2014 NBA Playoffs

[Joe K]

As usual, the Western Conference playoffs figure to be much more interesting than the East. Even though Miami and Indiana both sputtered down the stretch, I'd be surprised if the East finals is anything other than Pacers-Heat. The West seems more up for grabs, with San Antonio, OKC, LA, and Houston all looking like legit contenders. I think the two best first round matchups will be Houston-Portland and OKC-Memphis.

[Rex]

You might want to cc the Pacers that the playoffs have begun.

[Pruitt]

Looped repeatedly, but Toronto has a new hero.

[DaveInSeattle]

I'll say it here again....but fuck David Stern, Clay Bennett, and especially Howard Schulz. Sideways...with a rusty chainsaw.

Can't even imagine what the atmosphere would have been like tonight at Key Arena for Game 1 of the Sonics playoff run.

[Ryan]

Can't even imagine what the atmosphere would have been like tonight at Key Arena for Game 1 of the Sonics playoff run.

Probably exactly like what it actually was, only 1,000 people quieter

[DaveInSeattle]

Can't even imagine what the atmosphere would have been like tonight at Key Arena for Game 1 of the Sonics playoff run.

Probably exactly like what it actually was, only 1,000 people quieter

With various members of the Super Bowl Champion Seahawks sitting courtside? I guarantee that would cover for the 744 fewer people in the building.

[Rex]

With Brandan Wright, Josh McRoberts, Trevor Booker all featuring in playoff games today, I dub this 2007 ACC Day

[degenerasian]

wow, Hack-A-Howard works.

Blazers erased a 13 point deficit in no time.

[howard]

The NBA is pissing me the fuck off.

1) Stephen Curry is banged around like a pinball by untalented thugs like Matt Barnes in a manner that would never be tolerated for any other superstar, w/o flagrant foul calls and sanctions. The superstar treatment is bullshit, but I didn't institute it; I don't understand what Curry has failed to do to deserve the same level of protection from such tactics enjoyed by Westbrook, Parker, Williams, Wall, et al. I suppose the league will be satisfied when Curry suffers a major injury before they decide this shit a) is unacceptable for a rising star of the game; b) unacceptable for a civilized game.

2) The Dubs lost. Just my bitterness on this one.

3) The association's stupidity and hypocrisy involving everything Donald Sterling. Just pathetic, but nothing more or less than I would expect.

4) Firing Mark Jackson. Um, what the fuck does the guy have to do? He won, presumably what he was hired to do. The players love him, and sell out on defense as a proximal result of his coaching. As far as I know, assistant coach Scalabrini was thrust upon Jackson; even if the dysfunctional assistants, now fired/reassigned, were Jackson's hires, he won. He fucking won.

Oh, apparently he does not get along with ownership. Maybe it is just me, but if I run a company, and I have a subordinate manager who makes money for my firm, successfully manages his employees, has them loving him and coming to work every day, but he rubs me the wrong way, I don't fire him. I find a way to get along with, or to tolerate him. Counting the money he puts in my pocket makes this process pretty damn easy.

If I am a shareholder in such a company, and the CEO fires a successful senior manager who has accomplished such successes, I'm not happy, and I am looking to sell. Same with the Warriors; as a fan I can give two fucks if the owner doesn't get along with Mark Jackson.

This is a plantation mentality. The owner of the plantation does what the fuck he wants, regardless of success, regardless of best interests of the team, regardless of success (winning) for the fan base. A plaything for the amusement of some rich guy, who will still enjoy appreciation of the value of the team even if this stupid, self-indulgent firing results in fewer wins and return to the lottery. Squandering the limited prime years of a great young talent in Curry. Because the coach rubs him the wrong way.

"We decided to go in a different direction." Well, the direction Jackson led this team was pretty damn good; 46 and 51 wins, playoffs in consecutive years. Damn near the perfect fucking direction. But you are going a different one. That is just ignorant. And such an empty explanation assumes I am ignorant enough to accept this.

Fuck that. Fuck Warriors ownership. Thank goodness the team I care most for is run by smart people who put the fans and on the field success as top priorities.

