Depends on whether we continue giving all of the credit for good performances to the players (except Brown) and all of the blame for bad performances to the coach (and Brown).
I know that's just fandom, to a point. Some Golden State fans want Kerr fired right now, for example. I'm generally convinced that fans of any sport can't accurately assess the job a coach is doing.
This is really it isn't it...ultimately we're all forming subjective opinions based on what little we can see, which is basically game performance and results, and deciding who to apportion credit and blame to on that basis. I think a lot of it is to do with our individual philosophy on what a coach should do vs. what the players should do. For example, in a sport like the NFL, the coaching staff play a huge role in a game, they select the plays after each stoppage, they sub players in and out, their fingerprints are all over the game. Other than calling audibles there's very little potential for freestyling or improvisation, which is generally looked on negatively. In a sport like soccer or rugby it's the opposite - once the game starts the coach really just stands on the sideline and tries to scream out instructions, none of which can be heard since the play moves up and down the field so quickly. It's all up to the players at that point, they control what is going on.
Basketball is kind of in the middle - the coach can call out plays or coverages but generally, especially at the professional level, I feel like that's usually done at the player level. They know the general plays and sets they want to run, the coach might call a timeout to run a specific play and he obviously has his substitution patterns, but for the most part I feel like when they do pull up 3s or drive and kicks Joe's not yelling at them from the sideline telilng them what to do every step of the way. The way they play, now that's something that I think they would work out in training camp as a guiding principle, but the actual executing that gets done I feel is largely player driven. Which is why great teams can survive with bad coaches as long as they are all in tune with each other and know what they are trying to do.
Now where the coach starts to earn his keep is when they hit adversity, whether it's during the season, with a string of losses, an injury or something of that nature, or in the game itself, where another team goes on a run and the coach decides to help them out by calling a timeout or making a sub. It's probably this aspect of the game that Mazzulla is being judged and found wanting - because it's during times of adversity that fans look to him to do something, arrest the slide, and if he doesn't, he gets held accountable. Or if we see behavior from the players we don't like (like pull up 3s early in the shot clock, or drop coverage) and it continues, we assume either he's ok with it or he lacks the strength to force the change we want.
BUT...these debates about the coach, and players, are the lifeblood of forums...otherwise we'd have nothing to talk or argue about. The fact that none of us can be proven right or wrong is just the icing on the cake
Topic: Fire Joe! ... or critique Joe ... or defend Joe... or worry about Joe's coaching (Read 784932 times)