Please assure me Gentry/Demps don't get a pass due to Cousin's injury

Everybody wants Hill back like he’s gonna solve all of this teams defensive problems and he hasn’t played in a year because of a LEG injury but he comes back and we’re good , news flash he wasn’t the answer before the injury he isn’t gonna be after either .


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Originally Posted by MistaWhoDat

Everybody wants Hill back like he’s gonna solve all of this teams defensive problems and he hasn’t played in a year because of a LEG injury but he comes back and we’re good , news flash he wasn’t the answer before the injury he isn’t gonna be after either .


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Maybe not 'the answer' directly, but when you add more pieces to the puzzle... (someone finish this analogy for me)

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Originally Posted by MistaWhoDat

Everybody wants Hill back like he’s gonna solve all of this teams defensive problems and he hasn’t played in a year because of a LEG injury but he comes back and we’re good , news flash he wasn’t the answer before the injury he isn’t gonna be after either .


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Last year, with him, we were a top 10 defensive team. This year, without him, we're 22nd: and that has improved over the last 6 weeks.

No one is saying that Solo will return and suddenly make us the 04 Pistons on defense. We're just saying having a guy who is actually the right size to guard wings to guard opposing wings is helpful in general. It's even more helpful if that guy is actually good at doing that job.

Having a guy you can put on, say, Rodney Hood last game and not be outsized, is valuable for defensive integrity.

[QUOTE=Pelicanidae;1449405]Last year, with him, we were a top 10 defensive team. This year, without him, we're 22nd: and that has improved over the last 6 weeks.

No one is saying that Solo will return and suddenly make us the 04 Pistons on defense. We're just saying having a guy who is actually the right size to guard wings to guard opposing wings is helpful in general. It's even more helpful if that guy is actually good at doing that job.

Having a guy you can put on, say, Rodney Hood last game and not be outsized, is valuable for defensive integrity.[ I get it he can’t hurt ans maybe he helps but we’re so far from being a good team he’s not going to make that much of a difference we just got beat by the Kings this team is two or three players away with no money or assets to work with I don’t know the answer is ...


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I would not be upset to see Gentry and Dell go after this year. Pull in Cousins and AD to discuss the new direction.

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Originally Posted by msw2024

I would not be upset to see Gentry and Dell go after this year. Pull in Cousins and AD to discuss the new direction.

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We need to go after Van Gundy I wanted Thibs or Van Gundy but this team wanted to go the cheap route and hire a career assistant coach that is not head coach material now we’re getting what we paid for .


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Originally Posted by MistaWhoDat

We need to go after Van Gundy I wanted Thibs or Van Gundy but this team wanted to go the cheap route and hire a career assistant coach that is not head coach material now we’re getting what we paid for .


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I liked Van Gundy too. He succeeded with two bigs before. Gentry has always been better with wings and guards / shooters. I do not think Gentry is a good fit with the players we have.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

I have to disagree with this. There are thousands of people the world over who are in high positions (and have been for a long time) but who simply should not be there. NBA head coach requires no formal qualification; there is absolutely no way of knowing that Gentry or any other coach has an infinitesimal knowledge of the game beyond ours short of personally interacting with him.

Now, I've not personally interacted with him so there's no way I can claim to know that he's as clueless as his on-court product would imply, but all that means is that I can only judge him on the product himself. And that product is so poor that I genuinely am fully confident that any reasonable poster on this forum, like yourself, could probably do his job. At the very least, could do a better job than him in regards to the on court product; rotations, lineups, etc.

In fact, I'd argue there's an extent to which being an NBA coach professionally cripples your ability to make rational coaching decisions. Take Rondo for example: we know he's bad. We have reams and reams of statistics showing he's trash, and when we watch the games from above we get a more balanced view of the floor than the coach in-game, and we can see he's trash. Gentry keeps playing him. Why? Again, unless I specifically asked him I cannot claim to know, but I would speculate that it's due to that problem you mentioned regarding personality dynamics, and let's not forget that being human (which coaches are) renders them fallible too; for all we know, Gentry just 'knows' Rondo is a true floor general, because that's what everyone knows, and he goes with it. He's too close sometimes to see the forest for the trees.

