Justin Jaudon

You're right. He's doing good, not great.

That is precisely my point.

So you're saying that anything less than an 8-game improvement in the first season of a coaches tenure taking over a bad team is a failure on his part? I guess Boston should have fired Stevens after that -16 game first season, and Mike Malone should clearly get the axe this year, right? And Toronto really should have fired Dwane Casey after only improving their horrid team by 1 his first year? And Stan never should have gotten a second year; he only added 3 wins to Detroit his first year. The real keepers are guys like Kidd and Quin Skyder who made big improvements right away for rebuilding teams, right? How are their teams year 2?

This is his 14th season, yes. It's his eighth full 82-game season, for the record. Five of those eight seasons have been winning seasons. The strike-shortened season, Milwaukee was just under .500. The records of teams the year he got fired? Phoenix:25-26. Chicago: 9-16. Milwaukee: 16-16. (Stupid front office, bad start due mostly to injury, stupid front office). Only one of those years did he have a player who was even close to a top-20 guy in the league (Kidd). But I really don't need to give you his resume. You know his resume. You know that he inherited a terrible Chicago team, and in year 2 they were great. You know he did the same thing in Milwaukee. But you think it's funny that I don't want to fire him year one in Orlando...

But you do realize that covering for different players' weaknesses requires having other players who are capable of doing that, don't you? SVG has had an elite rim protecting Center in both Orlando and now in Detroit (also, in Miami with Shaq). That is how he can allow players to jump around and get out of position outside, because they don't have to worry about defending the paint, because one guy handles that by himself. Orlando does not have this, so they must work together to keep guys out of the lane, which causes them to have to be really athletic and smart otherwise (hint, all our perimeter defenders except for Dipo are either really not athletic or really not smart) to keep teams from lighting them up from outside. That is why as a whole this team is very active on defense, because they have to make up for their own lack of athleticism or intelligence, but they still are bad on the perimeter because that activity is spent also covering for the interior defensive troubles. They "stick an arm in to disrupt a player that might try to score while his defender is still there" because only Dipo is capable of defending guys 1-on-1 and through the PNR, so even on the perimeter it's defense by committee. This isn't rocket science, it's just basic analysis of what I've seen every game this year. We don't have the players to cover for different players' weaknesses, because there are just too many players with too many weaknesses, and only one or two players capable of handling their own assignment and covering someone else's (and none of those guys is great on the interior). What exactly in my post did you disagree with? The part where I mentioned how our players nearly all are poor defenders, or the part where I reminded people how bad we were last year? I suppose you can argue that first part (though I don't see how, really), but the second part is just a matter of record. With eleven games left, Skiles has already helped improve the wins more than any season during this rebuild - by one win, but, again, 11 games left. He's not Pop, but he's done a solid job as far as is recognizable at this point in his tenure.

