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Welcome Lindsay Gottlieb, new assistant coach on John Beilein's Staff

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Female athletes have to work harder, master fundamentals and play smarter to compensate for more modest athletic gifts.

<<<All idiocy aside from my last post. Being serious for once...>>>

No. No they dont. Unless you're talking about women playing against men, this is absolutely incorrect. They're not playing against dudes... They're playing against a collection of people of the same gender with differing skills and athletic ability, just as male athletes do. No difference. Just because they might be playing the game at a lower level than top level men can doesn't change the fact that, to achieve success, they only have to be better than other WOMEN as a team.

Now... If you want to say that female coaches face a higher standard with regards to being trusted to coach male athletes, then I agree.
 
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Most peripheral NBA people I've talked to, are less concerned about her being a female, and more about Gilbert hiring the first Jewish female assistant. Gilbert has established a reputation around the league........

Listen, I personally, don't give a shit about anyone's religion. Have at it....

But Blatt was Jewish, Altman is Jewish, Gottlieb is Jewish.......and there's a heavy Jewish contingency in the basketball operations department.

Again, I don't care........but there is 100% a perception around the league that Gilbert favors people of a similar background. I think the disappointing thing for Lindsay Gottlieb is that in basketball circles, a lot of people are viewing this as Gilbert continuing his trend of elevating people of his faith, rather than hiring the best female or person for the job. That a form of "favoritism" underlines this move.

Bottom line for me, is I hope she crushes her job.......
 
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The only quibble I have with this hire, and it’s very minor, is that Fedor essentially laid out his article in a way that leads you to believe that Altman strongly preferred or was straight up planning to hire Gottlieb as an assistant coach no matter who the head coach ended up being.

Ultimately this is much ado about nothing because it certainly appears that Beilein and Bickerstaff hit it off with their new assistant, which is excellent, but I’m curious what would have happened had the meeting of the minds not gone swimmingly.

I guess ultimately Gottlieb probably would have passed on the role, but I have a feeling Altman would have told the head coach to make it work if she was still willing to take the gig.
 
<<<All idiocy aside from my last post. Being serious for once...>>>

No. No they dont. Unless you're talking about women playing against men, this is absolutely incorrect. They're not playing against dudes... They're playing against a collection of people of the same gender with differing skills and athletic ability, just as male athletes do. No difference. Just because they might be playing the game at a lower level than top level men can doesn't change the fact that, to achieve success, they only have to be better than other WOMEN as a team.

Now... If you want to say that female coaches face a higher standard with regards to being trusted to coach male athletes, then I agree.

At our high school the women played the men in practice a couple times a week.

Our college team would do so as well.

Is this not common?

And even so, just because they are only playing women doesn't mean what I said isn't true. How they approach the game and emphasis on certain basics is a direct consequence of the difference in physicality.
 
I'm not worried about the respect, I'm worried about it literally being a different game. NBA level male athletes just have an entirely different set of physical skills and capacities than female college-level players, and the game itself reflects those differences. There are all kinds of things that work well in the women's game that won't work in the NBA game because it would be completely impossible to execute them against NBA-level male athletes. Then the player development challenge is very different too because you are developing different capacities.

I'm thinking of the difference in men's and women's basketball as a positive. As a coach, you can only do so much with physical limitations to a player but imagine if the baseline limitations were so much higher. The highest end Honda Civic is still lower than the lowest end Audi A7.
 
Most peripheral NBA people I've talked to, are less concerned about her being a female, and more about Gilbert hiring the first Jewish female assistant. Gilbert has established a reputation around the league........

Listen, I personally, don't give a shit about anyone's religion. Have at it....

But Blatt was Jewish, Altman is Jewish, Gottlieb is Jewish.......and there's a heavy Jewish contingency in the basketball operations department.

Again, I don't care........but there is 100% a perception around the league that Gilbert favors people of a similar background. I think the disappointing thing for Lindsay Gottlieb is that in basketball circles, a lot of people are viewing this as Gilbert continuing his trend of elevating people of his faith, rather than hiring the best female or person for the job. That a form of "favoritism" underlines this move.