Now, I'm not claiming that we would be immune to these things: maybe if you or I were to be named head coach next week, we'd also slowly stop using the statistics and evidence and just rely on our almighty coachly intuition, it's entirely possible. Maybe we'd also allow locker room politics to override the actual bolts of running the team. Very possible. All I'm saying is that the fact that he's a coach means nothing to me.

It's the epitome of the argument from authority: I don't care what his job is, if he's bad at it he's bad at it and doesn't matter if he's been bad at it for ten minutes or ten years.

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That's just the thing, you have no inside knowledge of the actual inner workings of the team. You see a result and then assume from there that Gentry is ignoring things. Without knowing what's going on behind the scenes I think that is a very dangerous position to take. We simply don't know and so to make any judgment off of that or to infer that some random forum poster could do a better job is a gross marginalization of what it takes to be a NBA coach.

I do not believe Gentry could fake having Basketball knowledge at the absolute highest level in the world for as long as he has.

If you want to believe Gentry is a bad coach that's fine, but he is still hands down better than anyone on a forum posting about him.

And that's not a defense of his job. There are I'm sure plenty of actual coaches that could do a better job. You do not have to marginalize him down to the level of forum posters to think he should be replaced.

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Originally Posted by Mythrol

If you want to believe Gentry is a bad coach that's fine, but he is still hands down better than anyone on a forum posting about him.

And that's not a defense of his job. There are I'm sure plenty of actual coaches that could do a better job. You do not have to marginalize him down to the level of forum posters to think he should be replaced.

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I'm curious as to why you think 'the level of a forum poster' is being marginalised. What is it about posting on a forum that disqualifies you from being potentially better than Gentry? And what is it about being a coach that immediately qualifies you for being a coach? Isaiah Thomas was a GM, and we all saw how disastrous that was; is he still intrinsically someone you would trust as a GM over say, someone who has never been a GM but who has demonstrated a greater degree of understanding of the correct way to build a team and move forward?

I agree with you on a lot of things, but your argument here is basically just ''Gentry has been a coach for a long time, therefore he is hands down better than anyone on a forum posting about him'', which is not just a completely baseless argument but is also one from authority. I don't think I need to give you an example of someone who has ended up in a position of power for which they are in no way qualified and from which nothing but failure has come, do I?

I'm ready to give Demps and Gentry another year personally. If Demps wants to fire Gentry I'll leave that up to him but whatever coach he hires is going to be a short term hire. Anyone giving Demps a pass though has missed the point. He hired the coach.


I dont even know what a new GM would do here. Dell has left the cupboard pretty bare. I would give Dell one more year and ifthat fails give the new GM the green light to trade everything Davis included.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

I'm curious as to why you think 'the level of a forum poster' is being marginalised. What is it about posting on a forum that disqualifies you from being potentially better than Gentry? And what is it about being a coach that immediately qualifies you for being a coach? Isaiah Thomas was a GM, and we all saw how disastrous that was; is he still intrinsically someone you would trust as a GM over say, someone who has never been a GM but who has demonstrated a greater degree of understanding of the correct way to build a team and move forward?

I agree with you on a lot of things, but your argument here is basically just ''Gentry has been a coach for a long time, therefore he is hands down better than anyone on a forum posting about him'', which is not just a completely baseless argument but is also one from authority. I don't think I need to give you an example of someone who has ended up in a position of power for which they are in no way qualified and from which nothing but failure has come, do I?

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Because one has over 30 years of experience coaching at the highest level and the other is posting on a NBA team forum.

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Originally Posted by Mythrol

Because one has over 30 years of experience coaching at the highest level and the other is posting on a NBA team forum.

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You're right. If you do something for a long time, even if you are demonstrably terrible at it, you're automatically good at it by definition. How could I have been so foolish?

