SlamOnline: Hate him or love him, Don Nelson’s on top

I wonder how many championships Phil Jackson would have if he never got to coach Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal etc;

Here’s the problem. Jackson got to coach those guys because they wanted him to coach them. Jordan basically hand-picked him to be his coach after getting Doug Collins fired. Magic got Paul Westhead fired and, the story I heard was: on the first day of practice said to Riley: “You coach the defense, I run the offense.” Whether or not that story is true, let’s be completely honest: Magic had a reputation as a coach-killer and he decided NOT to kill Riley. Riley knew how to coexist with him.

Jackson’s second run, with the Lakers, happened because Shaq said, essentially, “Jordan wanted to play with that guy, so I do, too.” No star player has ever, when given his pick of coaches, said, “You know who I want, I want Nellie!” Honestly now, do you think that Kobe would have stuck around, given all the drama in LA, with Nellie as his coach the way he did with Jackson?

When Nellie has had gold-plated talent handed to him (eg, Chris Webber, who might have been the second-most-talented PF of his era) he’s driven it away. In a league that is about the players, as a coach you have to sublimate your ego and let the players feel they’re the most important thing. Nellie has never been able to do that. It’s why Webber bailed. It’s why Baron quit on him.

In Chris Webber, Nelson not only had one of the most talented players on his generation, but a player who was, quite possibly, the ideal PF for the style Nelson wanted to play – great hands, great passing, reasonable ball-handling, great up-and-down-the-floor abilities. And Nellie blew it.

Managing your player’s expectations and experience while keeping them happy is a huge part of being an NBA coach, and Nellie isn’t very good at it. His relative paucity of talent is, ultimately then, his fault.

Or be like Phil Jackson, the Forrest Gump of head coaches. To be fair, he does have the same speaking voice and general posture of Herman Munster.

He just had that one bad season with New York

and the NYKs were better that year under Nellie (34-25), than JVG (13-10). probably b/c Nellie ran the offense more through Mason (and his 61% TS%) instead of Ewing (and his 51.6% TS%). that Knicks failure was due to Ewing’s selfishness on offense more than anything.

his inability to manage a roster effectively

That’s false. He’s turned several bad teams into good to excellent teams.

Clearly, he’s not a defensive technician or a great communicator with his players.

He coaches to the strengths of the talent on the roster. For this roster it’s double teams, rotating and getting into the passing lanes.You’ve seen it this year when they put in the effort and during the last playoff run, that, when executed, his defensive game plan works well enough to win.

You have no idea what kind of communicator he is with his players. Why assert it as if it’s something you know as fact?

He’s an enabler, not a developer; a passive-aggressive alienator, not an up-front teacher.

Again, you do not know this. Why state this as if you do? I’m not saying I know this is false, but the burden of proof is on the accuser and you don’t have any. Keep in mind you are stating this as an absolute. IMO, if he’s feuding with a malcontent or a player that overrates his own talent then I side with the coach. We’re lucky that he’s one of the few coaches left with the clout to call out anyone on the roster.

If he would have been able to develop his rotation one or two players deeper in 07-08, the Warriors could and should have won more than 48 games.

Like who? POB and Kosta? The two studs he refused to play and are now flourishing in the NBA under non-evil coaches? I’ll give you one thing, that’s a new criticism.

Anybody who asks the question, "what would Phil Jackson have done with the same talent?" implying that Nellie is on the same plane as a coach like Phil Jackson, just doesn’t know hoops.

That is actually the opposite of what he’s saying. The gist of that point was “take this roster and give it to the most accomplished coach in the NBA, in terms of championships, and he’ll still lose a lot of games because you can’t win with no centers, no power forwards and two one-dimensional ball hogs as your two best veteran players”.

 

The street ball thing is in transition, which is good IMO. If there is an easy basket, take it. Otherwise they almost always run plays in the half court.

The most obvious set offense is when the center is above the arch and has the ball and a guard a uses the center as a screen. He can hand it off and the guard can drive either way or the center rolls into the lane. Or the guard can cut to the hoop and the center can make a pass for the layup or an open shot. There’s a bunch of different options on that one set. It’s obvious because the center is beyond the three point arch to start and handles the ball, although he almost always ends up under the basket in the end.

The other one, which is I guess even more obvious, which is the two-man post up. Most often, Maggette posts up and guard runs his man by and Maggette either hands the ball off, passes if the defender gets hung up, or (most of the time) goes one-on-one. They do this with Monta and now with Morrow. They used to do it with Baron and Mitch Richmond.

Otherwise, it’s a matter of taste. I like watching up-tempo. It makes sense to me to try and get an easy basket if it’s there, if not, back it out and run a play.

It’s not like Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson are here anymore where it was look for an easy shot, if it’s not there, jack up a contested 3 with 20 on the shot clock.

Quick, rename poll to coaches who haven’t reached the NBA finals lol

especially right now. Most of the people in this thread are looking into the past, where has been successful and had a hall of fame worthy career.