George Karl: Casey 'one of the best coaches' in NBA

[raptors999]

Coming up with a game plan for offence was never Triano's problem. Coaching, and all other aspects of the game was.

Hire him as an assistant.

[thead]

So...fun story...

Not going to say how I know but I with 100% certainty know that Triano was frequently furious with the meddling from upper management. Colangelo did not want the stigma of blowing a number 1 pick and meddled relentlessly.

[Nilanka]

So...fun story...

Not going to say how I know but I with 100% certainty know that Triano was frequently furious with the meddling from upper management. Colangelo did not want the stigma of blowing a number 1 pick and meddled relentlessly.

Details. Need details.

[Scraptor]

Best coaches in the NBA IMO
Pop

Carlisle
Thibs

Rivers
Vogel
SVG
Spoelstra

And a number of promising but unproven playoff coaches, including Blatt, Kerr, Joerger, Budenholzer, and Hornacek. In terms of established coaches I'd throw Karl, Casey, and Hollins into this group.

So he's roughly in the upper part of the middle of the pack to me. I don't think he's given any sign of being an elite coach in this league. But I hope he proves me wrong.

[white men can't jump]

Chandler and Wright aren't used as post-up bigs, they're energy/clean up bigs surrounded by elite shooting. If Amir can stay healthy (they should just rest him, already) and JV keeps his hustle up, they can match their efficiency.

Tim Duncan, of course, is and has been an elite passer and post player his entire career. Ditto Garnett. Both could shoot from mid range more reliably than poor Jonas.

Personally I think you have it backwards. All teams need rim protection and rebounding to succeed. But unless your big man is an ELITE offensive player (Marc gasol, Cousins) it's hard to design a team around him with everyone else in the league zoning up and trending small.

Is this post directed at me? If so I basically said the same thing....yet somehow have it backwards? You seem to have focused on "post-up bigs", whereas I used the term traditional bigs, as I meant to imply guys who tend to play closer to the basket, which even energy guys (Chandler/Wright) are.

Bigs are still essential in the league, including bigs who can't stretch out that far. You need rim protection and rebounding, and having a big who is a scoring threat is still the easiest way to play inside-out basketball, which is in turn the easiest way to take advantage of the higher quality perimeter shooting in the league today. Not to mention it makes it much easier to control the pace. Even elite post players don't see as much scoring opportunity as they would have back in the day, largely I think because of zone D, and there's added incentive to pass out of the post with that diminished space and the likelihood that you'll have 3 or 4 good shooters waiting for the kick-out.

Having solid bigs who know how to play near the basket is still a huge part of successful basketball. At the moment, far more playoff teams do run out one or two true bigs in their starting lineup than teams that don't.

[thead]

Details. Need details.

I've worked at several bars many of which are in the immediate vicinity of the ACC and Rogers Centre BUT THAT'S ALL YOU GET

[Hotshot]

Refreshing to hear a coach that never got out of the first round praising another coach that hasn't either.

[3inthekeon]

What makes Blatt a better coach than Jacque Vaughn?

[raptors999]

What makes Blatt a better coach than Jacque Vaughn?

His coaching ability. Vaughn just loses every tight game.

[Nilanka]

His coaching ability. Vaughn just loses every tight game.

Blatt has better personnel at his disposal.

[thead]

I bet I could coach a team to the playoffs if Lebron, and Love are on my team

[white men can't jump]

And I think once JV gets to that next level Casey will play him all the minutes he can handle. But those players you mentioned are All Stars whereas JV isn't at that level yet.

I agree the role of the big man has diminished. For me though I see it as a result of the accelerating pace of the game. Traditional bigs can't keep up with the pace of the game on either side of the ball anymore...or have a hard time with it. And it's not just a Lebron team, but LeBron teams have done it the best thus far.

The pace thing is something I find kind of a mirage though. The reason still being very simple....having a quality big man is the easiest way to slow down the pace, and it's very hard to run against a disciplined inside-out offence. To say nothing of how much faster, or rather high-scoring a pace teams played at in the 80s, when there was arguably the most amount of high-level bigs ever in the NBA. Some bigs may have trouble keeping up with the pace, but that doesn't mean the pace their team is playing at is more conducive to winning.

Most playoff teams in both conferences start one or two bigs who are traditional or close enough to it for all this talk of small-ball and fast pace to be kind of nonsense. The style of the game is quite different, but it's not actually the faster than ever, and I don't know if it's actually smaller as much as your better scoring options tend to be at smaller positions than in the past.

And I think it has more to do with....
-Again, the zone rules which make it harder to exploit that space down low. You can't just throw it down into a Gasol 30-40 times a game like you could in the 80s-90s with quality post-up bigs, and expect them to have an easy scoring opportunity.
-The lack of fundamental skills being taught to bigs, especially in the USA (which I cite because obviously they still put out the most NBA players). The US used to produce quality skilled bigs to no end. But over the last decade or so, they're often rawer, and have been developed to be energy guys using their athleticism, and they don't ever learn to dominate with skill, which isn't helped by the fact that on top of rawness, they often have piss-poor bball IQ coming into the league.

We'll see what happens in the long run.

[KeonClark]

I've worked at several bars many of which are in the immediate vicinity of the ACC and Rogers Centre BUT THAT'S ALL YOU GET

Ah that explains everything. Must be how you found out the cavs would finish 8th as well.

[CalgaryRapsFan]

I bet I could coach a team to the playoffs if Lebron, and Love are on my team

Well, maybe to the 8th seed

[The Great One]

Refreshing to hear a coach that never got out of the first round praising another coach that hasn't either.

George Karl's team never got out of the 1st round? ever heard of his Sonics team back in the mid 90's? one of the best teams in the league. Made the NBA Finals back in 96. Lost to Michael Jordan's Bulls in 6 games.

But anyhow, i still don't know why so much hate on Casey here lol. I still remember Triano's last yr here. We were one of the worst defensive teams in the league, top 5 worst i believe. One of the worst teams in the league period. Triano got fired in the offseason, Casey got hired. The following season the Raps all of a sudden became one of the best defensive teams in the league w/ pretty much the same personnel as the yr before. Offensively this year, the Raps are 2nd behind GSW in offensive efficiency. Last yr i believe the Raps were top 10 in both defence and offence.

DeRozan became an all star under Casey. Lowry became Lowry under Casey.

Culture has changed. Everything is just different since Casey took over and yet some people here want him fired smh. And btw, the Raps are 19-6. Best record in the EC.

Year 1 - 23 wins.
Year 2 - 34 wins.
Year 3 - 48 wins.
Year 4 - ???