The blog is going to take a look at some NBA storylines that interest us and debate. We decided to tackle the bench leadership first.
The NBA has 4 brand new coaches. They are all coming into vastly different situations, but how will they each fare with their own unique set of expectations in their first year? Let’s get the writers’ thoughts.
AS – Quin Snyder: Where do I start… google Quin and the most popular searches involve cocaine, divorce and affairs. He probably landed in the right spot, as illegal drugs may be harder to obtain in Salt Lake City. He has a young team with 2 guards trying figure out how to play in the NBA, and a second option in Hayward parading as the franchise player. My general opinion of Quin from what I can remember is as a good recruiter, which is not particularly helpful in the league. However, I seem to recall him being excellent with young guards. I might have made that up, but I don’t think so.
Prediction: Exceeds expectations
Steve Kerr: schooled by Pop and Phil, seems to be set up for a long run in Golden State. I believe he will manage personnel better than Mark Jackson, but I also think there is less to work with than meets the eye. He has surrounded himself with great basketball minds, and the defense will be improved. However, injuries, difficulty implementing triangle principles and unfairly high expectations will plague Kerr all year. Still, he made the right choice in teams, and I see a deep postseason run for them in the next two years. Just not this year.
Prediction: Underachieves
David Blatt: Steps into the best situation by far. He has smart veterans and the best player in the world. Lebron and the rest of the team has been downplaying their chances, but anything short of a championship will be viewed as a failure because LBJ is involved. David will put a terrific offense on the court, but his defensive tactics will lag. The Cavs will struggle with team chemistry for the first half of the season but gain steam down the stretch.
Prediction: Meets expectations
Derek Fisher: Not good. Being a good player, good locker room guy and having played for Phil does not equal a good coach. But, hey, I also thought Jason Kidd was a bad move. Wait, nevermind. Knicks struggle with rotations and utilizing Melo, who in turn complains to the media 2.5 times a week. Derek Fisher realizes coaching is hard, and that he cannot foul players blatantly from the sideline and get away with it from the bench. He tries to force a trade to Seattle, then retires unexpectedly from coaching.
Prediction: Vastly underachieves
RP: Quin: At first I was reading “illegal drugs are harder to obtain” as a bad thing. I need to reevaluate myself this morning. I know almost nothing about Quin Snyder except he’s going to coach a basketball team that isn’t very good, so it might be a rough go. I figure it’ll be easy enough to play the popular NBA style of close shots and tons of threes and not disappoint too much, but there’s so many roster questions for them it doesn’t really matter.
Kerr: This team is a lot deeper than you’re giving them credit for. They have backups at three positions that could almost certainly start for many NBA teams right now. They somehow still have ammunition to take a swing at acquiring another frontcourt player, too. Despite the common perception of them being offensive juggernauts, they were actually around league average in offensive production. I don’t see how Kerr can’t get more out of these guys than Mark Jackson, but I do expect some defensive regression. Every coach that has tried to implement the triangle who isn’t Phil Jackson has failed, so I think they should give up on that REAL quick, but I think Kerr is smart enough to realize the idea of a system is inherently flawed. I mean, his Phoenix teams (I know he GM’d there, but he still had some input) never played the triangle, and they almost made the Finals once. Also Shaun Livingston is going to be great here.
Blatt: I could coach this Cleveland team to 55 wins. Seriously, I don’t think their head coach could possibly be a detriment. I guess maybe if tried to kill someone on the team, but insane stuff notwithstanding it’ll be cool. LeBron won 62 games with Mike Brown coaching and his second and third best players were Mo Williams and Anderson Varejao, and he’s a lot better now. I’m not going to pretend like I know anything about Blatt at all, but my point is this team is going to be incredible regardless of what he does.
Fish: This dude definitely should have taken some time off before pursuing a coaching career. I’m not convinced that Phil has solved the toxicity of New York’s management yet, nor that he’ll be able to. Their roster is bad. Like, I just opened up their depth chart on ESPN and it’s worse than I thought it was. Their frontcourt is going to be an absolute disaster. The only position that looks well-stocked is seriously shooting guard, and just to remind you, that’s Iman Shumpert and JR Smith. Carmelo’s gonna love those checks but hate this basketball.
NS – Quin Snyder: Quin brings me back to my college days when Illinois was very very good at basketball. Snyder’s Mizzou teams were a regular fixture in a game that took place in “The Lou’” and allowed me to yell things like “Quin Snyder has a girl’s haircut” and “Quin Snyder’s favorite song is ‘White Lines’” which was probably not true since it’s about the dangers of cocaine usage. The 04-05 Tigers team’s best player was Linas Kleiza and they did terribly. I’m willing to say that Quin is probably a fine coach and Kleiza was a fine college basketball player, but he still got beat by Bruce Weber and Rick Barnes coached teams that year because Deron Williams was on the Illini, and PJ Tucker and LaMarcus Aldridge were playing for the Longhorns. Gordon Heyward is probably the NBA equivalent of Linas Kleiza and a coach can only do so much.
Steve Kerr: I’m really excited about the Golden State Warriors. The team is loaded and they could use the exact same system as last year with just a couple of tweaks to how they staggered their rotation, and they would improve offensively. I’m guessing Steve Kerr will want to do a little more than that, whether it’s triangle-lite or a more Princeton style, it doesn’t really matter. The press loves Steve so as long as the players aren’t getting into altercations with each other on the court and they make the playoffs he’ll probably win coach of the year.
David Blatt: The guy will be fine. His team is loaded with talent and some NBA writers are already talking about him as a genius. He would win coach of the year except that honor is going to Kerr. My hope is that this will be the first of many international managers brought into the NBA. One of the great joys of European football is listening to people give press conferences in their second or third language and occasionally saying something that does not translate correctly. Unfortunately Blatt grew up in Massachussets, so anything he says that offends will be offense intended.
Derek Fisher: Every time I see him in a suit I flash back to the lock out and how ineffective this “locker-room” guy seemed at getting the players union to unite. He does push the Knicks further towards the polar opposite of the Cavs. Lebron is inclusive and wants to make all of his teammates like playing with him where as Melo would probably be fine going one on five on offense. Phil Jackson is one of the greatest coaches in history and is now moving into a different, but probably not entirely foreign to him front-office role, whereas Lebron James is still playing basketball and acting as the Cavs GM. David Blatt has been coaching professional basketball since 1993 and will be hailed as a genius even if his offense is just have Kevin Love set picks for Kyrie Irving and LBJ, whereas Fisher was brought in to be the fall guy when this Knicks teams is still terrible three years from now. It’s OK, the Lakers job will probably be open then.
So overall, the blog is not sure on Quin, but we all agree it probably won’t matter. We disagree on Kerr, but that is more about the roster depth than the actual coach, though the type of offense he implements will be intriguing to track. Basic agreement on Blatt and Fish, though I think that the Cavs will take longer to gel than most.
Let’s keep the debate going in the comments. Whose progress will be the most interesting to follow this season??
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