I keep forgetting how much people love to hate coaches. I keep hearing this babble about Skiles' defensive scheme being outdated, but nowhere do I see even an understanding of what his scheme is. Now we are complaining that we don't leave scrubs open enough? Tell that to Kris Humphries. Everyone loves SVG's d, but that scheme is designed to do exactly what we are now complaining Skiles' does too much of, which is double team off of stunts and PNR's (Skiles' scheme really doesn't do that enough, probably, but let's not let actually watching the games and understanding our real weaknesses get in the way of our scapegoating). I think anyone who's actually watched the games this season has seen certain players that have a tendency to over-rotate and get out of position (Payton, Gordon, Napier, Dedmon, Mario, to some extent Watson); other players don't rotate aggressively enough (Vuc, Nicholson, Harris when he was here, Frye when he was here); others are pretty solid by now, but struggled early (Dipo, Evan), and others have been pretty solid on rotations all year, but are just not great athletes (Jason, Ersan now that he's here). Now, when multiple players have problems with team defense, one might expect it's the coach's scheme, except that the problems are spread out into different areas. Some of our guys struggle to close out on threes, but Dipo and to some extent Evan are really good at that. Some of our guys struggle to defend the ball-handler on PNR, but Dipo is great at that, and Jennings is average. Some of our bigs struggle to cover the PNR, but Dedmon is good, and Jason is not bad. Blaming Skiles' defensive scheme for this teams' defensive troubles is like blaming Skiles' offensive scheme for Payton's poor mid-range shooting. On the whole, this team is full of players who are either always going to be bad defenders, or are too raw to yet be good ones. Skiles wasn't going to come in and make Fournier an all-defensive candidate. He wasn't going to come in and turn Vuc into Marc Gasol, or Nicholson into Taj Gibson. He has helped some of our guys (including Vuc and Fournier) get better, but their limitations will always hinder them. Others, like Payton, Gordon, and Dedmon, he's had to break down, because they have bad habits (Gordon and Dedmon are responding fairly well, while Payton is responding like a 5-year-old who doesn't understand why he can't spell "love" as "luv"). Oladipo has responded extremely well to Skiles' defensive coaching, and is legitimately very good after being actually below average last year. The problem is that some people here seem to think that Skiles was inheriting this great team, full of untapped potential on defense (why, I have no idea, since at most 4 guys on the team could even be considered potentially good defensive players, and three of those guys were so raw they may has well have been wearing diapers on the floor). Basically, Skiles had one guy coming into this season who was ready to step up and be a very good defender: Dipo. And lo and behold, he has stepped up and become a very good defender. I think people were confused about Elf, because they saw the physical talents and assumed Skiles would magically be able to implant the knowledge of how to play the most difficult defensive position in basketball into his head via Johnny Mnemonic/Matrix style digital upload (Elf-"I know defense", with all the enthusiasm, of... well, Keanu Reaves). Gordon has responded well, and is now a pretty decent defender most of the time, but anyone who thought a 20-year-old kid was going to suddenly be Dennis Rodman because he got a defensive-minded, disciplinarian coach was remarkably naive. I'm not saying Skiles is the second coming of Rick Carlisle. I'm saying we have no idea what he is yet, because IT"S HIS FIRST YEAR, and he took over a 25-WIN-TEAM. If you guys want to become the NBA version of the Raiders, fine. But I'd rather be maybe a bit more patient than bringing out the pitchforks on the coach before his first season is up, when the team has in fact improved.

Well, you certainly post more, but I've been pretty consistent in support for the reasons you mentioned. Not really challenging the title, just saying there are others here who've never written him off.

This too. I like Skiles just fine, but I will never argue he's as good a coach as SVG. That's just silly.

That is interesting, though I still think it has to do with personnel and spacing. Detroit has one guy who draws tremendous attention inside, so Tobes can iso away from him and guys don't want to come off. Even without the %s, Detroit always has multiple capable shooters on the floor. Jackson is a better shooter than Elf, and everyone knows that. KCP may be in a slump, but he can/will hit threes and opposing teams know that. Morris has been deadly from outside recently, and teams know that as well. On the other hand, with Orlando, he mostly played with Elf who only shoots a decent percentage because everyone knows he won't try unless you give him 6 feet of space. Vuc's strength was that he scored from multiple places within the three point line, but players were still never really scared to leave him to help on guys isoing, because Vuc was never really a lob target or a danger on cuts to the rim (though he is very good at drives). Tobes gets better spacing in Detroit, because that team is set up to get spacing. It's not really an argument about %s but spacing.

Ding, ding, ding. Anyone who doesn't recognize why those two guys are playing better where they are is just grasping at reasons to blame Skiles for the troubles this team is having. Tobias was always a good player, but he didn't fit on this team with these players. He needs shooters around him. Frye needs a player who is adept at drawing people into the paint so he can stand out there and shoot open threes. That was Orlando's issue with those two guys: not enough shooters to get Tobes enough iso touches, no drive and dish elites to make use of Frye's shooting. It's why I've said this team needs a PG and/or a C change since before the season started. If anyone is to blame for this season, it is Henny for being too patient with guys' limitations (not that I really think Henny has done a bad job, just that some of his solid gambles haven't paid off while the ones that have don't really fit together - basically, ****ty luck on his part).

