• Changing RCF's index page, please click on "Forums" to access the forums.

John-Blair Bickerstaff: Currently The 6th Longest Tenured Head Coach

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

Has JBB Turned the Corner?

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No

    Votes: 9 37.5%
  • The Playoffs are the True Test

    Votes: 11 45.8%
  • Injuries forced his hand, but he learned from it

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • People are way too hard on him

    Votes: 1 4.2%
  • He needs to play CPJ more

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • What's not to like?

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Jim Chones' wall-to-wall counseling session with JBB worked

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    24
And I’m not saying he has been good throughout his career.

I think you’re reading but not digesting what I’m saying.

You say you don’t want the next Mike Brown with LeBron and can see JBB like that with Mobley, I get that. No one wants that.

But, again this is the biggest reason I’m a fan of him currently, do you also think it probably wouldn’t be the best idea in the world to get rid of a coach that all the young players, including Mobley, have bought into?

You can’t see why some of us think that may be a disaster waiting to happen?

Coaching hires are not a guarantee, especially with a fucking Dan Gilbert franchise.

Truly? I think it's way easier to can him early than late. It becomes almost impossible after they make the playoffs considering all the extenuating circumstances.


This is why, also, I've talked about taking a big swing in the trade market. Because the timeline has been sped up. And making a big swing becomes harder later. As the team improves our future picks become worth less.

As some of the other young guys approach the end of their rookie deals, they become worth less.

Its exciting to have a player who alters the course of a franchise this fast but it also means your timeline for building the team shrinks.


20 games. We'll come back in 20 games.

EDIT: Had the Cavs landed a rookie requiring way more time to develop? Then a good motivating coach is fine for a year or two. But...we got the best rookie in the draft and the most impactful defensive rookie I think I've ever seen.

Just changes expectations.
 
Last edited:
Brother, the very next year Memphis went 34-39 and improved their winning percentage drastically AFTER trading their best player.


And again it begs the question WHY didn't Memphis keep him? They've consistently won in a small market for a lot of years. They generally know what they're doing.


But OK we shall use absolutely none of JBBs prior coaching record against him I guess?

Positive though that if his prior stops had shown tons of promise people would be using it for him though.

Again, I think you're overestimating in a number of ways. Memphis went from .402 in JBB's last year to .466 under Jenkins. Improvement, sure. Drastic improvement? They missed the playoffs. They also dumped Conley that offseason and went a different direction. They have since been a .500 team. Great. Right now they look to be a perennial first-round out.

You're making Memphis mgmt out to be the Indians/Guardians of the NBA. They had some horrible years. I suspect the glory days of Conley/Gasol are shining too brightly.

I'm just saying, for all the things you can criticize about JBB--and there are plenty--it's weird to act like there's some track record of failure based on an interim year in Houston and an interim year + a full year in Memphis. It's a small sample size at the very least.
 
Again, I think you're overestimating in a number of ways. Memphis went from .402 in JBB's last year to .466 under Jenkins. Improvement, sure. Drastic improvement? They missed the playoffs. They also dumped Conley that offseason and went a different direction. They have since been a .500 team. Great. Right now they look to be a perennial first-round out.

You're making Memphis mgmt out to be the Indians/Guardians of the NBA. They had some horrible years. I suspect the glory days of Conley/Gasol are shining too brightly.

I'm just saying, for all the things you can criticize about JBB--and there are plenty--it's weird to act like there's some track record of failure based on an interim year in Houston and an interim year + a full year in Memphis. It's a small sample size at the very least.

I think the fact that those two franchises had such a short leash with him is fairly telling. They didn't need to see more.

Two straight teams that have, let's be honest, done a lot of winning over the last 15 years.

That's concerning.
 
Truly? I think it's way easier to can him early than late. It becomes almost impossible after they make the playoffs considering all the extenuating circumstances.


This is why, also, I've talked about taking a big swing in the trade market. Because the timeline has been sped up. And making a big swing becomes harder later. As the team improves our future picks become worth less.

As some of the other young guys approach the end of their rookie deals, they become worth less.

Its exciting to have a player who alters the course of a franchise this fast but it also means your timeline for building the team shrinks.


