No way. What the Pistons ask Amen to do is a lot less than what we’ve asked of Brandon so far.
Pistons? Amens on the rockets
We need to hire Michael Malone! If we’re serious about winning!
I was thinking about the coaching situation a few weeks back when we were getting blasted by NBA record breaking numbers. I really was pumped about the Lee hire, his connections to winning basketball, his personality and story.
As a first timer, I’m willing to give him a lot of slack to gain his legs, especially with losing so many players to injury. Maybe they weren’t trying to tank away the year, but at some point the decision was made to drop as low as possible.
I was wondering though if Coach Lee was intended to be the placeholder coach while they rehab the team (and arena), someone young and enthusiastic to keep the spirits up, all the while letting him absorb the losses as we gather picks and assets to build up a talented enough roster, then maybe a veteran coach could be available.
Also, the NBA is a people business, you can’t just fire people on a whim (okay, Memphis and Denver proved me wrong), but our franchise is already struggling with wooing coaches and getting them to commit, we don’t want to be seen jettisoning a good guy after a year before he could learn and improve his system.
But Mike Malone is the caliber of coach that your team should go all out for. I don’t think I’d make the switch (its at least a year too early), especially since there’s no guarantee he’d come…although if we got Flagg, that could be the thing that makes the difference. I do really like Lee, and want him to work out really bad. But expecting and wanting more out of what we actually have is forever a state of mind for Hornets fans, while Malone is a proven and much better coach than Lee right now, so it would be malpractice not to do the due diligence. But I’d definitely keep it on the low.
With the vibes of Michael Malone coming to the surface, now after his second seemingly premature release, I am not sure he’s worth going all out for, especially if we do like our GM who is still growing (well I might add) into the position.
Were there specifically mentioned vibes noted somewhere? I hadn’t seen it, but I also didn’t dig deep.
I do also know never to trust a Kroenke - Stan and his spawn don’t relate to humans at a normal level due to their exorbitant wealth, seems like one of those “I’m rich, I do what I want because you looked at me funny” power moves, like with Luka and the Mavs new Vegas owners. If it was player led, I can understand more, but if it’s a battle between the front office and the coach, Id give more benefit of the doubt to Malone.
And yes, championship pedigree doesn’t = great vibes…as we see with coach Bud and the Phoenix debacle. But I think Malone’s a much better coach than Bud.
But I do want Lee to have every chance to succeed, to learn from his mistakes, to get the right mix of players to implement his system. It was just losing by 40 points a game for a whole week that kind of started my shift in considerations a little bit. I definitely don’t want to cut bait right now at all.
Reading the realgm Denver board, it didn’t seem too many were broken up about Malone. I don’t know if its more that once you achieve the pinnacle of success, you can nitpick about every last thing, or if Jokic is such a talent that they feel it made Malone look good and he was wasting his prime years.
But taking Malone out of it, I still started to feel seeds of doubt that Lee would be PlotSchnall’s scapegoat while they retool (tank), and once they hit on a couple big talents, would replace him with a known vet guy, like what they did to Brett Brown in Philly.
This isn’t as much about Charlotte’s coaching but who on the roster they have their wagons hitched to.
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I’d rather just run it back with Charles Lee. He hasn’t even had a real shot yet. I don’t really think any coach could have won with what we’ve had on the court the past few years.
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Our ongoing problem is never seeing how good we can truly be because of injuries. It’s hard to hold a coach accountable under those conditions.
Borrego was the last guy who had a fair shot with a relatively healthy, young roster.
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Which brings us back around to the question of “why” we are so afflicted by injuries at positions that are so critical to our team-well-being? Is that about roster-building (blaming The Dude 80% of that, not possible to give more than 20% to Jeff Pete at this point), or rotation dependencies (which could still be residually 50% remaining on where Cliff left 'em, 50% what Charles Lee did with them over the past 11 months).
I guess my point is that at the very worst, it’s not even the majority of the fault on Lee & Peterson today. A year from now, they both fully own it but not presently. I think in both guys, they moved us forward. What will be the real tell is, can Peterson build better going forward knowing we have health liabilities with our current roster (mostly Mark and Melo). And can Lee continue to expand on developing a change-up pitch that the team can be nearly fully functional when those guys are out of the rotation.
I think the biggest key is IF they are going to keep Melo, they have to find multiple secondary playmakers and a steady backup point guard who can hold things together. That’s why Flagg is such a great fit for us if we were to land him.
We know they’re going to try and find a reliable big man - I almost wonder if Nurkic will resign a reasonable deal to stay another year after this upcoming season. He’s one of the types of veterans this team needs to have some stability while they get stuff right in other places.
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Just a little update for a previous discussion on Tidjane.
Roughly 230 NBA players are on pace to play 58+ games this season. Among those 230ish players, Salaun ranks 79th in free throws attempted per field goals attempted.
This is encouraging, because he doesn’t have much of an offensive bag yet, apart from shooting and mostly missing three-point shots. The guy is a bit of a foul magnet, in the good sense.
This explains why he will likely finish the season with more overall points than field goal attempts, even though he shoots only 34% from the field and 29% from three land. There is hope.
I am more at the point of treating your very best players like commodities. If they are consistently missing time with injuries whether related or unrelated, you have to move on. If they can’t be on the court, I can’t build my team around them. Especially when it comes to paying them and having them not play.
This team is in the same position year after year because it’s best player only plays half the games year after year.
But that supposes he’s movable for the value you have placed on him in trade. If you can’t get that value, known or just perceived, then you have to work with what you do have.
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That’s a good point. If there is a team that values him where we see him, I think they would trade him. I just don’t think that will exist until Melo shows he can stay healthy for a season.
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Then he becomes an anchor. You can’t put yourself in a position year after year where you over value your primary asset to an order of magnitude over where his actual value is.
A one off injury is something you can’t help. But to position yourself to maximally rely on and build around a player who simply can’t hang, is why Charlotte is historically one of the worst franchises in the league.
Philly did the same thing with embiid despite the signs being there for the past 6 years. However, embiid is much better than melo and did get them an eight bounce buzzer beater away from the finals.
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Well… glad that’s over.