Rating Coach Scott (WE WANT WITTMAN BACK !!!)

NarlCavs said:

The entire organization from top to bottom should be on the clock and questioned from now on. I've been all in on the rebuild and patiently building through the draft but it's past time to actually attempt to put together a roster with legitimate NBA talent rather than half filled with no talent stiffs. Give some support to your young core talent. I still believe it can be done without harming cap space and flexibility.

Have no problem questioning Scott and don't feel he's the greatest coach but it can't all be put on him. Does say something when at most I might only have interest in bringing back 6 or 7 players on the current roster (some of those I don't even feel overly strong about) and feel the other 8 or 9 would never be missed if they didn't return.

I also wasn't as thrilled as some others might be with the Dan Gilbert defensive first tweet. I'd prefer to be a team that's strong at both ends and not overly focused on one area. Cavs need to learn from every mistake from the past.

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These two things don't go together. If you are patient, then you wouldn't say its past time to put together a better roster. Season one was a throw-away, seasons 2 was last year, considering this is season 3, and you're saying its past time, I assume you wanted them to make a move prior to this season? That's not very patient.

Anyway, I think anyone with a brain can guess where one of the complaints is coming from: Speights. It's who he is. He's a trouble maker who likes to stir shit up when he isn't getting 30 minutes a game.

It would be total bullshit and a sign of a poor organization to fire a coach whom you've given no chance to succeed. YOu have the GM openly saying he'd like to land in the lottery again and he puts together a roster that is designed as such, and you then lay that on the coach? If they fired Scott after this season my opinion of Gilbert would go from very high to very low, and my hopes of a turn-around would be slim. You can't keep changing coaches every few years w/o actually giving them a fair shot. And this roster is not giving a coach, any coach, a fair shot.

Re: Byron Scott's answer says it all

gourimoko said:

Aren't we tanking.. I mean seriously, aren't we trying to lose games? Why are we blaming Coach Scott for anything in these games? Kyrie isn't as badly hurt as the team claims and neither is Waiters, but it's easier to lose with them off the floor. Coach Scott isn't calling time outs.. So what.

So long as we lose, I'm happy. We're not going to the playoffs, so let's get real... How do we advance the team's interests? By advancing in the draft.. How do we do that? We lose games... It sucks, but thems the rules..

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I agree completely, I'm just concerned that some of the poor choices we've seen him make aren't the result of him tanking. Look at the Miami game. I really doubt he was actively attempting to tank that game, yet he still made a lot of boneheaded decisions.

Re: Byron Scott's answer says it all

Doc Shakalou said:

I agree completely, I'm just concerned that some of the poor choices we've seen him make aren't the result of him tanking. Look at the Miami game. I really doubt he was actively attempting to tank that game, yet he still made a lot of boneheaded decisions.

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I have a problem with telling the coach he needs to make all the right decisions on the court all the time while the Front Office gets a free pass to just chill out for 3 years. If one is trying to lose, both get to try and lose.

Either way, what we've got here is an article citing almost exclusively players, and I'm guessing all of the ones cited will be guys who aren't going to be here. I'm doubting the FO really cares what they have to say.

Clearly reads like Casspi to me as the one who complained. And I can see CJ being the one who defended him.

Regardless, this team was a developmental team last and this year, and although we expected greater improvement this year, we didn't expect to have our 3 best players lose significant time. I think we were showing nice improvement, particularly after the trade, and then Kyrie went down and things collapsed. I don't consider myself a Scott apologist, but I don't really see how blaming him for this makes sense. And my greater argument against firing him is: who would we replace him with? He's tight with Grant and until this article, I've not heard any "whispers" that ownership is dissatisfied with him either, knowing that this was a developmental stage (Year 2 of the rebuild). I agree with others who said that next year is the year to carefully evaluate if he's the coach to take them to the next level.

Blaming Scott for not calling timeouts and poor substitutions is par for the course, but until I hear substantial conflict or disfavor from players and/or management/ownership, this article reads to me like a forum post. No one likes to lose, especially with the way we've been doing it lately.

abraxas said:

Clearly reads like Casspi to me as the one who complained. And I can see CJ being the one who defended him.

Regardless, this team was a developmental team last and this year, and although we expected greater improvement this year, we didn't expect to have our 3 best players to lose significant time. I think we were showing nice improvement, particularly after the trade, and then Kyrie went down and things collapsed. I don't consider myself a Scott apologist, but I don't really see how blaming him for this makes sense. And my greater argument against firing him has to do: who would we replace him with?

Blaming him for not calling timeouts and poor substitutions is par for the course, but until I hear substantial conflict or disfavor from players and/or management/ownership, this article reads to me like a forum post. No one likes to lose, especially with the way we've been doing it lately.

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This is what I don't get. How am I supposed to ignore the obvious improvement that the team was showing prior to the injuries? Are to pretend it was a fluke, and THIS team, the one w/o KYrie and Dion and Varejao, this is the real team? I think not. The team that had a winning month in February, that was more close to the real thing, and that should factor in to judging Scott.

Re: Byron Scott's answer says it all

Rich said:

I have a problem with telling the coach he needs to make all the right decisions on the court all the time while the Front Office gets a free pass to just chill out for 3 years. If one is trying to lose, both get to try and lose.

Either way, what we've got here is an article citing almost exclusively players, and I'm guessing all of the ones cited will be guys who aren't going to be here. I'm doubting the FO really cares what they have to say.

