I'm sorry but you guys saying Israeli basketball is not at the same level as the NBA are INSANE and are just hating on Blatt.
Put it this way; the mid-ranked team in the Israeli top league right now is Ironi Ness Ziona. An enormous metropolis of 38,000 people, that could fill the Q almost TWO TIMES! (tragically there is only room for 1,200 of them in Ness Ziona's state of the art arena). To give you some idea of the massive budget teams, I have attached a picture of the city. Bare in mind the houses you see in the background are other towns, it's just the wee lump in the middle.
http://imageshack.com/a/img907/8417/9GvV6I.jpg
THIS IS THE CALIBRE OF TEAMS BLATT WAS BEATING WEEK IN WEEK OUT. AND YOU TELL ME HIS EXPERIENCE WASN'T NBA LEVEL!!
Okay, okay... of course the examples are unfair and of course Blatt also had big accomplishments with Russia and in Europe with Maccabi and others..... but there is also a reality that on a day to day basis, Blatt was matching up NCAA calibre players against each other.
Now I'm the biggest Blatt fan imaginable. I watch every game purely because of pride in watching our guy do it in the NBA, even though if someone had asked me what Mozgov was 6 months ago I'd have guessed a hair product. But anyone refusing to recognize the ENORMOUS gulf in talent between Europe and the NBA is delusional (yes and I know Real Madrid and CSKA et al are the real comparisons, not Ness Ziona). The fact is it's just about every European player's dream to make it to the NBA, and it's an NBA players (with some exceptions) last resort to go to Europe. It's a simple fact, and it's also a fact that European stars (by which I mean European by playing experience not nationality) (Mekel, Casspi et al) USUALLY (but not always) become fringe players at NBA level.
So yes, Blatt absolutely is a rookie coach, just like you'd call someone moving from a college team (many of which have better squads and bigger crowds than Euro teams) a rookie coach too. And that's not a reflection of their ABILITY is a reflection of their TYPE (not length) of experience.
Now that being said, Blatt succeeded wherever he went. Russia, Israel, Italy etc... and it's absolutely right that just as a player lighting it up gets his shot at the NBA, so should Europe's best coach. Eventually if you win everywhere you go, there is no reason to believe you wouldn't do it at a progressively higher level. Blatt should be embracing his status as an NBA rookie, why does it have to be seen as a negative at all? If anything - it's a positive; we know he has exceptional raw ability, and this status gives him the time to adapt.
Think about it relative to soccer (it hurt be greatly to use that word when my heart is screaming FOOTBALL dammit!). Jose Mourinho. Probably recognized by all neutrals as the best coach in the sport. He first coaching job was a 3rd division Portuguese side. There were no egos, no stars and the opposition was equally terrible. But he won, and won and won, then he got his shot (after winning the Champions League with Porto) with Chelsea, and then Real Madrid. At each stage it would have been easy to say "yeah well look what he as up against",
BUT YOU CAN ONLY BEAT WHO IS IN FRONT OF YOU!!!!
If you look at Blatt and Mourniho's coaching trajectories, they're eerily similar. Both starting at provincial teams, then won major European tournaments with relatively underfunded teams, and then got their shots at the big time (and they're both pretty arrogant - though I think that's a good thing).
So I'm bored of Israeli/Maccabi fans (I'm both too) harping on about Blatt's achievements to date, because we can't know that it will translate into managing the circus of egos and attention that is the NBA, and we can't know that he's basketball's Mourinho. But we can know he's been given the shot and now to just judge it on its merits. And right now he's clearly doing well with a team in transition, but he's also on a learning curve- AND THAT'S OKAY!!
