The Official 2015-2016 Regular Season Thread

[Air Gordon 156]

With the lofty expectations this team will have next year due to an impatient and increasingly frustrated fanbase, if you think there is any chance we fire Skiles at all next year during the season or there is any chance there is a better coach out there this summer, you get rid of him before the draft, in my opinion.

[Justin Jaudon 221]

Sorry man I disagree with almost everything you wrote in your novel. I don't care what scheme Skiles wants to run but I do care about having a coach who can make adjustments to cover different players weaknesses. We are getting destroyed from the 3 ball all year long and Skiles still has guys sagging off from the wide open shooters to stick an arm in to disrupt a player that might try to score while his Defender is still there. A good coach would mix it up a bit and stop bailing out some of these scrubs that penetrate on us and then kick to the open man. Btw SVG used to to do the same thing and it drove me crazy then too.

 

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.

[Jay Magic 1,251]

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.

 

The bottom line is Skiles was not Robs hire. I think we kind of all agree on that. Which means Martins made final decision. Personally I am worried Rob might be gone before we fire Skiles. Honestly man I hope they have the balls to sack him and let Rob do his *****ing job.

[Jay Magic 1,251]

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.

 

No he hasn't. We have won 4 more games then last season. We were pretty much out of the playoffs realistically by the first week after the all start break. Not being funny but a 6-7 win improvement is no where near enough. It's been failure. All is not on Skiles. But he is a major major part in it.

[Justin Jaudon 221]

skiles is a average at best coach who is good at motivating and turning a team around.

 

The players are unmotivated and we're getting worse.

 

This is his 14th season. ask Milwaukee fans what their complaints were and you'll find they're identical to things we're saying today.

 

Your impassioned argument of "Don't fire Skiles because not enough time has passed to fire him yet" is pretty funny though.

 

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...

[jec 427]

I can see both sides of the Skiles debate. There's no reason to can him after one season, where we technically improved, unless a better coach comes along.

 

Thibs is the only one I can think of that is available. Maybe take a shot on McHale.

 

I say give Skiles at least half the leeway we've been more than happy to lend Hennigan and our players.

[Justin Jaudon 221]

No he hasn't. We have won 4 more games then last season. We were pretty much out of the playoffs realistically by the first week after the all start break. Not being funny but a 6-7 win improvement is no where near enough. It's been failure. All is not on Skiles. But he is a major major part in it.

 

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?

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

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?

 

Context matters

[Justin Jaudon 221]

Context matters

 

That is precisely my point.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

That is precisely my point.

 

In this context Skiles isn't doing great.

[Justin Jaudon 221]

In this context Skiles isn't doing great.

 

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

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

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

 

He hasn't developed any identity for the team. He's doing below average