[Gunpowder]

Blake Griffin basically gets raped every game.

Also, all of my Warrior fan friends are ecstatic that Jackson is gone and cannot understand why he is getting so much love. Just FWIW.

[Gunpowder]

The amount of support he's gotten from random people in the last hour is mind boggling, I guess no one watched this team play all year to know how necessary this was. I couldn't be happier about it.

Both teams would have been better off with an empty chair where the coach was supposed to sit.

I hope he does coach the Lakers. Have fun with that.

Good riddance!

Yes! Now who? SVG I heard as a good fit.

[howard]

Then again, I may be failing to properly estimate the ignorance of the fan base. Unable to count to 51 ignorant. Unable to remember what it was like before the bandwagon got rolling (driven by Jackson.) I encountered a lot of fans like that too while I was out there.

Not so ignorant that they will continue buying t-shirts and going to the game when mediocrity returns.

[DC47]

The last time the Warriors were this good was back when Latrell and Webber and the ghost of Chris Mullins were the stars. That was a long time ago. Jackson has coached them to the cusp of being a great team. 50 wins in a terrific division. Not many achieve this. And that is despite being saddled by management with David Lee at $15m per year.

Unless something very, very bad is going on behind the scenes, letting Jackson go screams of an owner with a giant ego who was not being made to feel good. Winning 50 games is a great achievement. But not great enough for many wealthy men who demand this plus the warm glow that comes from having a subservient staff.

Apparently Jackson doesn't create enough glow. But he does get brilliant pure shooters to play defense. He does develop Stephen Curry into an All-Star. He does turn Draymond Green into a quality NBA player in one season. He does find a way to win despite having his star big-man injured much of the time.

Seems to me that this is distinctively excellent coaching. I'd love to see what he could do with a radically under-performing team like, lets just say, the Detroit Pistons. But would the Pistons wealthy, egomaniacal owner go for this? It will be interesting to see how many of his ownership peers are truly interested in a coach with Mark Jackson's ability to coach basketball players, but his apparent inability to "manage upwards."

[Gunpowder]

Steph Curry was the 7th overall pick in the draft. He should be decent. And Mark Jackson beat him in a three point shootout, ruining his confidence! jk

I don't follow the Warriors too closely, but these dudes do and they aren't dumb by any stretch.

DC, did you agree with the Lions firing Schwartz? Because I do and they haven't been as good as they are now in years.

[A_B]

Curry doesn't complain like he needs to if he wants to get those calls. I wish I was joking.

[howard]

GPJ, I am not hammering you, nor do I expect you to accurately transcribe the cogent thoughts of your friends or in any way defend them.

But…

The comments you pasted summarize their opinions, while being devoid of any actual reasons to support those opinions. 'If you watched all season, you'd know…' ain't a reason.

Do your friends have any specific reasons? In opposition to the specific reasons of 50 wins, defensive effort, Curry's and Green's development et al? Or just emotional invective (apparently like the owner)?

(Dude, nothing personal, and it ain't your job to present or defend their case, if you can't be bothered I wouldn't blame you in the least.)

ETA: I forgot. I did not call them dumb. Ignorant. Lots of smart people are ignorant; lots of smart people think and do stupid (as well as ignorant) things.

[sancarlos]

3) The association's stupidity and hypocrisy involving everything Donald Sterling. Just pathetic, but nothing more or less than I would expect.

4) Firing Mark Jackson. Um, what the fuck does the guy have to do? He won, presumably what he was hired to do. The players love him, and sell out on defense as a proximal result of his coaching. As far as I know, assistant coach Scalabrini was thrust upon Jackson; even if the dysfunctional assistants, now fired/reassigned, were Jackson's hires, he won. He fucking won.

Oh, apparently he does not get along with ownership. Maybe it is just me, but if I run a company, and I have a subordinate manager who makes money for my firm, successfully manages his employees, has them loving him and coming to work every day, but he rubs me the wrong way, I don't fire him. I find a way to get along with, or to tolerate him. Counting the money he puts in my pocket makes this process pretty damn easy.