Bottom line for me, is I hope she crushes her job.......

Is this a problem?

I have never encountered an article talking about this. Or anyone mentioning it until now.
 
Most peripheral NBA people I've talked to, are less concerned about her being a female, and more about Gilbert hiring the first Jewish female assistant. Gilbert has established a reputation around the league........

Listen, I personally, don't give a shit about anyone's religion. Have at it....

But Blatt was Jewish, Altman is Jewish, Gottlieb is Jewish.......and there's a heavy Jewish contingency in the basketball operations department.

Again, I don't care........but there is 100% a perception around the league that Gilbert favors people of a similar background. I think the disappointing thing for Lindsay Gottlieb is that in basketball circles, a lot of people are viewing this as Gilbert continuing his trend of elevating people of his faith, rather than hiring the best female or person for the job. That a form of "favoritism" underlines this move.

Bottom line for me, is I hope she crushes her job.......


Seriously?!? RMC here but how in the world is there a 100% perception across the league. I didn't know anyone you named other than Blatt was Jewish for the sake of it all. I don't know why politics/religion has to make it's way into EVERYTHING now.
 
Ultimately this is much ado about nothing because it certainly appears that Beilein and Bickerstaff hit it off with their new assistant, which is excellent, but I’m curious what would have happened had the meeting of the minds not gone swimmingly.

That's not what happened, so it seems fairly irrelevant. And I'm not sure we have any evidence that Altman would have forced a coaching hire on Beilein had he not been on board. My guess is that Altman tabbed Gottlieb as a female coach he liked and wanted to hire if his coach was on board and that's pretty much what happened. It seems like we're legitimately trying to build a culture here this time around and I don't think forcing an assistant on our head coach would gel with that.

But there's nothing wrong with the GM identifying potential assistant coaches he likes and asking the new coach to interview them to see if it works. That's, like, part of the GM's job.
 
The head boys coach at my school is a female math teacher who played point guard for her college team. Those players never made a single negative comment and knew she was the most qualified person in the building. I think people forget that young athletes were students. Education is a female dominated profession. They have been learning from women their whole lives.
It may be a little different when it comes to a professional setting and on the sports field. Many women I play with talk about issues they have with a number of guys treating them differently because they are female. Others say they rub people the wrong way in a professional setting because the message is comjng from a woman and if their colleague or boss was a guy doing the same thing there isn't the same issue
 
Is this a problem?

I have never encountered an article talking about this. Or anyone mentioning it until now.

In NBA circles, I'd say yes. LeBron was pissed Griffin got let go, and felt Koby was hand-picked for "preferential" reasons. Don't get me wrong, Griffin loves Koby, as do many current and former Cavs players. Griffin speaks openly about how magical Koby is, and rattles off stories about his time with him in CLE.....and even stories about attending Koby's wedding. But there was a stigma before Gottlieb's hire, and her hiring only brings more attention to it.

I'm not surprised you, or the vast majority, haven't heard the whispers......I think I've seen some veiled comments about Gilbert in the past (on this board), and definitely recall Altman having to answer some questions about his faith and in turn relationship with Gilbert. So, it's lingered a bit......

I can't stress enough, how little I care about a person's religious background. Can they do the job or not? That's it for me. But playing devil's advocate, there's a shitload of qualified women to become assistant coaches in the NBA. At a certain point, things stop being coincidental.......the Cavs basketball operations side is far from diverse.....and I want to be delicate here. But you can go through the list, and the trend is pretty striking.......

In terms of it being a problem? I'd say yes, within some NBA circles. Gilbert is seen as a guy who meddles too much and puts personal preferences above what others would consider "better opinions or options". He plays favorites over most qualified....in their opinion.

And to hammer it again, because the last thing I want, is to come off as some type of anti-Semite......because I'm not. I loved the Blatt hiring and thought he got a raw deal. I was actually hoping he'd get another opportunity with us when Lue was fired. I hope Koby is extremely successful although it remains to be seen. On the analytics side, and deeper into the basketball ops, I think it comes across as a bit too "tin foily", but the trend is quite similar in terms of diversity.

