Bill Simmons rips Van Gundy, Pels...

[new city champ]

In case you missed it, here's what he said on his latest pod about the Pels and SVG...https://twitter.com/PrestonEllis/sta...81808584904706.

"The team that has no excuse and should just apologize to America is New Orleans. They are 26-34. I have personally witnessed them blow 12 games late because of bad coaching--10-12 games easy. They just always do the wrong thing in the last 4 minutes of the game. Van Gundy, I think, is the worst coach in the league. I really do. I think he's the worst coach in the league. That team, they get 50 points a game from Zion and Ingram. Zion is completely unstoppable at the end of games, completely unstoppable. No one knows what to do against him and they have...I just can't believe that team is 8 games under .500."

In my worst moments, this is exactly how I feel. But Simmons is ignoring a whole host of factors. I think the Pels will be much better next year even if they don't make significant changes in the offseason, and I think they will make some changes.

[Pelicanidae]

Simmons is an idiot who doesn't understand the first thing about basketball and, as you've mentioned, his ''analysis'' ignores a huge range of factors and it reflects in his conclusion.

Also lmao at him saying he has ''personally witnessed'' the Pels anything. Listening to him speak, I'm fully convinced he watches about 4 games a year total that are non-Celtics games.

[Teal Lantern]

In case you missed it, here's what he said on his latest pod about the Pels and SVG...https://twitter.com/PrestonEllis/sta...81808584904706.

"The team that has no excuse and should just apologize to America is New Orleans. They are 26-34. I have personally witnessed them blow 12 games late because of bad coaching--10-12 games easy. They just always do the wrong thing in the last 4 minutes of the game. Van Gundy, I think, is the worst coach in the league. I really do. I think he's the worst coach in the league. That team, they get 50 points a game from Zion and Ingram. Zion is completely unstoppable at the end of games, completely unstoppable. No one knows what to do against him and they have...I just can't believe that team is 8 games under .500."

In my worst moments, this is exactly how I feel. But Simmons is ignoring a whole host of factors. I think the Pels will be much better next year even if they don't make significant changes in the offseason, and I think they will make some changes.

His viewpoint is simplistic, but he's not completely wrong. What I've seen in some many late losses is a team that has too many flaws to overcome them when the temperature is turned up. One game, it's FT shooting. The next is rebounding. The next is shot selection. It all feels painfully familiar despite having a new coach and a revamped roster.

[MichaelMcNamara]

Anybody who thinks Zion is totally unstoppable at the end of games clearly doesnt watch. Also, two guys scoring 50 points in a game means nothing in a league where everyone scores 110+. You still need another 65.

SVG has flaws - namely his reluctance to pull Adams at end of games when we are up and need to focus more on defending the 3 point line and creating space for our playmakers. But he was never brought in here to be the long term tactician coach that brings Zion to the promised land. He is a transitional coach who was brought in to teach the players the habits they need to build to be champions. And to hold them accountable, not be their friend. Once they start doing that on their own, SVG will be gone and that tactician coach will be brought in to bring the team over the hump. Has always been the plan.

[JJackisangry]

These national idiots need to just let it go. Treating a team that is two years into a rebuild as if it isn’t following the norm. They are still butthurt that Zion isn’t a Knick. No more to it

[PELICANSFAN]

Anybody who thinks Zion is totally unstoppable at the end of games clearly doesnt watch. Also, two guys scoring 50 points in a game means nothing in a league where everyone scores 110+. You still need another 65.

SVG has flaws - namely his reluctance to pull Adams at end of games when we are up and need to focus more on defending the 3 point line and creating space for our playmakers. But he was never brought in here to be the long term tactician coach that brings Zion to the promised land. He is a transitional coach who was brought in to teach the players the habits they need to build to be champions. And to hold them accountable, not be their friend. Once they start doing that on their own, SVG will be gone and that tactician coach will be brought in to bring the team over the hump. Has always been the plan.