Hopefully, you then realize that professional basketball is his job, one he's done successfully as a player and coach for longer than you've been alive, and thus you see that his decisions are less uninformed and more different from the ones you would make. I didn't like the way the team has closed out the last two games either, but clearly the guy is trying something out. He hasn't shown much reluctance to toy with lineups, and why should he now, considering this is basically NBA purgatory until the end of the season. It's likely he's judging how guys react down the stretch and how they play in certain lineups to gauge what we need to do in the off-season. He has stuck to his guns on not playing guys who aren't ready (Mario) so that they don't develop bad habits (like what Stan did with JJ) and not playing guys who play like they don't care (Elf) so that they lose the bad habits.

I thought the officiating was trash both ways. Nicholson fouled or traveled on nearly every shot he made. Beyond that, this is the first game I've been truly pissed at Skiles over. I get why he likes Ersan, he moves really well on D for a big guy, he does. But he made so many bonehead plays, from terrible shots to terrible defensive decisions, that my wife kept asking me why he was still in there. More than that, though, Dipo getting almost no looks in the 4th is unreal. He carried the team in the 2nd and 3rd, was absolutely dominant going into the 4th, and then because Drew hit a couple shots we rode him for the rest of the game. And once he started getting plays called for him, he stopped committing to screens so he could cheat out for 3's he wouldn't take. I get riding him for a couple minutes, while he was hitting shots, to let Dipo breathe; But he should have been yanked when it was obvious his only thought on offense was to score. Also, Payton was terrible in his first game back. It just sucks watching Dipo and Evan play near flawless basketball (yes, that last TO for Dipo sucked, but his overall game was amazing on both ends; and Fournier's D in the first was shaky, but DeRozen is going to do his thing sometimes, and he figured it out more in the second half) and we still lose because we are hamstrung at the 1, 4, and 5 right now (Though I think Dedmon has played really while Vuc has been out - I still get why he's not closing games out, because he can't hit free throws and he still tries to make plays on offense at really bad times, but overall he's been really solid).

Starting?

This is what bothers me about him. I see the progression with shooting %s and shot selection. But the discipline issues on the court, the effort and focus, has gotten worse, if anything. I'm not writing him off. Maybe it's gotten worse because he is fighting through some mental walls, and he'll come out better in the end. But at this point I'm not comfortable betting on a guy who has so much trouble understanding how to play within a system both on offense and defense. At least we should bet small anyway, as in bet on him being a great bench PG.

I think people need to remember that this hasn't been a normal rebuild. We didn't start from the ground up. We started buried six feet under. We had a star we couldn't trade to more than a couple places, none of which had anyone or anything worth trading for. We had cap issues even without that star's contract. We had literally no one on the roster worth more than a late first rounder. We envy teams like Boston, but they got a million picks and still had an all-star PG on their roster when they started their rebuild. We envy teams like Portland, who just kept going like they lost nothing, but they already had a superstar PG in Lillard. We envy OKC, but they lucked into three HOF caliber players in three consecutive drafts. We remember the post Shaq years still in the playoffs, but we still had Penny. We remember the post-Penny years but we caught lightning in a bottle with T-Mac. We remember the post-T-Mac years, but we had the number one pick and it was a good one. Five years out of the playoffs sucks. There's no getting around that. But I'm not exactly sure why people were expecting much better. This rebuild started in hell, snuggling up to Beelzebub, and we've had no lottery luck to pull us out early this time. We're crawling out of the muck now. It's been dirty, there have been slip-ups. But eating our own by blaming Rob and Skiles (the latter of whom just got here) is absurd. Rob has been a solid GM, having made no ham-stringing moves to reset the rebuild. He's kept flexibility while taking calculated risks, some of which have paid off and others which have not. But he's kept us moving forward. Not one person here can give a legitimate reason for thinking Skiles is bad for this team. I've read all the posts, and they haven't changed since before he was named coach. "He's mean, and players don't like him" (except that's not evident at all, as the only player who has clearly clashed with Skiles has been Elf, a guy to whom he has clearly given every opportunity, who clashed with Vaughn, the most likable guy ever). "He's a mediocre coach" (who is flirting with a ten game improvement in his first season, despite injuries and a conference getting way better ahead of us). "He'll turn away Free Agents" (except there is absolutely no evidence of that). "His rotations have been inconsistent" (because his players have been inconsistent). On the other hand, he has helped to improve all but one player on this team (Yes, even Vuc has improved, look at his defense before this year for comparison). He has held everyone on the team accountable for their effort and focus, and been very consistent with that. He somehow got this team to play great basketball in December, all while managing the psyche of our best two-way player through a benching. He has been both flexible and firm, something that is consistent in every good coach. But he's an easy scapegoat, so people want him fired his first year here. All this is just me saying, "Keep calm... and move on." Next year absolutely should be a playoff year. But people need to realize that Boston is not getting any worse, nor is Detroit, nor Indiana, Nor Charlotte. The East has been rebuilding for years, and now there is a real chance of winning teams missing the playoffs in the East. There are two ways to jump ahead of the race: 1) sign a monster FA - a hard thing for a rebuilding team to do before making the playoffs first; 2) build a perfectly balanced team - a hard thing to do before really understanding what we have, a problem Skiles has helped alleviate. So if Rob decides to sign a big FA to be our anchor, great. It better work. But I'm not throwing him to the wolves if no one wants to sign here yet. The answer then is to either go for option 2 above or sign short term guys to get us into the playoffs and try to get another big FA next year. The panic and the bluster on this site is unbecoming a group of actually pretty knowledgeable basketball fans.

