippies? I think you'd see a similar pattern if you charted the past coach backgrounds for nearly any team.

And, btw, you've got a few factual errors in there. Not only is Lawrence Frank not a former point guard, he wasn't a player at all, the dude never even made his high school team. Michael Curry was a small forward/wing, not a point. And a couple of your other alleged point guards (for example, Chaney) were actually more wing guards.

 

When is Joe Dumars going to be held accountable for the mediocrity that is the Detroit Pistons?

 

After losing that game 123-78, the Clips send Elias scurrying to the record books to find out the last NBA team to lose back-to-back games by 40+ points. Right now it's Warriors 109, Sixers 66, 5:33 left.

 

You can bet whenever Lawrence Frank played basketball in black socks and horn-rim glasses on the junior high school schoolyard, he was a non-scoring point guard.

The point is the Pistons, particularly under Dumars, have no particular plan of what to do when they fire a coach (or why).

Most teams, when they decide to fire a coach, analyze what he is doing, what he is doing wrong, and try to bring in a guy who presumably will rectify some of those problems.

If the team is getting sloppy and undisciplined, and the coach is a laid-back easygoing everybodys'-buddy players' coach, you fire him and bring in a fire-and-brimstone ass-chewing disciplinarian.

If the team is stiff and tight and always too hesitant and mechanical, and the coach is a textbook X-and-O technician and stickler for pattern offenses, you bring in a guy who is more freewheeling who will just let them go out and play.

The Pistons don't do that. They hire coach A, hang onto him for a couple years (or less), then fire him and bring in coach B, who is essentially the same guy with a different name and maybe a different hairstyle. I mean, what the hell was the difference between John Kuester and Lawrence Frank?

You could probably argue that Flip Saunders was a bit more laid-back and loose than Larry Brown, but it's not like we were talking Paul Westhead either. And once Saunders was gone, Dumars started running in another parade, essentially, of Larry Brown clones. There has never been any real reason to think the new coaching hire has had any dynamic new ideas the old guy didn't have.

 

For Christmas, I got my 11yo son, the only Sixers fan in Chicago, tickets to see them in Philly against my Pacers in March. Given the direction the Sixers are going, he might remember the gift as the Worst Christmas Ever.