Do you or does management think he has done his job? His coaching is very suspect. The Adams issue you mention is an obvious one. Even little things like not using timeouts to advance the ball late in games and allowing opponents to take advantage of that is something you would expect from any coach. His rotations are questionable, especially with Zion late in games. He also goes long stretches without BI and Zion on the court together.

[As I See It]

Anybody who thinks Zion is totally unstoppable at the end of games clearly doesnt watch. Also, two guys scoring 50 points in a game means nothing in a league where everyone scores 110+. You still need another 65.

SVG has flaws - namely his reluctance to pull Adams at end of games when we are up and need to focus more on defending the 3 point line and creating space for our playmakers. But he was never brought in here to be the long term tactician coach that brings Zion to the promised land. He is a transitional coach who was brought in to teach the players the habits they need to build to be champions. And to hold them accountable, not be their friend. Once they start doing that on their own, SVG will be gone and that tactician coach will be brought in to bring the team over the hump. Has always been the plan.

This!!

Anybody who fails to acknowledge that the immature talent on this team is simply sticking their head in the sand. There was a time when Curry was on the trading block, LaVine was traded away, nobody wanted Randle, and Wood couldn't find a job.

Further, I think 'coaching', to a large measure, is overrated.

Did Auerbach make Russel, Havlicek, and Cousy, or was it the other way around?
Did Fitch make Bird, Parish, and McHale, or was it the other way around?
Did Riley make Magic, Kareem, and Worthy, or was it the other way around?
Did Jackson make MJ, Scotty and Grant (later Kobe, Shaq, and Fisher), or was it the other way around?
Is it Steve Kerr that made the Warriors relevant or was it Curry, Thompson, and Green?

Conversely...

Is the current Pelican record an indictment of SVG's coaching...or Zion, Ingram, and Ball's immature on-the-court play?

[MichaelMcNamara]

Do you or does management think he has done his job? His coaching is very suspect. The Adams issue you mention is an obvious one. Even little things like not using timeouts to advance the ball late in games and allowing opponents to take advantage of that is something you would expect from any coach. His rotations are questionable, especially with Zion late in games. He also goes long stretches without BI and Zion on the court together.

Fans are very forgiving of.players but think a coach should be great from day 1.

Yes, he has experience from other stops but this is his first time with this roster. I dont bash a person if they make mistakes. I bash them if they keep stubbornly making them and the Adams issue is the only way I really have with SVG currently because he has attempted new ways with other things that failed. For example, we lost two games early in season because he didnt call timeouts with the lead to get his best FT shooters in and slow the game down for his young team and refocus them. He does that all the time now

I firmly believe Bledsoe would be getting less minutes if NAW didnt get hurt, might even be starting by now. He went to point Zion late but he went to it

A good coach is not a coach who never makes mistakes. A good coach makes mistakes and learns from them and om most cases he has seemed willing to modify

[ramsters60]

Fans are very forgiving of.players but think a coach should be great from day 1.

Yes, he has experience from other stops but this is his first time with this roster. I dont bash a person if they make mistakes. I bash them if they keep stubbornly making them and the Adams issue is the only way I really have with SVG currently because he has attempted new ways with other things that failed. For example, we lost two games early in season because he didnt call timeouts with the lead to get his best FT shooters in and slow the game down for his young team and refocus them. He does that all the time now

I firmly believe Bledsoe would be getting less minutes if NAW didnt get hurt, might even be starting by now. He went to point Zion late but he went to it

A good coach is not a coach who never makes mistakes. A good coach makes mistakes and learns from them and om most cases he has seemed willing to modify

you are so good when you don't come around with that "holier than thou" image.....

[MichaelMcNamara]

you are so good when you don't come around with that "holier than thou" image.....

Check the records....i only do that when people attack me. Anybody who ever debates me with respect, i treat with respect. Has always been the case.

[13 - 3]

I’m good with that . I mean If this Stan thing is just temporary till we find our real coach. I’m even okay if they move Stan to an office position. But his coaching is way outdated for today’s NBA.