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Originally Posted by pelicanchamp

I️ can’t blame Demps for where we are right now. Cousins was putting everything together and playing at such a high level and the plan to make the playoffs seemed to be very realistic. We won 7 out of the last 8 before he got injured. Demps did the smartest thing by getting cousins and resigning Jrue and adding Miller and Rondo. Coaching was starting to work once we started winning games. I’m having a hard time blaming dell or Gentry. Can we get a better coach? Are you sure????? I️ think they need to fire erman. Defense is not working.


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This is pretty much where I'm at. The Houston game was well coached and it showed that this roster can compete, so I'm hesitant to cast blame on Demps and Gentry. In my mind, it's Erman that is coming in below expectations, All things considered.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

You're right. If you do something for a long time, even if you are demonstrably terrible at it, you're automatically good at it by definition. How could I have been so foolish?

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If you think Gentry was able to stay coaching for over 30 years in the NBA while being worse than a random person on a basketball forum, then I can't help you.

Bad is relative. Gentry can be a bad NBA Head coach and still be multiple times better of a coach than anyone here. We are talking about the best of the best of the best. This is not some average Joe profession and you do not have such a long sustained career like Gentry without at least knowing the job.

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Originally Posted by Mythrol

If you think Gentry was able to stay coaching for over 30 years in the NBA while being worse than a random person on a basketball forum, then I can't help you.

Bad is relative. Gentry can be a bad NBA Head coach and still be multiple times better of a coach than anyone here. We are talking about the best of the best of the best. This is not some average Joe profession.

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Except as we know, there is no qualification. You don't pass an NBA coaching course. You don't get qualified. You don't have to pass a bar or submit a dissertation, you can come to it in any of dozens of ways.

So we have two possibilities: either Gentry is a good coach in the grand scheme of things, just bad for NBA level, or he's bad in the grand scheme of things including NBA level. Either way, he's bad at NBA level.

Meanwhile, any random person on this forum or any other forum could be better. And I'm willing to bet that there are some who are. Because even if Gentry is one of the top 5% of potential coaches in the world, that means that given 1000 random people there will be 50 who are in that same category or better. Basic probability and statistics shows that Gentry is almost certainly not a better coach than every single person on this site.

Now, someone has to be the best that's true, but if you're suggesting that's Gentry then you're being contrarian for the sake of it.

Your argument is based entirely on incredulity and appealing to authority. You might be happy with that but anyone who actually cares whether they're right or not isn't.

Could I be wrong? Of course. It's not physically impossible that everyone on this forum would be even worse than Gentry. It's not statistically forbidden. But it's so unlikely as to be preposterous.

If we miss the playoffs they both should be fired. Hire JVG and give him full control. I guarantee we would, at the least, be good defensively.

If Monty was fired for making the playoffs and Gentry gets an extension for missing the playoffs it would be disgusting.

In all honesty I hope we still manage to get in. It might take a few games to get on the same page with Boogie out but that is no excuse.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Except as we know, there is no qualification. You don't pass an NBA coaching course. You don't get qualified. You don't have to pass a bar or submit a dissertation, you can come to it in any of dozens of ways.

So we have two possibilities: either Gentry is a good coach in the grand scheme of things, just bad for NBA level, or he's bad in the grand scheme of things including NBA level. Either way, he's bad at NBA level.

Meanwhile, any random person on this forum or any other forum could be better. And I'm willing to bet that there are some who are. Because even if Gentry is one of the top 5% of potential coaches in the world, that means that given 1000 random people there will be 50 who are in that same category or better. Basic probability and statistics shows that Gentry is almost certainly not a better coach than every single person on this site.

Now, someone has to be the best that's true, but if you're suggesting that's Gentry then you're being contrarian for the sake of it.

Your argument is based entirely on incredulity and appealing to authority. You might be happy with that but anyone who actually cares whether they're right or not isn't.

Could I be wrong? Of course. It's not physically impossible that everyone on this forum would be even worse than Gentry. It's not statistically forbidden. But it's so unlikely as to be preposterous.

