John Beilein: Continuing his education

jvpertz said:

Couple of thoughts....

1. Great hire for the post Leborn era and a great hire for Sexton and whoever we draft.....

2. The problem is that coaching doesnt move the needle much in the NBA. Bad coaching destroys more than GREAT coaching creates in the NBA. It can help on the margin but at the end of the day talent rules all.....

We beat a 73 win basketball team for the NBA title with TYRON LUE!!! The Spurs under Pop, while extremely well coached, always have had BIG TIME talent. They out draft everyone before they out coach everyone. Same deal with the Warriors.....

Im excited about the hire but the future of this team is completely hinged to tomorrow night.....

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The Spurs have a streak of 22 consecutive playoff appearances and 5 championships. And they did not have 4 allstars at any time or the best player in the game(On a side note, I don't think Lue and Bron could have made the finals year after year in the west). It does not look that bad at all. Having a great coach and an organization surely pay out too.

greenlaker said:

The Spurs have a streak of 22 consecutive playoff appearances and 5 championships. And they did not have 4 allstars at any time or the best player in the game(On a side note, I don't think Lue and Bron could have made the finals year after year in the west). It does not look that bad at all. Having a great coach and an organization surely pay out too.

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They had Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili. While he is a great coach, the talent deserves a good part of the credit.

KilgoreTrout said:

Hard to imagine guys like Sexton, Clarkson, and Love being serviceable defenders, tho.

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Hard to judge Sexton at this point. 19/20 year olds rarely are able defenders.

You know who was near the bottom of the PGs in defensive efficiency in the 17/18 season? De'Aaron Fox. He went from #76 of PGs to #18 in a single season and gained over 3 points in defensive RPM. Irving jumped nearly 2 points in a season.

I don't expect Sexton to jump up to 18 or into positive RPM, but I think hoping he can get to the place where he can be an average defender as a step in the right direction is not out of the question.

I agree, Clarkson will never be good and probably not serviceable. However he has been better than he was last year. His defensive RPM has fallen 1.5 points from his high. If he can return to that, he can be covered for. His role is a spark plug off the bench - and he's good at it. I also don't really consider Clarkson a building block - I consider him someone who could get us something back in trade for a playoff team. He can score off the bench and is on an ending deal. There's some attraction there.

Did you know Love was 24th in defensive RPM this year for PFs? Did you know he was 19th last year? Last year he was virtually tied with Giannis. This season Giannis took a big step up. Love has often been in the Top Ten for PFs when it comes to defensive RPM. Love is solid if you put him next to the right players and in the right system.

So Love has been serviceable. Sexton is too young to write off. I agree on Clarkson, but I think you can cover for him and I don't expect him to be around after February.

CalBuckeyeRob said:

They had Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili. While he is a great coach, the talent deserves a good part of the credit.

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Sure, I did not mean to discredit the talent. It is just they did so well what they got, and Parker and Ginobili are far from obvious good picks. They found them, developed them and got a number of championships and consistent success. It is easy to miss how incredible this is, since at some point one gets used to it.

MirORich said:

It would be a pretty big win for Gilbert/Koby to get Howard to leave Riley/Spo for what some would see as a lateral move. Unless Howard is blocked from being the 1st Chair/Lead Assistant by someone else on Miami's staff. I guess also the Associate Head Coach title would be a promotion as well. If Howard comes here, I'd see him as either being a 4-5 year Coach in Waiting(would he be that patient) or someone he, based off of already having two straight offseasons of HC interview, would only be here for 1-2 years.. That's fine though, because the same could be said of Fernandez, Jensen, or Mosley, if they were brought in to be lead ass't/associate head coach.

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Too late.

DeeThree said:

Too late.

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What’s supposed to be wrong with the “culture” at Meat-chicken?

greenlaker said:

Sure, I did not mean to discredit the talent. It is just they did so well what they got, and Parker and Ginobili are far from obvious good picks. They found them, developed them and got a number of championships and consistent success. It is easy to miss how incredible this is, since at some point one gets used to it.

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The picks of Parker and Ginobili were great. If anything about the Spurs--and Popovich--should be copied, it is their use of draft picks for European players that might not help for years down the road. The Cavs did that with Cedi. But the Spurs have probably added 7-10 guys like that over the Popovich tenure. But I think it is also easy to forget how good Tim Duncan was because he was not a "look at me!" kind of superstar. He was a 10 time first team All-NBA selection and ranked by one group as the 5th greatest player in NBA history. You find one of those unicorns and there better be some titles or you are a bad coach.

https://www.foxsports.com/nba/gallery/ranking-the-25-greatest-players-in-nba-history-100716

CalBuckeyeRob said:

They had Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili. While he is a great coach, the talent deserves a good part of the credit.

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I think that Manu and Parker aren't Manu and Parker if it isn't for Popovich. Sure, they were great, but they became who they are because also because of Pop. And i think that's what a good coach is besides good game planning and adjustments and whatnot. It's also player development, on the basketball side and character side.

greenlaker said:

Sure, I did not mean to discredit the talent. It is just they did so well what they got, and Parker and Ginobili are far from obvious good picks. They found them, developed them and got a number of championships and consistent success. It is easy to miss how incredible this is, since at some point one gets used to it.

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It's funny, I remember thinking the Popovich was a self-serving bastard when he fired Bob Hill and took over the Spurs with David Robinson and Tim Duncan on the way.. but he knew what he was doing ultimately.

Reading the Vardon article there are two things, one postive one negative:
1. Altman's hire w/Dan's approval (that's a good thing, I'm glad this wasn't a Dan hire)
2. From the article: “Of course he’ll adjust because that’s part of what makes him great,” said the rival college coach, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the Beilein hire. “But that complete control, it’s also what makes him great. It’s how he’s been able to have so much success.”