And everything I type is a bit unfair to Gottlieb, whose resume truly speaks for itself. I think it's great another woman has an opportunity to be an assistant in the NBA. My disappointment is that in smaller circles, this achievement is being looked at as "favoritism". In general, the masses are applauding the decision, but within the NBA, it's seen as "Gilbert being Gilbert". And that is what disappoints me.....
 
Seriously?!? RMC here but how in the world is there a 100% perception across the league. I didn't know anyone you named other than Blatt was Jewish for the sake of it all. I don't know why politics/religion has to make it's way into EVERYTHING now.

Yeah.... it's kind of a weird situation. And I agree with your overall assessment of today's culture.

But equality is of the upmost importance right now. I'm not trying to beat around the bush, but there's a feeling Gilbert leans towards certain people. Maybe it's coincidence, I don't know. I've got a friend who works for the Cavs (not on the operations side) and he immediately made a joke about Gottlieb being hired. He said since he's "half-jew, I think I can work my way to Assistant GM in the next 2-3 years". It's a light-hearted joke, but most jokes are rooted in some truth, right?

I worked in basketball operations for several years, and the guy who initially texted me about the hiring was a former colleague from FSU, who applauded the Cavs for hiring a woman assistant, but think her credentials suck compared to a lot of her peers. A lot of Cal Bear fans were even questioning if she should be retained as their coach.

2011 - 25-10
2012 - 32-4
2013 - 22-10
2014 - 24-10
2015 - 15-17
2016 - 20-14
2017 - 21-11
2018 - 20-13

It's solid, but not amazing. Certainly not compared to a lot of her peers over the same time frame. There are quite a few women drawing attention:

Courtney Banghart
Vanessa Blair-Lewis
Katrina Merriweather
Chris Dailey

But I hope Gottlieb does well.......period.
 
At our high school the women played the men in practice a couple times a week.

Our college team would do so as well.

Is this not common?

And even so, just because they are only playing women doesn't mean what I said isn't true. How they approach the game and emphasis on certain basics is a direct consequence of the difference in physicality.

The Purdue men never played the Purdue women and they won a national title in the late 90's. They knew eachother and made a point of that, but no, its silly if they played. Back then Brad Miller was our starting center for example, what girl pro or not can compete with that.
 
The Purdue men never played the Purdue women and they won a national title in the late 90's. They knew eachother and made a point of that, but no, its silly if they played. Back then Brad Miller was our starting center for example, what girl pro or not can compete with that.

At FSU the male team managers and walk-ons often scrimmaged against the women’s team.

The games were generally pretty close.

The women wanted every crack they could against the men, but keep in mind, with different size and weighted basketballs, neither coach was enthusiastic to let their players scrimmage.

I do recall a female player or two getting into open runs with men’s basketball team, and more than holding their own. I also recall watching Jennifer Rizzotti basically dominate a male pick-up game at UCONN with male camp counselors from all over country (mostly D-I players).....that was fun to watch....
 
At FSU the male team managers and walk-ons often scrimmaged against the women’s team.

The games were generally pretty close.

The women wanted every crack they could against the men, but keep in mind, with different size and weighted basketballs, neither coach was enthusiastic to let their players scrimmage.

I do recall a female player or two getting into open runs with men’s basketball team, and more than holding their own. I also recall watching Jennifer Rizzotti basically dominate a male pick-up game at UCONN with male camp counselors from all over country (mostly D-I players).....that was fun to watch....
Not at all saying you're lying, if it happened it happened, but it's a little hard to believe. There's the famous story of the US women's soccer team losing to a bunch of 14 year old guys etc. and basketball is a remarkably athletic sport. In my softball circle of over 100, there are good girls who simply do not make mistakes and know what they are doing and can place the ball where they want but field the best guys against the best girls and it'd be a bloodbath
 

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