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I don't really get what you're saying, also I haven't seen the article you mentioned. The front office hasn't gotten a free pass. They caught a lot of shit for their draft picks at first. People have cooled on them because their picks seem to have been the right choices.

Also this is the first season I've really judged Byron at all. I'm not saying I'm anti-Byron, I just have some concerns about his in game decision making. I do love what he's shown when it comes to developing the youngsters.

Re: Byron Scott's answer says it all

Doc Shakalou said:

I don't really get what you're saying, also I haven't seen the article you mentioned.

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See post #527 upthread.

we didn't expect to have our 3 best players lose significant time.

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If that is the case than management is stupid.

At least in Kyrie and Andy's case the it would be more surprising if they didn't miss significant time for injury than the fact they did.

At what point does the front office get with the program and bring in competent back-ups for both knowing they will go down most likely for at least one good stretch a season?

Are we really going to build next season's team around the hope that Kyrie plays 77 plus games when for 3 seasons now he has shown zero ability to do so?

If I am Byron Scott I am pleading with management to get me a legit back-up PG so that the season doesn't get side tracked or lost when Kyrie inevitably misses time.

Rich said:

This is what I don't get. How am I supposed to ignore the obvious improvement that the team was showing prior to the injuries? Are to pretend it was a fluke, and THIS team, the one w/o KYrie and Dion and Varejao, this is the real team? I think not. The team that had a winning month in February, that was more close to the real thing, and that should factor in to judging Scott.

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I don't think anyone is suggesting we ignore the improvement they made. Like I said, I don't think he's a bad coach. I just have concerns about some of the choices he makes mid-game.

His use of timeouts is pretty poor, his stubborn refusal to deviate from his standard rotations is infuriating. He refuses to let the game dictate who's on the floor. If Dion is on fire, it doesn't matter. When it's time he's going to hit the bench and he's going to stay there. Like when Zeller was having a great game against Miami but couldn't buy his way back in. I get sitting him at first because of the foul trouble, that's no excuse to leave him there.

He doesn't seem to be very adept at drawing up plays on the sideline or making adjustments in the game. He does have a lot of strengths and is a good leader. I think he could be a great coach, he just needs strong assistants who can draw up the plays and he needs to be more flexible when it comes to his rotations.

I'm hoping some of these trends are just a product of the tank.

Rich said:

These two things don't go together. If you are patient, then you wouldn't say its past time to put together a better roster. Season one was a throw-away, seasons 2 was last year, considering this is season 3, and you're saying its past time, I assume you wanted them to make a move prior to this season? That's not very patient.

Anyway, I think anyone with a brain can guess where one of the complaints is coming from: Speights. It's who he is. He's a trouble maker who likes to stir shit up when he isn't getting 30 minutes a game.

It would be total bullshit and a sign of a poor organization to fire a coach whom you've given no chance to succeed. YOu have the GM openly saying he'd like to land in the lottery again and he puts together a roster that is designed as such, and you then lay that on the coach? If they fired Scott after this season my opinion of Gilbert would go from very high to very low, and my hopes of a turn-around would be slim. You can't keep changing coaches every few years w/o actually giving them a fair shot. And this roster is not giving a coach, any coach, a fair shot.

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Maybe I should have written it's time rather than it's past time. Guess I'm just tired of watching no talents be part of the regular rotation. I'm more looking to make some upgrades next season and don't want the Samuels, Pargo, Quinn level players to be around anymore. Not looking for big money moves but there is and has been legitimate NBA talent that is available at reasonable prices.

Scott and everyone else should be more open for criticism next season since I think we should see the organizational thinking changing somewhat. Hopefully the Cavs finally have some decent health too.

nime said:

the guys complaining (Gibson, Livingston, Speights) won't be back. The comments mean nothing.
Kyrie, Dion, T2, and Zeller are the core and they have improved under Scott.

Cavs need to win next year. If they don't, LeBron will get his pick.

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So now its 3 players, are you sure? A couple posts back it was just one. How did you assign "blame"? Did you just pick free agents or was there a method to your madness?

Ho hum. Wake me up when the front office fields a team with actual talent. I'll take those complaints more seriously when the organization actually try's to win ball games. The past 3 years have been all about development. Fans and scrub players are complaining about garbage time wins which could be the difference between 3rd and 6th most ping pong balls. Byron has stuck with it for 3 years, developing one of the top young back-courts. We could have some scrub on the bench like Mike Dunlap and be stuck in mediocrity for ever because our star players wouldn't develop.

Birdy89 said:

If that is the case than management is stupid.

At least in Kyrie and Andy's case the it would be more surprising if they didn't miss significant time for injury than the fact they did.

At what point does the front office get with the program and bring in competent back-ups for both knowing they will go down most likely for at least one good stretch a season?

Are we really going to build next season's team around the hope that Kyrie plays 77 plus games when for 3 seasons now he has shown zero ability to do so?

If I am Byron Scott I am pleading with management to get me a legit back-up PG so that the season doesn't get side tracked or lost when Kyrie inevitably misses time.

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I think Livingston is a heck of a back up. Same with Ellington.

If the Cavs believe that Scott can be a championship winning coach, then he should be kept. But if they think the team will have to win in spite of him, then he should be let go after this season.

I guess this artcle comes done to whether or not you think this is real journalism, info leaked by an agent, info leaked by the front office, or made up BS. Jason usually reports the administration's party line. Suprising to see it come from that direction unless the team was not interest in keeping Scott.