Welcome Home Coach Scott Skiles!

[HeHateMe 697]

I personally would take Skiles over Gentry everyday of the week for our team.

[MAGICmanSAM 6]

I personally would take Skiles over Gentry everyday of the week for our team.

Me too.

[A Better DJ & Photographer 453]

I think we took the BCA- best coach available. Thibs or Brooks would have been nice but I think we will all be happy with what Skiles does with this team for at least 2 years.

[CTMagicUK 1,475]

It's interesting to see how Bogut's blocks per 36 and his defensive rating both improved quite a lot under Skiles. I'm not holding my breathe that he'll turn Vuc into an All Defensive team player or anything but if he can make Vuc a competent help defender that'd be really great.

[30Assists 342]

Woooooo! Been calling for this since he left Chicago.

 

TOTALLY unbiased.

[jjgator 164]

@BianchiWrites: #StanVanGundy on #ScottSkiles: "Wish Magic hadn't hired someone so good." Bianchi column: http://t.co/FQurOPvypl

#OrlandoMagic"

 

The Sentinel wants me to pay money to read a Bianchi column? :shard:

[jjgator 164]

It's interesting to see how Bogut's blocks per 36 and his defensive rating both improved quite a lot under Skiles. I'm not holding my breathe that he'll turn Vuc into an All Defensive team player or anything but if he can make Vuc a competent help defender that'd be really great.

 

I think I read something like 7 out of the 12 seasons that Skiles has coached his team has been top 10 in defense.

[Nyce_1 311]

Q & A: SCOTT SKILES

Me: How attached were you to the game while you weren't coaching? Would you watch a game every night, or would you get completely away from it?

 

Scott Skiles: I watch games, of course. Every single game is on at the same time and you can't watch them all. I tend to watch games that have coaches that I know and players that I know. Like, at the start of the year I was watching Orlando anyway because of Tobias (Harris) and Luke (Ridnour) and BG (Ben Gordon), guys that I'd coached. The coaches that I'm friends with, I tend to watch more. There's one thing to sort of hang out in the evening with my wife and we watch part of a game. It's another thing to really analyze it from a coaching standpoint. It's hard to kind of turn that off sometimes.

 

Me: You've been a head coach as the advanced numbers revolution took over the game. What are your thoughts on the whole debate over small ball, stretch fours, mid-range shots are bad, etc.?

 

SS: I think what's happened is, whatever year it was, '03-'04 or '04-'05 when they got their hands off of people on the perimeter. That's when the Nowitzkis of the world and the stretch fours were becoming more prominent, and the guards who got your hands on you, they had to get off. It sort of evolved like that. It was drawing and kicking and spacing, and at the same time, all these big guys, stretch fours, were coming into the league. The numbers don't lie. The numbers tell you what they tell you. I would say every coach would love to have a guy who could run a side pick and roll and turn the corner and stop and pop at the elbow. It's just that percentage wise, it's better to shoot the three.

Me: One of the things that was interesting to me in looking at your team's offensive numbers, especially in Chicago, was that your teams were usually pretty good, and two or three years, at the top of the league, in pace, but the offensive ratings were not good at all. So it seemed like you saw the value in playing fast, but maybe you didn't have the personnel to pull it off and make enough shots.

 

SS: I absolutely see the value in it. When Mike had Steve Nash in Phoenix, and they had that whole Seven Seconds or Less philosophy, we didn't have any mantra like that or anything, but yeah. With so much scouting and so much analysts on your competitors, you know everything. If you're not trying to guard the best you can and get the ball and get as good a look as you can in the first third of the clock, you're in trouble. With Steph (Curry), if I took some of the shots he takes I'd be sitting on the bench, because for me, those would be terrible shots. But for him, they're great shots. Weigh the alternative. The alternative is you get into the offense too late, and you're taking shots late in the clock, and that's certainly death.The numbers don't lie. ... I would say every coach would love to have a guy who could run a side pick and roll and turn the corner and stop and pop at the elbow. It's just that percentage wise, it's better to shoot the three.

Me: With the roster you have in Orlando, in general, how do you think your team should be able to play?

 

SS: It's a really intriguing roster to me. I know everyone acts like of course if they offered him the job, he's going to take it. It's the Orlando Magic; Scott played there. That's not how I think. When you look at the team, really young backcourt, should be really good at the defensive end. They're workers, and they're working at it right now. Aaron Gordon has tremendous upside, good instincts, he works really hard. Tobias I know really well. I know we have the contractual thing with him (Harris will be a restricted free agent), but he's dependable, he can score the ball, he can rebound. (Nik) Vucevic, how many guys are left in the league that score in the paint and in space? Marc Gasol? Vuc? It's a pretty short list. In talking to other coaches, the consensus of virtually everybody I talked to was, it's a really good, young team.

 

http://www.nba.com/2015/news/features/david_aldridge/06/01/morning-tip-tom-thibodeau-ousting-with-chicago-bulls-next-moves-for-atlanta-hawks-and-houston-rockets-scott-skiles-qa/index.html

[MAGICmanSAM 6]

Q & A: SCOTT SKILES

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.nba.com/2015/news/features/d ... index.html

Wow. This is great stuff to read. Unfortunately the link you shared is broken.

[Nyce_1 311]

Wow. This is great stuff to read. Unfortunately the link you shared is broken.

try again:

 

http://www.nba.com/2015/news/features/david_aldridge/06/01/morning-tip-tom-thibodeau-ousting-with-chicago-bulls-next-moves-for-atlanta-hawks-and-houston-rockets-scott-skiles-qa/index.html

[zollman 37]

The Sentinel wants me to pay money to read a Bianchi column? :shard:/>

 

The work around is to do the keyboard shortcut for select all (Ctrl A) and then copy (ctrl C) after the page loads, and then paste into a word doc or an email

[magicblue 315]

The work around is to do the keyboard shortcut for select all (Ctrl A) and then copy (ctrl C) after the page loads, and then paste into a word doc or an email

 

But then you'd be stuck reading a Bianchi article.