[As I See It]

I’m good with that . I mean If this Stan thing is just temporary till we find our real coach. I’m even okay if they move Stan to an office position. But his coaching is way outdated for today’s NBA.

Fundamentals are Fundamentals and basketball IQs are basketball IQs, regardless of the era. This team lacks both.

Example?

Pelicans are up by 11 with 4:00 minutes in the game and Pelicans get a defensive rebound, push it into the front court, and take a 25 foot three pointer (and miss) with 19 seconds remaining on the shot clock.

Also....

Please remember, we have not seen a head coach since 1979's Dave Cowens miss a free throw.

[ragincaucasian]

Fundamentals are Fundamentals and basketball IQ are basketball IQ, regardless of the era. This team lacks both.

Example?

Pelicans are up by 11 with 4:00 minutes in the game and Pelicans get a defensive rebound, push it into the front court, and take a 25 foot three pointer (and miss) with 19 seconds remaining on the shot clock.

Also....

Please remember, we have not seen a head coach since 1979's Dave Cowens miss a free throw.

This team has the worst SITUATIONAL IQ of any team that I have ever watched. Even talentless teams know simple concepts like clock management. There is just no excuse for the idiocy that we have watched at the end of games this season.

[Pelicanidae]

This team has the worst SITUATIONAL IQ of any team that I have ever watched. Even talentless teams know simple concepts like clock management. There is just no excuse for the idiocy that we have watched at the end of games this season.

I get what you're saying about bad situational IQ, and god knows I'm not claiming this team doesn't have problems there, but there's some stiff competition for the worst.



Listen to the Bulls commentators when that shot goes up. They sound like they've lost a friend.

[MichaelMcNamara]

I think people would be shocked to know how unaware most NBA and NFL players are in game. I would bet a large amount of money that if you froze a game at the 5 minute mark of the 4th and asked all players:

How many timeouts does your team have left? How many fouls until you are in the penalty? and Whats the score? --- MAYBE 10 to 15 percent would answer two out of three right, let alone all 3.

Which is why Chris Paul has always been my favorite player and guys like him are invaluable. He will always be the greatest player in this franchise's history because of THAT despite AD, Zion, and probably even BI being more gifted. And then when you have a guy who has that brain PLUS the physical gifts, you get a guy who has the sustained success of Lebron. Because it is so freaking rare. And to coaches, all these things seem like common sense - the tactical and thinking part of the game, so sometimes they dont teach it as much as they should. I mean, how many of us teach what we perceive to be common sense things in life? After all, we think they are COMMONLY known.

So when you hear coaches say things like "getting back to basics" this is the stuff they are talking about. Not just scheme. Literally, basic common sense game situation stuff that we all think these multi million dollar athletes who have been playing this game their whole life should know, but I promise you that very few of them do

[sting]

He's right, SVG was a terrible hire and a terrible coach.

[da ThRONe]

I think people would be shocked to know how unaware most NBA and NFL players are in game. I would bet a large amount of money that if you froze a game at the 5 minute mark of the 4th and asked all players:

How many timeouts does your team have left? How many fouls until you are in the penalty? and Whats the score? --- MAYBE 10 to 15 percent would answer two out of three right, let alone all 3.

Which is why Chris Paul has always been my favorite player and guys like him are invaluable. He will always be the greatest player in this franchise's history because of THAT despite AD, Zion, and probably even BI being more gifted. And then when you have a guy who has that brain PLUS the physical gifts, you get a guy who has the sustained success of Lebron. Because it is so freaking rare. And to coaches, all these things seem like common sense - the tactical and thinking part of the game, so sometimes they dont teach it as much as they should. I mean, how many of us teach what we perceive to be common sense things in life? After all, we think they are COMMONLY known.