If I am a shareholder in such a company, and the CEO fires a successful senior manager who has accomplished such successes, I'm not happy, and I am looking to sell. Same with the Warriors; as a fan I can give two fucks if the owner doesn't get along with Mark Jackson.

This is a plantation mentality. The owner of the plantation does what the fuck he wants, regardless of success, regardless of best interests of the team, regardless of success (winning) for the fan base. A plaything for the amusement of some rich guy, who will still enjoy appreciation of the value of the team even if this stupid, self-indulgent firing results in fewer wins and return to the lottery. Squandering the limited prime years of a great young talent in Curry. Because the coach rubs him the wrong way.

"We decided to go in a different direction." Well, the direction Jackson led this team was pretty damn good; 46 and 51 wins, playoffs in consecutive years. Damn near the perfect fucking direction. But you are going a different one. That is just ignorant. And such an empty explanation assumes I am ignorant enough to accept this.

Fuck that. Fuck Warriors ownership. Thank goodness the team I care most for is run by smart people who put the fans and on the field success as top priorities.

Harrumph, harrumph!!

[Gunpowder]

GPJ, I am not hammering you, nor do I expect you to accurately transcribe the cogent thoughts of your friends or in any way defend them.

But…

The comments you pasted summarize their opinions, while being devoid of any actual reasons to support those opinions. 'If you watched all season, you'd know…' ain't a reason.

Do your friends have any specific reasons? In opposition to the specific reasons of 50 wins, defensive effort, Curry's and Green's development et al? Or just emotional invective (apparently like the owner)?

(Dude, nothing personal, and it ain't your job to present or defend their case, if you can't be bothered I wouldn't blame you in the least.)

ETA: I forgot. I did not call them dumb. Ignorant. Lots of smart people are ignorant; lots of smart people think and do stupid (as well as ignorant) things.

I'd have to ask and I'm actually pretty interested in what they say. I'll posit this in the group.

I also don't think wins are the be-all end-all. Schwartz won 10 games for the first time in forever but he needed to go. Marvin Lewis has won a ton of games and turned a franchise around but they may need to get rid of him to take the next step.

[sancarlos]

For what it's worth, this is huge news in the Bay Area. The newspapers are skewering the owner, the players are pissed off, talk radio is hammering the owner, and I think pretty much everybody feels like he shouldn't have been fired. For the most part, the team sucked for a generation before Jackson started coaching the team.

I'd hate to be the next coach, who follows this act.

[Gunpowder]

For what it's worth, this is huge news in the Bay Area. The newspapers are skewering the owner, the players are pissed off, talk radio is hammering the owner, and I think pretty much everybody feels like he shouldn't have been fired. For the most part, the team sucked for a generation before Jackson started coaching the team.

I'd hate to be the next coach, who follows this act.

Do you think it was bad for the Clippers, who had forever been awful until recently, to fire Vinny Del Negro?

I bet the Bucs were mad when Tony Dungy was fired, yet they still were able to get over it the next year.

[brian]

GPJ, I am not hammering you, nor do I expect you to accurately transcribe the cogent thoughts of your friends or in any way defend them.

But…

The comments you pasted summarize their opinions, while being devoid of any actual reasons to support those opinions. 'If you watched all season, you'd know…' ain't a reason.

Do your friends have any specific reasons? In opposition to the specific reasons of 50 wins, defensive effort, Curry's and Green's development et al? Or just emotional invective (apparently like the owner)?

(Dude, nothing personal, and it ain't your job to present or defend their case, if you can't be bothered I wouldn't blame you in the least.)

ETA: I forgot. I did not call them dumb. Ignorant. Lots of smart people are ignorant; lots of smart people think and do stupid (as well as ignorant) things.

I'd have to ask and I'm actually pretty interested in what they say. I'll posit this in the group.

I also don't think wins are the be-all end-all. Schwartz won 10 games for the first time in forever but he needed to go. Marvin Lewis has won a ton of games and turned a franchise around but they may need to get rid of him to take the next step.

Schwartz was two years removed from winning 10 games, so it's not exactly apples and oranges. If they had fired Schwartz the year after the 10 win season it might be a better comp. (In defense of the Warriors though, with the benefit of hindsight, it almost certainly would have been better if they had fired Schwartz after the 2011 season.)

