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

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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
Legit question. Who’s a better coach? JBB or Ty Lue?
 
Legit question. Who’s a better coach? JBB or Ty Lue?
Ty lue is a champion coach who went up against the best regular season team of all time. Tactically, they are not even close.
 
I just know that I almost never scream "WTF ARE YOU DOING??!" at my TV when JBB is coaching this team.

That... has not always been the case with other coaches.

I'm fine with him.
 
If you are critical of his coaching this season you’re really reaching
He had some head scratching moments early in the season, but it would hard to find much fault since his weird substations at the end of the first wizards game. He’s definitely pushing the right buttons lately.
 
He had some head scratching moments early in the season, but it would hard to find much fault since his weird substations at the end of the first wizards game. He’s definitely pushing the right buttons lately.

The past several games he's been very solid. I don't think you win three straight on the road against .500 or better teams without having your team prepared, employing the right strategy, and making good in-game decisions.

JBB does strike me as not a very inventive thinker on the fly. Our offense needs more diversity. But I also think those things can come with time, and we're seeing him avoid those head-scratchers. This is a young team that's found its identity. Hell, he's only what, 41, 42? The team has consistently punched over its weight class since he came here. We've completely turned around our defense. You do that and you can keep adding offensive wrinkles.

And this roster still has significant challenges. The youth. The lack of depth. Lack of shooting. Sexton's out. But the defense is consistent. We play like we know who we are. The roster has significant benefits that JBB seems to be exploiting, too. It's so much fun to watch.
 
The past several games he's been very solid. I don't think you win three straight on the road against .500 or better teams without having your team prepared, employing the right strategy, and making good in-game decisions.

JBB does strike me as not a very inventive thinker on the fly. Our offense needs more diversity. But I also think those things can come with time, and we're seeing him avoid those head-scratchers. This is a young team that's found its identity. Hell, he's only what, 41, 42? The team has consistently punched over its weight class since he came here. We've completely turned around our defense. You do that and you can keep adding offensive wrinkles.

And this roster still has significant challenges. The youth. The lack of depth. Lack of shooting. Sexton's out. But the defense is consistent. We play like we know who we are. The roster has significant benefits that JBB seems to be exploiting, too. It's so much fun to watch.
Offensive diversity is good but especially with a young team, establishing the basic core identity and principles with consistency and repetition is very important. Master the basics, implement them correctly, and then expand beyond what you already excel at to add new wrinkles. It's very possible that if this core of players and coaches grow together, we see additions to schemes on both sides of the ball the more time passes(and talking about 40 game chunks and seasons more than game to game)
 
Offensive diversity is good but especially with a young team, establishing the basic core identity and principles with consistency and repetition is very important. Master the basics, implement them correctly, and then expand beyond what you already excel at to add new wrinkles. It's very possible that if this core of players and coaches grow together, we see additions to schemes on both sides of the ball the more time passes(and talking about 40 game chunks and seasons more than game to game)
I totally agree and the identity piece is the biggest of all IMHO. I don’t want to nitpick, but can we see DW come off some down screens in the direction of his shooting hand? The only time I’ve seen him run off a downscreen it was the other way so the defender is on his shooting hand. Other than that small critique, I think JBB is really doing great things for this young team establishing identity and improving every game.
 
I totally agree and the identity piece is the biggest of all IMHO. I don’t want to nitpick, but can we see DW come off some down screens in the direction of his shooting hand? The only time I’ve seen him run off a downscreen it was the other way so the defender is on his shooting hand. Other than that small critique, I think JBB is really doing great things for this young team establishing identity and improving every game.
I'm becoming a pretty solid supporter of JBB the more I watch what this team is doing on the court. I'm not out to nitpick either when he's getting so much of the big picture right.

I do agree with the point on Windler, but I just don't think Windler is even a blip on JBB's radar at the moment. I would say that's a blind spot in his vision of the team as a whole right now. I'd prefer to see him giving more consistent minutes to guys like Windler and run some stuff to help DW develop.

It might not seem important now but it's a long season and we might need someone who comes off the bench and gives us some 3 pointers as the season drags on. Windler actually doesn't hurt the team when he's on the floor even if he's seemingly terrified to hoist a shot. He does everything else at a very solid level.

JBB gets locked in on his top 8 rotation and I think it wouldn't hurt for him to sprinkle more minutes in for DW on a more regular basis. Plus it would cut down on running some of our other guys into the ground as much as it seems to happen now. Stevens is getting some minutes and he's showing some confidence in his offensive game. Time to get DW doing something similar. We'll need those minutes eaten with quality bench play sooner or later and it's something that should feel like a normal part of the rotations.
 
