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.
See, this is the difference between you and me Rich.
You’re viewing this as a black and white issue. JBB is not a good coach, that is your outlook on him. Won’t change, you don’t care. Why no one likes talking with you, no room for movement in the conversation.
I have never said JBB is a good coach. In fact, you can probably go find a post from me a few weeks ago saying just that and that I think he’s an average coach who gets way more hate than he deserves.
I’m in that gray area. I want to see if this guy learns as the team as a whole learns for a number of reasons.
Reason 1: this is the most important one for me. NBA history is littered with failed coaches who were given young rosters filled with highly drafted players that failed because they couldn’t keep the attention and minds of a young group, often times to the detriment of the long term development of the players. JBB has clearly proven he has this teams entire focus and attention and that they are fully in tune with him. That’s rare to find with a young group in the NBA. I’m not about giving that up, not yet. It stagnates down the line or he loses the group, then we’ll talk. Until then, hell no, cause this is, IMO, the best way to grow a good young team.
Reason 2: I want Mobley being fed every opportunity he can get to expand and grow his game with the expectation of building an entire franchise around him and JBB has already proven to me he will put him in that situation. He’s putting a lot of guys in that situation, asking them or encouraging them to do more, provide more, expand their games. I don’t think it’s a coincidence Ricky Rubio is having a career year at age 31.
Reason 3: you have to take steps forward as an organization when you’re getting deeper and deeper into a rebuild. This team is taking a huge step forward to this point this year. Barring something wild happening and the team forgetting how to play basketball, this group is about to make a huge leap in win total. That in itself is an encouraging sign where most teams won’t can a coach.
Reason 4: I don’t think he is done growing or learning as a coach, and what he provides culturally to the locker room with a young group makes it so I am okay with giving it some time to see if he can fine tune his offense, his rotations, his in game feel, and yes, his clock management as he himself gets more and more experience in close games with the team trying to win.
It’s not a black and white thing with me. He’s not a good coach, he’s not a bad coach, but goddamn do I think it would be bad if they moved on from him after this season with how this young group responds to him. Good way to lose a bunch of young players minds or piss some of them off.
Young NBA teams are fickle, the history of the league proves that time and time again. I don’t want to fuck with that right now when we have a guy who is able to reach these kids.