No
I’ve watched a lot of Memphis basketball and Penny is a a terrible X’s and O’s coach. That’s why they brought Larry Brown in to try and teach him.
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I can admit that I hardly watched college basketball. He was just my favorite player growing up before his injuring and I turned to Kobe.
Mark Jackson
100% fake right? But it would be amazing.
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No. Please, no.
He is what? 75? Older than Pop.
Not sure it would be that amazing
Goodness gracious. This is atrocious. He hasn’t actually coached in 4 years
TBH, I’d be more inclined to believe he was talking with the Lakers than us. I can’t see why either we would have an interest in him, or he would have an interest in losing more games than he wins in an average season.
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I feel like he’s attract some star players… maybe he could do it for a few years? Idk… I doubt it’s true… he’s so old. But again, even as a UNC fan, id totally be for it.
Seems to be quite a few people talking about it. I can’t see him turning down prime Kobe to then enter the league for the first time at 70 or whatever he is.
With that being said, he would translate, and his experience in USA basketball shows he can reach NBA talent.
I just don’t see how it makes sense for him. I was joking with someone about us going after Phil Jackson before I saw this stuff LOL and I was like wow.
I keep thinking maybe its not coach but GM, and I remember that he wanted to have control over everything in the Lakers talks.
Idk, I HOPE this job is that attractive lol
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Man. I wish this was 10 years ago when coach K and Phil weren’t close to 80 years old. This is the stuff Hornets fans live for… talk about who we might get…. Then we’ll end up with a James Borego. Ha
I haven’t had a chance to weigh in on Borrego, but keep in mind the Bobcats had interest in an older Jerry Sloan after the Utah Jazz days, so Jordan obviously doesn’t mind going after a former enemy he has respect for.
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Calling bs on any Coach K rumor
Talking to him in a consulting way about candidates, sure. Talking to him about coaching here, can’t see it either and can’t imagine it would be a good move for us.
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Thank you. This is not a surprise.
This team moved on from borrego months ago. The players made that clear to me. For months, I complained about JB. Glad I wasn’t wrong.
I was done with coach JB months ago.
Glad the front office is at least doing something to alter the course of this death march further into mediocrity. What’s worse? The devil you know or the devil you don’t know?
The front office made their minds up on that.
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The JB firing was quite the surprise. I guess my analysis isn’t whether he deserved to be fired, I think that’s a different argument. But if the front office didn’t think he was the right guy to get them over the hump and able to make a consistent playoff run, then it is the right call regardless of any progress or success they’ve had…IFFFF they are able to hire the right coach.
In his defense, he was coming on as a rebuilder and developer, and bringing us from destruction to this point was honestly pretty good. The roster construction was also fatally flawed with no true centers or defenders. And of course the constant injuries to Gordon. This is hard for any coach to be truly successful.
I normally give the benefit of the doubt to new coaches or players to let them prove themselves. A big part of the coaching job is identifying the strengths, but also identifying all the problems and weaknesses in the roster. Then being able to address those weaknesses, teach the players how to improve. Hornet twitter doesn’t give him as much credit there, but he did very well.
Of course, the most visible part is game and player management, which he always struggled with, and seemed to just never be able to get right. Everyone can say the word rotations, but its an amorphous term that people used to mean a lot of things, or even simply just not playing your favorite player enough.
I feel like he fell into the same trap Clifford did in sticking to preset player rotations, and not have the flexibility/agility of when to change out of these on a game to game, situation to situation basis. You don’t have to rest a starter a full 6 minutes to start the 2nd/4th quarters just because of how much they played in the 1st/3rd, sometimes just a breather is fine. Or if the second unit has led a great 4th quarter come back, you don’t have to lock a bench player in for the remainder of the game. Its okay to bring starters back in to close the deal. And I’m not talking just Melo, he did that for anyone who hit maybe 2-3 shots in a row, would keep them in over the starter regardless.
The one thing that actually bothered me the most, and kind of lost me regarding his leadership abilities was the Miami game and the ref-missed Kyle Lowry 3. I know his personality is to be low key and steady, but if there was any time to blow up and become apoplectic, it was that one. Shit, I was yelling at the tv, but I expected the refs to review it. When they didn’t, JB should’ve gotten in the refs face and given them shit until they kicked him out of the game. Spoelstra would’ve done that, and made damn sure the refs reviewed that play. And I would’ve had the assistant coaches dogging the refs too, make them kick everyone out.
That game was so crucial to win at that point. That one game would’ve made us the 7th seed, or maybe we could’ve avoided the funk and had enough confidence beating the 1 seed to make a run to the 6th. But his lack of fight in that one moment that we really needed leadership, it almost felt like he didn’t care enough, or he was fine accepting disrespect. The players saw it, and I don’t think it was lost on them. And how can you continue following a leader who doesn’t fight.
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The team showed the same fight as JB did all season. He gave them the “oh shucks” vibe… “they just made more shots than us”. I always wanted him to get angry and he never did. He’d just punish a player until the end of time if doesn’t like said player.
I too was slightly surprised but not blown away by the decision to let JB go. I thought he’d get one more year on the Matt Rhule plan with a clear mandate that it was playoffs or bust. He advanced the ball for sure but if the thought from the FO was that he’d taken us as far as he could, I can’t really argue with that. No strong opinions on where to go with the hire other than I’m not really interested in a college coach.
I’m also among those strongly in support of Kupchak. He has a keen eye for talent and his personnel maneuvers have been mostly successful. That being said, the decisions he makes this summer regarding the coaching hire (assuming he makes it), our two draft picks and reconstructing the roster to address the deficiencies on defense and at C will determine whether we take the next step towards legitimacy or whether Lamelo is demanding a trade in a few years. He’s got to get this right.
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