This is pretty accurate. We all had hopes of playoffs, but we knew that what we would get was a real assessment of our talent, for the first time in this rebuild. Playoffs would have meant Rob should be given GM of the year consideration, contention that the team was on the right track, and this level just below contention that we are on means that Rob has missed on a few guys that we were counting on. That is not that surprising, really. I'm no Rob apologist. I'm not happy with how Frye or Vaughn turned out, nor with the Payton situation. The Tobias situation was neither brilliant nor stupid - it was a wash, as the contract was disposable. But he made great choices in the Fournier trade, the Oladipo pick, and again, if we decide to make Vuc available, he will be incredibly trade-able because of his contract. Skiles, from what I can see, was the right pick so far as a coach, because he has done what we needed: show us who our real core is right now and develop those guys. My assessment of the franchise right now is that we're still heading in the right direction, just not as fast as everyone would like, because rather than be a genius wonder-kid, Rob has so far shown to be just a really solid young GM. We're looking at, probably, nearly a ten game improvement over last year. We need to win at least one FA this year, though.

Draft night 2014? My guess would be that Rob thought he could get a really high ceiling PF in Gordon (he was right, and Gordon is playing well for a 20-year-old this season) and get a possible starting quality PG in Elf. Elf was a solid bet. The guy has all the physical tools, and he has some of the skills, and he does seem to work hard on improving his shot, which has worked pretty well (though sadly not with his FT). There was no way to tell how he would do in an NBA system against NBA talent, and he may still figure it all out. His problems are complicated problems. Would I rather have Smart than Elf? Probably, though not by a whole lot (Smart is clearly the better overall defender, but Elf is perhaps a better individual offensive player - though it is interesting that Smart has a better offensive rating according to basketball-reference). But it isn't about Elf vs. Smart, or even Exum. Gordon is clearly a better player than those guys, and Elf was the best PG on the board when we picked a PG. That draft night doesn't confuse me, or even going into this season with Elf as the starter. We picked up Watson as insurance against a regression from Elf, and the worst case scenario happened: Elf regressed on D, hasn't yet found an effective way to play in this system for sustained minutes, and Watson's calf was infected with demon blood and it took a while for Sam and Dean to find a cure, and even now he's not 100%, and may never be again. What frustrates me is that the PG position has become such a problem for this team. But we bet on a guy with a lot of potential and this year we saw some of his scarier problems. It's fixable, but we need to lure in a really good vet PG who can defend and shoot.

