you see Keith Smart took over when Nelson was ejected from game 2 of the Rockets game with like a deficit of 10 points. He got us a win in Hou so that was pretty good.

Smart ran huddles, talked to the players after the game, and kind of bridged the gap between Nellie and the players.

i was thinking the same thing, i just thought i was missing something. like you and hardcore i think in most cases its backup qb syndrome. i dont really think smart will be a bad coach, i just dont see how we can expect that he’ll be better than nellie.

Became a great coach by being Nellie’s assistant, and then taking over for him in some games. I feel that will happen this year. that there’s a chance that Nellie will stay one more year, but only coach 60-70 games this season, so that Smart can grow into the role. If not, he will undoubtedly handle many situations and timeouts during games.

Coach Smart is a solid coach because he’s tremendously good at relationship building. One of his strengths, as far as what I saw in the locker room and at practices, was his ability to make players who are struggling feel better about themselves.

Case in point – Marco Belinelli just wasn’t getting the job done and there was a night where he just went into the locker room and slumped into his chair. Granted, he’s not exactly a loud guy that calls attention onto himself, but the body language was really bad for a young kid that wants to make it in this league. Smart made it a point to walk over and say ‘Keep your chin up, son’ .. I don’t think Marco understood the idiom, but he knew what ‘son’ meant and that was enough to make him feel better. Marco didn’t address the media that night, but I kept an eye on how Smart handles the kid getting down on himself and he’s just really supportive – towards the latter half of the season, Marco wasn’t ever like that despite NOT getting any PT.

I’m not saying Smart is the gestalt here, but he’s done this kind of thing with every player. He’s sort of the good cop to Nellie’s bad cop and sometimes NBA players respond a little bit better to that. There’s no doubt that Nellie is a ‘players coach’, but he takes shots at his guys a lot (both as jokes and in seriouesness) which I think Smart is going to be better about.

If nothing else, I’d like to see Smart with a head coaching job just so we can get some new blood into the mix of NBA coaches. Their brotherhood of retreads is starting to really get on my nerves – granted, the new blood fails often (Sam Vincent, Sam Mitchell). Hopefully, teams are going to start hiring guys that have proven they can a) keep a team together and b) don’t say stupid things (I love the story of Sam Mitchell telling his team to contain Andrew Bynum in a pre-game talk and Bosh had to tell him that Bynum was injured for the past few months).

rumors are starting to make rounds that after SA brushes Phx aside, he may be on his way out – if ever there was a more perfect coach to replace Nelson, D’Antoni would be it

With all due respect to KSmart, his role as an assistant is to pick up the back end of the bench, all assistant coaches do that – it’s an assumed part of the position. If D’Antoni were not available, and GS were rebuilding, then sure give Smart the shot.

But if you have a choice between the two and want to get to the post season the choice is clear. The NBA is littered with “new blood” in the head chairs, just look around Char, Milw, etc. The interesting question is if D’Antoni is available this summer, does GS grab him even though they picked up Nelson’s option? Probably not, but maybe Nelson takes the cushy front office job promised … will be an interesting summer

He has a job in Toronto waiting for him.

He’s not Nellie. Ok, in all seriousness, I’ve been down on Nellie for all the reasons we know too well. But in this upcoming transiition year (what will happen with Baron) it might be better to have Nellie as the coach. My bottom line issue with Nelson is whether he has the capacity and or any desire to change his MO because unless Mulson pulls off an awesome trade and or Cohan goes in to the luxury tax atmosphere, the core of our team will be the same as last season. And we know what that means—no rebounding, the love of threes, and small ball. Need I point out what is happening to Denver would have happened to us without Bynum.

Let’s put it this way. If Nelson pulls one of his mo money stunts or plays hard to get, say aloha and good luck. Otherwise, let’s see what will happen next season because 09-10 will be a much better season for us at leasst financially. Foyle’s salary will mostly be off the books and Harrington and Jax will have expiring contracts unless they are extended. And we will either have $18M of new money if Baron is not extended or resigned. And if i remember correctly, there will be a lot of good FA available.

amazed over the last month how many people here are ready to dispense with Nellie. He got more out of this team than any other coach in the league could have. Period.

This team is flawed. Its young. Its leaders were NBA castaways before Nellie took them on. What gives here?? Is it really all because Brandon Wright didn’t get a lot of minutes? Nellie said recently that he would play the devil himself if he thought it would help win. He’s also said recently that the young guys would be ready for more time next year.

I don’t think we can blame Nellie for the team’s lack of fire down the stretch. Maybe it had something to do with the heavy minutes, but again, I really believe it was the best chance to win. This team lacked reliable depth. End of story. However, the heavy minutes don’t explain the team never showing the defensive intensity they had in they playoffs last year. That was truly impressive. The heavy minutes also don’t explain the terible shooting in the last few weeks. Nor do they excuse Baron for being on cruise control in moments when the team needed him. Or Matt Barnes and Pietrus disappearing for an entire season…

I had the time of my life following this team the last 2 years and I wouldn’t change anything. Nellie has put this team back on the NBA map and its only going to get better from here, even if he comes back next year!

tony.psd needs to do something with that… you reading this, tony? haha!