20 games. We'll come back in 20 games.

You know Rich.

For one of the more pessimistic posters on this board you certainly have a lot of faith in the franchise that hired Mike Brown multiple times and them making a coaching change that completely washes away the risk of pissing off the young players and being a win in the long run.

Wish I had that same positive outlook on this as you do.
 
And I’m not saying he has been good throughout his career.

I think you’re reading but not digesting what I’m saying.

You say you don’t want the next Mike Brown with LeBron and can see JBB like that with Mobley, I get that. No one wants that.

But, again this is the biggest reason I’m a fan of him currently, do you also think it probably wouldn’t be the best idea in the world to get rid of a coach that all the young players, including Mobley, have bought into?

You can’t see why some of us think that may be a disaster waiting to happen?

Coaching hires are not a guarantee, especially with a fucking Dan Gilbert franchise.

Exactly. Let me put it this way: I think the jury is out on JBB. There've been promising signs this season, especially. This team has made significant improvements on defense. He has them punching above their class. For as weird as this roster is, he was making it work well when it was healthy. Downsides: He has issues with in-game adjustments, especially--which may be what's giving people the Mike Brown flashbacks--and rotations. I think he can improve on them. I think the roster can get better.

With a team this young, there's no closing window. No need to panic. The alternative could easily wreck the progress we've made.
 
I think the fact that those two franchises had such a short leash with him is fairly telling. They didn't need to see more.

Two straight teams that have, let's be honest, done a lot of winning over the last 15 years.

That's concerning.

Tell you what, I'll spot you Houston. They saw JBB and said, "Pass, no thank you." Great organization, lots of winning since the mid-2000s. From 2006 to 2020, they never had a losing record. Their worst record was .500. Under Bickerstaff. Okay.

Memphis had two good runs, 2003-2006 and 2010-2015. At their best, they went to the WCF once. In between those runs they were either slightly above .500 or much, much, much worse. I went back and counted: they've had 11 head coaches in the past 18 years (since they moved to Memphis). They're back to being a .500 team now.

I just don't understand using Memphis as some benchmark of organizational insight. But I see there's no swaying you from this. Like you said, we'll return to the topic down the road.
 
Brother, the very next year Memphis went 34-39 and improved their winning percentage drastically AFTER trading their best player.


And again it begs the question WHY didn't Memphis keep him? They've consistently won in a small market for a lot of years. They generally know what they're doing.


But OK we shall use absolutely none of JBBs prior coaching record against him I guess?

Positive though that if his prior stops had shown tons of promise people would be using it for him though.

Obviously I was holding another conversation, but how has it not been brought up that Memphis cleaned out their front office the off-season JBB got let go from there. That seems like important context here, no?

More times than not a GM wants “their guy” and JB wasn’t Wexler’s guy, he was Chris Wallace and Fizdale’s guy.

And I’m supposed to take that as some kind of “he sucks” proof?
 
You ever wonder why a franchise that was extremely well run at the time like Houston didn't keep him on, even after having a winning record in that 1 season?

Or why Memphis fired him after 2 seasons?

And Memphis wasn't tanking. Conley and Gasol were on that team. They traded Gasol at the deadline because they were out of it.

What has he done to earn this type of stalwart defense?

This is confusing to me that a coach with a pretty Or track record has this many vocal supporters.

Memphis, meanwhile traded their best player after firing JBB and then got a lot better with the next coach the following season with an extremely young roster led by a rookie.

Houston got a lot better the following season, too.


I'll lay off of JBB. In 20 games, we'll revisit what everyone thinks of him.

So game 39.

EDIT: Houstons record the season before JBB. 56-26

After 57-27.

With JBB? 37-34. And Harden didn't miss one damn game.

And led the league in total minutes....shocking I know.
What did you have our record being after 20 games? Did you have a predictions somewhere?

It just seems like a setup to try to judge him over the next twenty games in a schedule that continues to be among the most brutal in the NBA until February.
 
There have been a number of coaches through the years in every sport who guys play hard for, but that make a lot of bad decisions in the flow of the game and poor clock management decisions.