One thing I really want to give JBB credit for is how he has been twice able to build a good defense out of two completely different kinds of rosters. At the start of last year, before we got buried under injuries, we had a top 5 defense that was built around LNJ and Drummond's really fast hands for bigs. It was a defense that forced a ton of deflections, turnovers, and fueled the offense by running. Sustaining that is really hard, especially when it relied on an injury prone forward and the biggest waste of talent since CWebb. It requires a lot of motion, a ton of energy and isn't really a viable long term strategy in my opinion. The Bulls tried it a few years back with Dunn/Thad Young and their offense was shit.

This year, our defense is built on the insane length of our frontcourt and running out multiple rim protectors at all times with the flexibility to jump to zone and just frustrate people with length. In some ways, it reminds me of the Jazz D which just tries to funnel players into Gobert (or from what I've read, the Colonels used to do with Issel/Gilmore back in the day). This D feels way more sustainable. Having Mobley as a Giannis/KG level cheat code helps, but the theory of this defense which is focused more on fundamental positioning and a slow pace is much more sustainable than last year's D which was focused on forcing mistakes.

Any other thoughts on this?
 
Legit question. Who’s a better coach? JBB or Ty Lue?

I think most NBA coaches are rarely great at all phases of the cycle of teams in the NBA, especially since tanking has become the norm. I think JBB and Lue are just guys that could be good or bad in different phases of a team. I don't think Lue was willing or had the patience to build up a team from scratch. On the other hand, we have no clue if JBB can coach this team beyond this phase. Lue has a good track record in the playoffs and was very good at break down teams in a 7 game series.

I think JBB is doing very well in this phase of the team and I'm not sure Lue could have every gotten this team to this point even if he had been the cavs coach for the last 4 seasons. There might be a point possibly when we get to the playoffs that it becomes clearer if JBB is the coach for that phase of the team.
 
One thing I really want to give JBB credit for is how he has been twice able to build a good defense out of two completely different kinds of rosters. At the start of last year, before we got buried under injuries, we had a top 5 defense that was built around LNJ and Drummond's really fast hands for bigs. It was a defense that forced a ton of deflections, turnovers, and fueled the offense by running. Sustaining that is really hard, especially when it relied on an injury prone forward and the biggest waste of talent since CWebb. It requires a lot of motion, a ton of energy and isn't really a viable long term strategy in my opinion. The Bulls tried it a few years back with Dunn/Thad Young and their offense was shit.

This year, our defense is built on the insane length of our frontcourt and running out multiple rim protectors at all times with the flexibility to jump to zone and just frustrate people with length. In some ways, it reminds me of the Jazz D which just tries to funnel players into Gobert (or from what I've read, the Colonels used to do with Issel/Gilmore back in the day). This D feels way more sustainable. Having Mobley as a Giannis/KG level cheat code helps, but the theory of this defense which is focused more on fundamental positioning and a slow pace is much more sustainable than last year's D which was focused on forcing mistakes.

Any other thoughts on this?

I think this is pretty spot on. What success we had last year defensively was built on intense effort; this year it's more baked into the roster's strengths, how we switch, and a much more sustainable level of effort. As I've posting ad nauseum in the past couple days, we're much better against the 3PT this year, and though I haven't done the research across all 23 games so far, my hunch is that Markkanen especially but also Mobley are chasing/discouraging shooters off the line just as much as Okoro has played good man-to-man D. That's not the only reason for the drop in Opp 3PT shooting, but it's a big reason--pun intended--and in a 3PT shooting league, it's making a big difference. We seem to be forcing more bad shots, too.
 
I'm becoming a pretty solid supporter of JBB the more I watch what this team is doing on the court. I'm not out to nitpick either when he's getting so much of the big picture right.

I do agree with the point on Windler, but I just don't think Windler is even a blip on JBB's radar at the moment. I would say that's a blind spot in his vision of the team as a whole right now. I'd prefer to see him giving more consistent minutes to guys like Windler and run some stuff to help DW develop.

It might not seem important now but it's a long season and we might need someone who comes off the bench and gives us some 3 pointers as the season drags on. Windler actually doesn't hurt the team when he's on the floor even if he's seemingly terrified to hoist a shot. He does everything else at a very solid level.

JBB gets locked in on his top 8 rotation and I think it wouldn't hurt for him to sprinkle more minutes in for DW on a more regular basis. Plus it would cut down on running some of our other guys into the ground as much as it seems to happen now. Stevens is getting some minutes and he's showing some confidence in his offensive game. Time to get DW doing something similar. We'll need those minutes eaten with quality bench play sooner or later and it's something that should feel like a normal part of the rotations.

I agree that Windler is JBB's lone blind spot, but I wonder if it's positional. Can Windler play anything beside the SF? Otherwise he's got Cedi in front of him. (Doesn't explain the last couple games, granted.) He doesn't bring much on offense--though his shooting is better this year--but he adheres to the Hippocratic Oath on defense: do no harm.
 
jbb has done a great job and I think stevens has played better than windler. Stevens has been knocking shots lately playing solid defense and not forcing anything up. Jbb is doing a great job at developing this guys and hopefully he is developing as a coach as well. The sky is the limit
 

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