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I'm sorry we just totally disagree on this. If you believe any NBA owner would chose a random basketball poster over Gentry then we cannot find common ground here.

I believe statistics are firmly on my side that odds are much higher that Gentry is a better coach than everyone on this forum.

My argument is not based on appeasing authority at all, it is based on the fact that people who's job it is to run NBA teams would not be dumb collectively over the course of 30+ years to hire a coach that is worse than a random internet forum poster.

Also just because there are no *standardized* qualifications does not mean that teams do not have a set of qualifications that they follow when hiring coaches. At the top of the list is probably "have more years coaching than posting on a basketball forum".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mythrol

I'm sorry we just totally disagree on this. If you believe any NBA owner would chose a random basketball poster over Gentry then we cannot find common ground here.

I believe statistics are firmly on my side that odds are much higher that Gentry is a better coach than everyone on this forum.

My argument is not based on appeasing authority at all, it is based on the fact that people who's job it is to run NBA teams would not be dumb collectively over the course of 30+ years to hire a coach that is worse than a random internet forum poster.

Also just because there are no *standardized* qualifications does not mean that teams do not have a set of qualifications that they follow when hiring coaches. At the top of the list is probably "have more years coaching than posting on a basketball forum".

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"My argument isn't an appeal to authority at all, it's just claiming that the people in a position of responsibility are likely to be right in this situation"

Okay man, whatever you say.

The statistics are not on your side at all. Even if Gentry is in the top 1% of all possible coaching candidates, then one out of every hundred people on this forum would be at least as good by probability. That's literally what a percentage is.


Edit: I do agree though, we do totally disagree on this and it's a waste of time to continue it. I won't be carrying it on cause neither of us are likely to change our minds based on this particular discussion and it's a waste of my time and yours, so I'll let you move on.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

"My argument isn't an appeal to authority at all, it's just claiming that the people in a position of responsibility are likely to be right in this situation"

Okay man, whatever you say.

The statistics are not on your side at all. Even if Gentry is in the top 1% of all possible coaching candidates, then one out of every hundred people on this forum would be at least as good by probability. That's literally what a percentage is.


Edit: I do agree though, we do totally disagree on this and it's a waste of time to continue it. I won't be carrying it on cause neither of us are likely to change our minds based on this particular discussion and it's a waste of my time and yours, so I'll let you move on.

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Except not everyone on the forum is a possible coaching candidate. People need to actually know how to coach first before being able to be considered. People need to know how to draw up plays, people need to know how to handle personalities of multimillionaire players and billion dollar owners, they have to be able to face the public and constant criticisms. Just because someone is alive does not mean they are a possible candidate. That's why the even 1% statistic is wrong. It is far, far lower than that.

Demps gets the pass.
Gentry gets the ax.

My problem with Demps was never really about Demps. He needs a boss with a seat at the executive table whose only job is the Basketball team. Or he needs to hire someone to do his current job and run the day to day. While he moves into a Loomis role. He needs a cadre.

Gentry is about as average as average gets. Any excuse you can use to can him should be used.


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Gentry making adjustments finally it appears

Anthony Davis: "We come out slow in third quarters, but we are going to adjust that tomorrow night with some different things."

— Scott Kushner (@ScottDKushner) February 6, 2018

My real name is Phil Jackson, I can do better!

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Originally Posted by jprdbulldog20

Gentry making adjustments finally it appears

Anthony Davis: "We come out slow in third quarters, but we are going to adjust that tomorrow night with some different things."

— Scott Kushner (@ScottDKushner) February 6, 2018

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Well it's about time...

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Originally Posted by jprdbulldog20

Gentry making adjustments finally it appears

Anthony Davis: "We come out slow in third quarters, but we are going to adjust that tomorrow night with some different things."

— Scott Kushner (@ScottDKushner) February 6, 2018

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I mean...the writing was on the wall!

Wow, going to make a change? I guess after 53 games, he finally decided something was not working.