I don’t pretend to be a basketball genius. He drove me crazy in a game earlier this year where he kept Stevens on the floor when it felt like he was just killing us. I didn’t get it. But just because I don’t get it doesn’t make it a bad decision.



I try to look at lineups and the analytics behind certain lineups, and I still didn’t get it, but I try not to say someone is wrong who makes a living at something unless I hear their thought process. In those cases, I’m not going to be able to ask him what he was thinking, so while it appeared dumb, I’m willing to concede it’s possible I’m not seeing something .

What I know is wrong is some of the purely math decisions he’s made at the end of games with clock management. This isn’t something that requires high level basketball knowledge. This just requires having third grade math ability coupled with a little knowledge of the game and how they play out at the end.


I love the effort the team is giving and I give him a lot of credit for that. We come out prepared at the start of games and so he’s doing a lot right.


But that end of the game situational math shit drives me crazy. It’s in direct conflict to the fight for every win and loose ball attitude that he’s been successful at instilling. Last night, it was like he was content with a close loss, when it was winnable. We probably don’t win, but he didn’t really give us the chance to.



Once you use that last timeout, from that point forward when you have to inbounds and go the length of the court, any team up three is going to continue to foul you rather than let you get off a tying shot. It was just obvious and yet he seemed unprepared for it



Every move he made was just incredibly dumb from the timeout all the way down to inserting Love down 5 with 4 seconds left when he should have been in for the last three possessions when you need someone to throw the ball down court. Too late man



Ricky choked in a major way, but you can’t control that, so you still keep making the smart decision. Once he missed the first and asked JBB whether to miss or make, JBB telling him to make it was just so dumb. You’re conceding loss.



It’s low percentage to miss, get offensive rebound, and be able to kick for a three, but not as low percentage as making it, hoping great free throw shooters miss both, because otherwise they’re just going to foul you and run the last seconds off the clock without even a shot to tie



You’re very likely to lose anyway, but you still give a bunch of guys who have tried their ass off a chance. Ricky got too cute later when he did try to miss and barely skimmed the bottom of the net, but missing was still your best chance to win and Rubio is a heady player who isn’t often going to screw up that badly often. Plus it was already too late anyway. JBB was a step slow in ever decision in that last minute.



Taking the last timeout was the major screwup that he just kept compounding with poor decisions the rest of the way. Playing for steals and hoping for two free throw misses out of Paul or Booker. Not having someone throw deep three possessions earlier than when he did. Not having Love in there when you’re just going to foul anyway, so his defense is irrelevant.


There is a 90% chance he didn’t cost us the game. Someone was going to have to make a hard inbounds and contested three to simply tie and then make a stop. All low percentage shit. But calling that last timeout when he did, that’s the math he created.



If that’s not your strength, and he’s already in a short season made multiple poor clock management decisions, grab some nerd analytics kid with with a quant background to lay out the simple math for you and have him in the ear of your assistant coach down the stretch.



I’m not saying he cant do it himself if that was his only job, but some guys are particularly poor at clock management when they have 5 other things to worry about. Guys who are bad at it tend to stay bad at it. It’s not their strength in tight games when the pressure is on. He’s not a guy who is good at late game strategy and quickly calculating if I do x, they’ll do y, and then we’re fucked.




He’s kind of like a bad poker or chess player player where he’s only thinking about his own hand or his move, rather that what his opponent has in their hand or move they likely do to counter.



Being an NBA coach is such a great gig, and there are all these areas he’s good at. Being a guy who keeps the locker room together and guys play hard for is a great skill. Someone like a George Karl who had a great basketball mind never could figure it out.



Plays off a timeout and clock mangement. This is always where he ends up with his balls showing. It doesn’t have to be that way.



Ego management is the top skill as a professional coach and he appears to be excellent at that. There are a thousand guys who understand clock management and can draw up a play. Be self-aware and manage your own ego as well as you do others.



I always think the longest tenured and successful coaches are the guys best as identifying bright assistants and being the more CEO type coaches. It’s rare to have all the skillsets and be likable at the same time.



He’s got the respect of the players and does a bunch of things right. He’s got enough to worry about. Just find someone bright and delegate that shit and you’ll get all the credit and be viewed as the genius and keep cashing huge paychecks for the next 30 years.