[Gunpowder]

GPJ, I am not hammering you, nor do I expect you to accurately transcribe the cogent thoughts of your friends or in any way defend them.

But…

The comments you pasted summarize their opinions, while being devoid of any actual reasons to support those opinions. 'If you watched all season, you'd know…' ain't a reason.

Do your friends have any specific reasons? In opposition to the specific reasons of 50 wins, defensive effort, Curry's and Green's development et al? Or just emotional invective (apparently like the owner)?

(Dude, nothing personal, and it ain't your job to present or defend their case, if you can't be bothered I wouldn't blame you in the least.)

ETA: I forgot. I did not call them dumb. Ignorant. Lots of smart people are ignorant; lots of smart people think and do stupid (as well as ignorant) things.

I'd have to ask and I'm actually pretty interested in what they say. I'll posit this in the group.

I also don't think wins are the be-all end-all. Schwartz won 10 games for the first time in forever but he needed to go. Marvin Lewis has won a ton of games and turned a franchise around but they may need to get rid of him to take the next step.

Schwartz was two years removed from winning 10 games, so it's not exactly apples and oranges. If they had fired Schwartz the year after the 10 win season it might be a better comp. (In defense of the Warriors though, with the benefit of hindsight, it almost certainly would have been better if they had fired Schwartz after the 2011 season.)

True, but they are still leaps and bounds better than they used to be pre-Schwartz.

[sancarlos]

For what it's worth, this is huge news in the Bay Area. The newspapers are skewering the owner, the players are pissed off, talk radio is hammering the owner, and I think pretty much everybody feels like he shouldn't have been fired. For the most part, the team sucked for a generation before Jackson started coaching the team.

I'd hate to be the next coach, who follows this act.

Do you think it was bad for the Clippers, who had forever been awful until recently, to fire Vinny Del Negro?

I bet the Bucs were mad when Tony Dungy was fired, yet they still were able to get over it the next year.

If the next coach improves the results, everybody will forget they were ever upset. If the team reverts to past suckitude, then this firing will live in infamy. It's a big bet. In my mind, the question is whether the players are petulant about it and don't give the new coach what he needs from them.

disclaimer: I'm not even an NBA fan, but since this is local, I get caught up in it, too.

[Gunpowder]

For what it's worth, this is huge news in the Bay Area. The newspapers are skewering the owner, the players are pissed off, talk radio is hammering the owner, and I think pretty much everybody feels like he shouldn't have been fired. For the most part, the team sucked for a generation before Jackson started coaching the team.

I'd hate to be the next coach, who follows this act.

Do you think it was bad for the Clippers, who had forever been awful until recently, to fire Vinny Del Negro?

I bet the Bucs were mad when Tony Dungy was fired, yet they still were able to get over it the next year.

If the next coach improves the results, everybody will forget they were ever upset. If the team reverts to past suckitude, then this firing will live in infamy. It's a big bet. In my mind, the question is whether the players are petulant about it and don't give the new coach what he needs from them.

disclaimer: I'm not even an NBA fan, but since this is local, I get caught up in it, too.

Oh yeah, the grading of this decision will surely be results-driven.

I'm just noting you could say much of the same stuff last year about Vinny Del Negro making the Clips relevant, and it was clearly a great decision to bring in Doc Rivers.

[sancarlos]

Another underlying theme that gets brought up here in Bay Area discussion is race. Oakland has a large African-American population, the team is, of course, almost all black, and so is Mark Jackson. The papers and broadcasters are liberal in outlook. Some writers/broadcasters/twitterers/SwampDocs are referring to this as a plantation-like situation, where results don't necessarily matter as much as do proper deference and relationships with the powers-that-be. Supposedly, Jackson recently had a blowup with the owner's son, who is the assistant GM. The notion that perhaps Jackson is being held to a higher standard than would your average whitebread NBA coach. That makes good grist for the mill, too.

[howard]

I'd have to ask and I'm actually pretty interested in what they say.