The NBA rarely rewards coaches with this mentality. The whole player/coach dynamic at the NBA level is based on trust, that the coach trusts the player to make the right decisions, that the player trusts the coach that what the coach is drawing up or where he's playing him or when he's playing him is good for both the team an the player..

We shall see. I like that he adjusts to his personal, I like that he gets them playing to their strengths and mitigating their weaknesses, I like that he wins wherever he goes, like that he runs a modern offense. I don't like the control aspect, don't like that he's collecting social security and is first in line at the Del Boca Vista 4PM dinner special.

NIkeL said:

I think that Manu and Parker aren't Manu and Parker if it isn't for Popovich. Sure, they were great, but they became who they are because also because of Pop. And i think that's what a good coach is besides good game planning and adjustments and whatnot. It's also player development, on the basketball side and character side.

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He certainly deserves credit for maxing out his talent. But you can't take the college equivalent of Butler route to the top in the NBA. You need to have great talent--almost always acquired through the draft and usually near the top when you sucked for a short while--and mold that talent to win.

weepinwillow said:

Reading the Vardon article there are two things, one postive one negative:
1. Altman's hire w/Dan's approval (that's a good thing, I'm glad this wasn't a Dan hire)
2. From the article: “Of course he’ll adjust because that’s part of what makes him great,” said the rival college coach, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the Beilein hire. “But that complete control, it’s also what makes him great. It’s how he’s been able to have so much success.”

The NBA rarely rewards coaches with this mentality. The whole player/coach dynamic at the NBA level is based on trust, that the coach trusts the player to make the right decisions, that the player trusts the coach that what the coach is drawing up or where he's playing him or when he's playing him is good for both the team an the player..

We shall see. I like that he adjusts to his personal, I like that he gets them playing to their strengths and mitigating their weaknesses, I like that he wins wherever he goes, like that he runs a modern offense. I don't like the control aspect, don't like that he's collecting social security and is first in line at the Del Boca Vista 4PM dinner special.

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College teams tend to be able to coach themselves to success even when the talent is pretty lackluster. NBA teams are almost entirely talent driven. He can succeed if the talent gets a lot better through the next couple of drafts. But he is not going to coach the 2018-19 roster plus a couple of role players to 40-50 wins.

CalBuckeyeRob said:

College teams tend to be able to coach themselves to success even when the talent is pretty lackluster. NBA teams are almost entirely talent driven. He can succeed if the talent gets a lot better through the next couple of drafts. But he is not going to coach the 2018-19 roster plus a couple of role players to 40-50 wins.

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If your approach is 82 games, and you have a willing team, you can outpace your expectations in the NBA with nightly effort and execution. You won't win most of the bigger games or the playoffs if you get there, but you will get those early season W's, those sleepwalkers in February and the "how many till vacation?" games in March.

Hard to find players willing to play that way over the grind of an 82 game season.

weepinwillow said:

If your approach is 82 games, and you have a willing team, you can outpace your expectations in the NBA with nightly effort and execution. You won't win most of the bigger games or the playoffs if you get there, but you will get those early season W's, those sleepwalkers in February and the "how many till vacation?" games in March.

Hard to find players willing to play that way over the grind of an 82 game season.

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College teams can "scrappy" their way to very good seasons and sometimes a great post-season run. A "scrappy" NBA team is just a lottery team with a later draft pick.

weepinwillow said:

Reading the Vardon article there are two things, one postive one negative:
1. Altman's hire w/Dan's approval (that's a good thing, I'm glad this wasn't a Dan hire)
2. From the article: “Of course he’ll adjust because that’s part of what makes him great,” said the rival college coach, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the Beilein hire. “But that complete control, it’s also what makes him great. It’s how he’s been able to have so much success.”

The NBA rarely rewards coaches with this mentality. The whole player/coach dynamic at the NBA level is based on trust, that the coach trusts the player to make the right decisions, that the player trusts the coach that what the coach is drawing up or where he's playing him or when he's playing him is good for both the team an the player..

We shall see. I like that he adjusts to his personal, I like that he gets them playing to their strengths and mitigating their weaknesses, I like that he wins wherever he goes, like that he runs a modern offense. I don't like the control aspect, don't like that he's collecting social security and is first in line at the Del Boca Vista 4PM dinner special.

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There's more detail over at The Athletic from another who has been covering Michigan: https://theathletic.com/976852/2019/05/14/what-cleveland-is-getting-in-john-beilein/

All he asks of his players, in return, is to listen and learn. Beilein does not want to be a parental figure to his players. He wants to be their coach. The job, as he sees it, is to develop players into their best selves. As one member of the Michigan staff explained on Monday: “At Michigan, we were never caught up in relationships or had those issues. It was business, not emotional. Beilein doesn’t ask you to love him. In his mind, it’s, ‘I’m gonna make you so good, and that’s why you’ll love me.’”

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I think that mentality works in the NBA.

Evidence suggests he will adapt on the control side and is aware of the need to. But I suspect he will have the same kind of meticulous game planning and the same desire to teach and challenge his players to grow. It's made clear in that article that he relinquishes command of the players - he cannot have the same kind of control as he does in college.

Beilein has adapted everywhere he has gone. He adapts his offense and defense. He stresses fundamentals. He regularly turns prospects that have been ignored by other big programs into good players.

There's also one thing a college coach can do that coaches that have only stuck to the NBA may struggle with - identify talent and potential. That's usually left to the scouting department. I suspect Beilein will have a had in interviews, analysis, and be a big part of choosing players. He won't be the end all, but I suspect Altman and Gansey will listen to his opinions closely.

It certainly is an intriguing hire that may help drive interest in the Cavs a bit. Of course getting Zion would do far more and make any coach's life potentially easier.