Poor clock management leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, including players. It moves the focus from all the things he did well that even had us in the position to win.



Monty Williams has the better team, and you could argue JBB had his team better prepared and outcoached him for 46 minutes. But Monty worked him that last two minutes in every way.



So he’s done a really good job in many respects, but you can’t be bad strategy and clock management guy when you’re a team that hangs it’s head on defense. The close ones we’ve won are because our guys got stops. We’ve lost a few close ones where he made multiple just basic strategy and clock mgmt errors. That’s the difference between being a good coach and great coach.



He’ll get a total pass because we’ve played the best teams and his team has kept it competitive and our best player is out. He should get a pass as you aren’t expected to win those, but he’s gotten some hot shooting out of unexpected places and it would have been nice to steal one. Those games were closer than I expected and he gets credit for that. We are an offensively challenged team right now and the guy who held to get stops is out.

This season has exceeded expections, but that’s largely because Mobley exceeded all expectations. So when he’s back, you better understand now one cares about how many games we were supposed to win before we got some freak player. There are new expectations.



So good job, but you better get that end of game shit figured out when Mobley gets back. He’s simply so good that he will keep you in many games, and that’s a weakness as a coach that will get continually exposed. Lot of articles about other coaches telling him privately how lucky he was to get Mobley and get to coach him. That’s certainly true, but it also comes with a different expectation. You’re no longer a tanking team as Mobley is too good to allow it. Your timetable has moved up and if you’re losing games because of bad decisions at the end, you’re not going to be the lucky guy who got Mobley for long.



Everyone have a great Thanksgiving. I’m going to eat some turkey.
 
Team has been infused with talent.

He can't manage late game situations. He can't figure out how to best use his spot up shooters. And he can't figure out how to expand the rotation to buy some minutes. Every game is the same lately. Early lead, lose it late in the 3rd, offense stalls out, Garland gets tired.


He wanted to start Okoro. He's got him now. He's making him look like a g-leaguer.


Better coach and this team could win 45-50 games.

It's gonna be a lottery team unless he gets the Lloyd pierce treatment.

Mark this post. 200 bucks to RCF if I'm wrong.

I really do think there is a bit of an element of opposing teams just turning on a switch to an extent. So I think SOME OF these close games against top teams are a bit misleading.

GSW for example...we really never had a chance. Great that we "played tough" but it was clear once GSW started really trying, they massively outclassed us.

Part of that is coaching but part is talent
 
The grass is always greener when it comes to Cavs head coaches.
 
You know Rich.

For one of the more pessimistic posters on this board you certainly have a lot of faith in the franchise that hired Mike Brown multiple times and them making a coaching change that completely washes away the risk of pissing off the young players and being a win in the long run.

Wish I had that same positive outlook on this as you do.

It's easier to hoist a new coach on young players than old vets.

Veteran-laden contenders largely pick their own coach these days, as in BKN.


You are right though. Essentially since we first hired Mike Brown it hasn't been good.

I mean you might even say historically bad. Not one of those guys went on to prove themselves after being fired here. Not Brown or Scott or Blatt or Beilein.

But if I have faith!

It's nice to see you admit that I actually AM rather positive. Moreso than I get credit for tbh.
 
What did you have our record being after 20 games? Did you have a predictions somewhere?

It just seems like a setup to try to judge him over the next twenty games in a schedule that continues to be among the most brutal in the NBA until February.

OK 40 games.

Doesn't matter.

I expect the team to wear down and fade as the season goes on due his coaching style.

We aren't able to sustain injuries because the end of the bench is either awful or he won't trust them.

But I expect this early part of the season to probably be the highlight.

I just don't think his coaching style is conducive to winning over a schedule this long. Feel like he'd be a better college coach where rotations can be shorter and you don't have to worry about to back to backs or even really 2 games in 3 nights with trips across the country in between.
 
We’ll know eventually, but I think @Rich is being pretty logical.
 
Fwiw I just looked this up.

Our record last year after 19 games?

9-10.
 

Rubber Rim Job Podcast Video

Episode 3-13: "Backup Bash Brothers"

Rubber Rim Job Podcast Spotify

Episode 3:11: "Clipping Bucks."
Top