I am too. Because damn if I have heard a single cogent, specific reason other than 'didn't get along with owners'. "Dysfunction" is the most frequent specific reason I have heard, which is not very specific nor meaningful (given that the function of a team is to win.)

I get your point about wins not being the be all and end all. OTOH, wins + player morale = pretty damn close to be all/end all.

There could be plenty of great reasons for firing Jackson; we just have not been told a single one. No doubt there will now be a systematic pr effort by the owners/club to justify, including whispered and leaked inside info (since the ongoing campaign by Tim Murakami in the Mercury News to trash Jackson over the last three months failed miserably, despite such whispers and leaks from the club.)

Agree, all will be forgotten if Mike D'Antoni or whomever leads them to 48 wins and the second round next season (with a healthy big man,) but it sure smells like hubris to think your organization can do that, plugging out one component coach for another, particularly following a Donald Sterling case management example.

(I would love to see a Van Gundy coach this team, any Van Gundy. Or D'Antoni. But they sure had a good thing going, and no good reason for shutting it down has been offered yet.)

ETA: Race being a factor? In Oaktown? In the USA? Hmmm, gotta give that some thought. If only they had hired Jason Kidd…

There are other 'dysfunctional' elements of a plantation mentality aside from race. Such as, the owner's son in a high management position. The assumption that the superior DNA which yielded a billion dollars of wealth transmits downward to sonny boy, and translates perfectly to managing a sports franchise. Yeah, hubris.

(I would not have used the inflammatory, emotive term 'plantation mentality' in a more widely public forum, w/o a ton of further context. We're among friends, and friends who know well my racial perspectives.)

If you don't like that liberal outlook, you always have the Chron.

ETA: geez, i'm slipping. Insert 'Del Negro' joke here, or next to the J-Kidd crack.

[Gunpowder]

These are all from one of them (it's a California-centric sports message group on FB):

Did Mark win and improve every year? Absolutely! However why are we necessarily giving him credit for that? The roster has been upgraded at every position, of course we were going to win more games! Are we to give him credit for a defensive mindset when we added multiple players who made the all defensive team previously and drafted two players in Klay and Dray that are two terrific defenders? How did he have a hand in that? That was the front office bringing in players because THEY were interested in a defensive mindset! Do u remember Mark as a player, not exactly a defensive stopper.

So while I'm quick to not necessarily give Jackson credit, I wouldn't quickly give him blame either.........unless I pulled a (redacted) and watched every second of the season (and the one before it), which I did. We did face some injuries and our second unit was quite thin at times, but his use of what he had available to him was horrific at times this year. Why he would play a first unit and then a completely different second unit that was 100x less talented without really blending them until about 75 games into the season is beyond me. Why he would play that unit towards the end of a quarter and then run them back out there for an extended time the following quarter while our leads dissipated and then disappeared is stupid. I understand the starters shouldn't and can't play the entire game, but there were ways to make those lineups far less disastrous and he failed miserably. Timeouts were routinely taken 2-3 possessions too late, if at all. Plays out of timeouts were repetitive, unimaginative, or completely non existent on a regular basis.

He says he's still going, I'll come back with more when he does.

[howard]

So,
1) good things happened, but Jackson does not deserve credit; others (the front office) deserve the credit.
2) the commenter did not like the way Jackson used his second unit. Or the way he used timeouts. But the results were good. I suppose had these things been optimized, Dubs would've won 60; Jackson's mistakes were holding them back.

pretty weak so far.

[Gunpowder]

More:

If you want to talk about the development of Curry and Green I can concede a bit of that, but why are we giving him credit for that either? Both of those players have proven to be two of the hardest working guys out there so I'd argue they were going to drastically improve regardless. Green I basically give him no credit for as he is a completely different player than Mark ever was. Curry I could give him a small nod for, yet his turnovers only got worse (much worse) with a coach that is a HOF PG! I think it's foolish to give a coach credit for two players that we're going to be great regardless. Green btw was a 2nd round draft pick and Curry was gambled on with an extension during a time that his ankles were questionable (resulting in one of the great bargains in the NBA) by this very same front office that is deciding to leave Jackson. They have proven to me that they know what they're doing so I trust them even if I disagreed on this decision, which I don't at all. In fact I've been very open that I wanted him gone all season.