I, for one, have always felt embarrassed by that conversation. Not that I am a Payton hater, really, I just don't think he's good enough at what he does well (pass, penetrate, one-on-one defense) to make up for what he does poorly (play within or initiate an offensive system, shoot, team defense). Dipo is turning out to be what I've always thought he would be - a terrific no. 2 guy. He plays hard every night, and when the no. 1 guy is struggling, he can step up and have big nights, like he did tonight. With the other team not focusing on him, he gets to the basket; and he's actually scoring at the basket now (seriously, that move he kept trying to do earlier in the season where he would dive under guys rather than try to elevate under control... awful). That said, I think DeRozen is not the guy for this team. I mean, if you can get him, great, but I think we'd need to find a different no. 2 guy. Dipo and DeRozen would have too much trouble spacing the floor. I'm all for upgrading the point guard position, using Payton as a spark off the bench for 20 minutes - just get the coach to piss him off in 5 minute stretches throughout the game. I think if he's our backup point guard we all love him, because that's what he can do, come in for short stretches with his chip on his shoulder and torture other backups getting into the lane and making plays. The problem is relying on him to sustain effort throughout a game or maintain a gameplan. To me, he's like the LaVar Arrington of basketball right now: super talented but missing some key skills that he would need to make him dominant, and almost useless trying to play within a system. He's a situational playmaker.

Payton is definitely better under a different system, but I'm not sure any team would be good long term regardless of that system if he is the starting point guard. At least not as he plays now. He does need the ball in his hands to be effective with how he plays right now. And when he has that control over the offense he puts up some fun stats, makes some cool plays. But is it winning basketball? That's what the front office and Skiles have to evaluate: 1) is this guy capable of fitting within a system, or does he have to dominate the ball like he's a superstar to be effective? and 2) if he has to dominate the ball, is it worth it overhauling the team and system to fit his style?

Depends on what you mean. Do I think he is good for this team and organization? Yes. Am I confident that he gets this team a championship? No. But neither would I be with Stan or Kerr or Carlyle of Pop. Skiles has been a better than average coach for his career. 3/4 of a year doesn't ruin that. December is a distant memory for some people, I guess. Question: is there a team with a core this young and not one good playoff-experienced veteran over 25 that is not utterly awful?

They played alot of the game with stretch 5's and smaller athletic lineups with plumlee. Skiles was trying to get as many guys out there as he could who could jump out on those shooters.

Damn, I was hoping it would be Jennings. I'm not sure either are really healthy enough to start, but I like what Jennings has done in short appearances better than what Watson has done.

Getting his rebounding numbers anywhere near "close to triple doubles at a given night" would be one hell of an improvement. As would 8-10 assists per game, really, but at least that is in him, I suppose. He is a really overrated rebounder, especially for a guy his size. He's young, but not anywhere near as young as you seem to think. There aren't many 22-year-old's coming out of college right into the Draft now. Not starter quality guys, anyway. I suppose Kris Dunn and Buddy Heild, but those guys are going to have maybe one year of grace before they are either quality starters or busts. Saying he can go for 8-10 assists if we completely overhaul our team is pointless. His defense hasn't even regressed that much, honestly. He was bad last year, overall, it's just that he was a rookie and everyone was seeing him with their rookie glasses on, which is fine. But he is even worse this year, which is terrible. Now maybe he turns the defense around in year 3. Dipo has certainly gotten back on the right track on that end. Maybe he gains enough confidence in his 3-point shot that he can take it without having to be literally the only guy within 6 feet. That's certainly possible, even likely - though I doubt he's ever a shooter, per se. But all that is meaningless until he learns to be part of a system. Because ball dominant PGs are becoming a thing of the past. Look at Chris Paul. Sure, he has had success, but he's one of the most amazing ball-dominant PGs ever and he's never been to the finals. Never been to the conference finals, I don't think. And he can play within an offense, because he can shoot. Rajon Rondo had to be surrounded with three hall-of-famers to win. The point is that it isn't about what skills Payton doesn't have. It's his style and personality that have a lot of people questioning his future.

Damn... yes please.

To be fair, his VORP rating, REB%, STL%, BLK%, and DBPM were all higher in Orlando this year. Now, obviously he's playing better there, but only on offense, and that's not surprising considering he has a real PG there and an all-NBA/All-Defense caliber C. Stan is a better coach, though. So, yea, we can chalk up a little of his improvement to that. But we have to remember that Tobias actually fits what Stan was already doing. He didn't have to change anything to capitalize on Tobias' skillset, because Tobias was a fit. Skiles didn't have any way to make Tobias fit into this roster. You're comparing a player's fit on a roster almost completely hand-picked by the coach who is in his second year to a the same guy on a team where the coach has had virtually no input on the roster which is full of guys who don't compliment each other at all. It's maybe a little unfair.