And the list goes on. Let's just say you want to give him credit for those players. Fine. How about the utter collapse of Barnes this year? A guy that was supposed to be a huge asset, he just let wither away. Maybe he was never meant to be that guy, but if that's the case then it seems to me that blaming him for Barnes is the same as giving him credit for Green. The player that really killed me throughout the season tho was Iguodala. He played some nice defense (not as nice as Klay) and made some good passes, but offensively the guy was a ghost! Sure you see him finish like a star in transition, but this guy was beyond reluctant to take it to the tin during the regular season which seems unfathomable. His misuse of Iggy may have been his worst feat of the year if you ask me. You've gotta draw some plays up for him and encourage him to score because anyone that watches this team knows we reach a new level when he does. He scored a bit in the playoffs but that was almost all in transition and open 3's when what we really needed from him was driving to the lane to either finish or draw attention off our shooters. Mark somehow never saw it that way.

Bottom line is I hold the front office responsible for our relative success of the past two years, not Mark. My comment of "if you watched you'd know" wasn't explanatory so hopefully this is. The guy cost us WAY more games than he won us and I'm thrilled he's gone. Our locker room is full of high character guys who want to win, and they will play hard for another coach......one who might actually know how to draw a play and make a sub.

[Gunpowder]

So,
1) good things happened, but Jackson does not deserve credit; others (the front office) deserve the credit.
2) the commenter did not like the way Jackson used his second unit. Or the way he used timeouts. But the results were good. I suppose had these things been optimized, Dubs would've won 60; Jackson's mistakes were holding them back.

pretty weak so far.

Well, a lot of the counterpoints are "the team won a lot of games, clearly the coach was good".

[Gunpowder]

You could say the same things about Marvin Lewis and I bet that if he were fired TB would jizz his Dockers.

[DSafetyGuy]

The Lacob-Jackson fallout sancarlos mentioned is something I saw on twitter, specifically that the two men have not spoken in a month or months. Jackson probably signed his own death warrant with that. Ric Bucher, who covers Golden State, was on Simmons' podcast and he cited that Lacob has his nose in everything, or at least way more things than most owners.

Couple things on Jackson. Most of the positive comments I have seen about his coaching is tied in completely to his motivational abilities, not on his acumen. A big issue with him, to me, is Harrison Barnes' development has stagnated, at best. (To be fair, bringing in Bogut and Iguodala created a situation of three guys for two spots - Lee, Barnes, and Iguodala. Someone had to lose. Funny how it was the guy on the cheapest contract, huh?) The more concerning thing about Barnes' development is that he got passed by Draymond Green in the rotation during the playoffs. The two basically had their roles reversed from last year's postseason when you look at minutes played. Yeah, Bogut's absence and the need for a bigger body contributed to Green's increased usage against the Clips, but Barnes' game took a step back. And when you look at how Iguodala was a "blah" player for much of that series (the Clips automatically stuck the guy they were trying to hide on defense on him, regardless of if it was Crawford, Collison, or Redick), Barnes should have been a viable option.

Stan Van Gundy would be a great coach for here, as he adapts his coaching to his talent (he's put together strong playoff teams around Wade as a focal point on one team and Dwight Howard on another - and got amazing work out of Hedo Turkoglu!).

The Dubs are also the only viable landing place for D'Antoni from a personnel standpoint. My only concerns would be if Curry's point guard skills are up to snuff (they probably aren't) and if they could find someone to take Lee off their hands because he is a terrible fit for that system (Barnes would replace him in the lineup and you go small to get "ALL TEH SHOOTERZ" on the floor). Of course, they sold out for this year, with minimal cap space (Hi, David Lee's $15 mill a year), no draft picks this year and only their firsts in '15 and '16 as their picks in the next four years.

So, they fucked themselves hard by backing themselves into the "all-in" position after last summer. If I had to wager on the direction of the franchise, I'd say 60-40 headed south unless they absolutely nail this coaching hire because there is no roster help coming in.

[howard]

Well, a lot of the counterpoints are "the team won a lot of games, clearly the coach was good".

Absolutely. And, conversely, 'I watched all the games, so I know.'

But, lots of other people who also watched all the games disagree that Jackson should've been fired.

I wondered if there was some substance I was missing. Doesn't seem so. 'Harrison Barnes collapse', 'didn't use his bench properly', 'waited too long to call time outs', 'all successes attributable to everyone except the coach'. I got the picture. These all pale compared to 'despite winning, motivating team to play defense, good team morale, didn't get along with the owner,' in understanding why Jackson was fired.

We'll see how he does in his next job (I bet he does similarly well.) We'll see how this franchise does with a new coach (they need inside scoring and defense more than they need a Pat Riley or a Red Auerbach.) Ironically, while I think dismissing Jackson was unfair and a mistake that risks the success of the team, I also think there are other coaches who can lead this team just fine. And success or failure going forward will not have much to do with the change (unless good coaches are scared off, which I sure as hell would be.)

Barnes is gonna be a nice player. Young (21 years old--should be a college junior) and lost his role when Igoudala was acquired--one of the front office moves, yet Jackson is blamed for Barnes' digression; just an illustration of the flawed logic. Draymond Green got the playoff minutes because he and he alone could check Griffin.

Enough Dubs talk from me. Giants are on, afternoon game from the Burgh.

ETA: thanks GPJ, for being the conduit for this argument-by-proxy.

[Gunpowder]

Grantland has an article suggesting he did a lot more than didn't get along with the owner.

[Rush2112]

Thank goodness the team I care most for is run by smart people who put the fans and on the field success as top priorities.

Man, you really changed your tune once Al died didn't you?

[Giff]

That franchise seems like a trainwreck. They also had the assistant who was fired for taping audio recording practices, meetings, etc. From someone who has no dog in this race, to me, the very fact that they still fired him after what was accomplished the last two seasons means there is something he's doing that is very much rubbing people the wrong way.

[Gunpowder]

That franchise seems like a trainwreck. They also had the assistant who was fired for taping audio recording practices, meetings, etc. From someone who has no dog in this race, to me, the very fact that they still fired him after what was accomplished the last two seasons means there is something he's doing that is very much rubbing people the wrong way.

I assume that you also think that Gary Kubiak should have been fired years ago, even when the Texans were winning.

[sancarlos]

That franchise seems like a trainwreck. They also had the assistant who was fired for taping audio recording practices, meetings, etc. From someone who has no dog in this race, to me, the very fact that they still fired him after what was accomplished the last two seasons means there is something he's doing that is very much rubbing people the wrong way.

You may be right, but the counter-point is that the owner is perceived by some of the local media as an egomaniac who thinks he knows basketball better than anybody else.

[DC47]

Steph Curry was the 7th overall pick in the draft. He should be decent. And Mark Jackson beat him in a three point shootout, ruining his confidence! jk

I don't follow the Warriors too closely, but these dudes do and they aren't dumb by any stretch.

DC, did you agree with the Lions firing Schwartz? Because I do and they haven't been as good as they are now in years.

I think there's a lot more behind the scenes and thus hidden from fans with NFL coaching than with NBA coaching. So I don't really have an opinion on Schwartz. But I don't think it was obvious that he had to go. The record last year wasn't good. I think it would have been much better if Stafford had played even at an average level for him. And if Calvin had not been playing with serious injuries, which may have been part of the reason Stafford fell apart.

Regarding those who closely follow the Warriors, my guess is that unless they are exceptionally patient, even smart fans are probably far too willing to fire a coach. It seems to come with the territory.

Regarding Curry, plenty of #7 picks fail to pan out. My guesstimate is that Curry is in the top 5% of #7 picks at this stage of his career. That can't be attributed solely to coaching. But since Curry is wild about Mark Jackson, and Jackson played the same position, I think there's some reason to think the coach did well with this player.

[degenerasian]

Is Steve Kerr/NBA insane? you can't play basketball in the dark!

Just resume after halftime, this happens in hockey all the time.