So when you hear coaches say things like "getting back to basics" this is the stuff they are talking about. Not just scheme. Literally, basic common sense game situation stuff that we all think these multi million dollar athletes who have been playing this game their whole life should know, but I promise you that very few of them do

I can't tell you how many times playing pick up ball I'll yell down the court no 2's make'em drive no matter what only to have one of my team mates leave a guy wide open from 2. Most frustrating thing as a competitor.

[HoustonPelicans]

"Simmons is ignoring a whole host of factors" "He doesn't know basketball" What are these factors??? All I see is blind support for Van Gundy. Nobody has yet to name one single thing that this guy does right but just says give him time. "the team is immature". No. He doesn't deserve time. Memphis is young. They're playing well. This team is not immature, that's a lie. Van Gundy just sucks. His rotations, adjustments, offense, defense all suck. There is literally nothing he does right. The team doesn't even like him, respect him nor listen to him. Zion has even lost the joy of playing the last few games. Just been going through the motions. SVG is the worse coach in the league and can't nobody present a single argument as to why he is not without blaming others or talking about Orlando 10 years ago(which he sucked then too, just had 4 allstars in a decimated Leastern conference). Simmons is spot on and he's just being dismissed because he's a national reporter and there's this undeserved love fest for Van Gundy on here. I would love to hear one reason why Van Gundy deserves more time that doesn't involve an excuse or blaming the team. Name one positive this guy brings. At this point I'm starting to think folks are willing to lose everyone on the team including Zion just to have this terrible coach.

Edit: None of our players are low IQ. None of them. It is getting old seeing these guys get blatantly disrespected in defense of this low IQ below average coach. They do not deserve that at all.

[As I See It]

Edit: None of our players are low IQ. None of them.

Then you are just blind.

Four minutes to go in a game...up by 11...get a defensive rebound and rush it up court...pull the trigger (no passes) from three with 20 seconds still left on shot clock. Hit or miss that's not a smart thing to do at that point in the game. Or maybe you think it is which would explain a lot about your tirade.

[MichaelMcNamara]

About 90-95 percent of the job of the coach happens out of the view of the public. Yet the public has such a strong opinion of how good or bad of a job the coach is doing. Always been funny to me


And if you want to counter with results are what matters than explain to me why so many COYs were fired within a year or two of winning the award. Why so many coaches have great seasons and then bad or average ones. Why a guy like Dantoni can be great in 2 stops and awful in 2 stops

[luckyman]

Then you are just blind.

Four minutes to go in a game...up by 11...get a defensive rebound and rush it up court...pull the trigger (no passes) from three with 20 seconds still left on shot clock. Hit or miss that's not a smart thing to do at that point in the game. Or maybe you think it is which would explain a lot about your tirade.

In all fairness, up 11 with 4 minutes left is a lot of possessions. Plenty enough time to overcome 11 points. Thats not the time to start playing the clock or slowing down. If that 3 is open then you need to take and make that shot.

As a matter of fact the team's problems have been the opposite. They all get shell shocked and end up heaving a fadeaway 3 at the end of the shot clock, which leads to easy fast break points for the opponent.

[As I See It]

In all fairness, up 11 with 4 minutes left is a lot of possessions. Plenty enough time to overcome 11 points. Thats not the time to start playing the clock or slowing down. If that 3 is open then you need to take and make that shot.

As a matter of fact the team's problems have been the opposite. They all get shell shocked and end up heaving a fadeaway 3 at the end of the shot clock, which leads to easy fast break points for the opponent.

Perhaps, you do 'waste' the shot on a three that you can get at any point in during a 24 second shot clock. But okay. how's this for another example of what a low IQ team this is....

With four seconds left in the game and you're up by three, the only thing that can hurt you is a game-tying three. So the opponent drives to the goal and you leave the man you are closely guarding at the three point line to defend the rim. The driving opponent tosses the ball to the player you left wide open at the three point line for an uncontested three.

[HoustonPelicans]

Perhaps, you do 'waste' the shot on a three that you can get at any point in during a 24 second shot clock. But okay. how's this for another example of what a low IQ team this is....

With four seconds left in the game and you're up by three, the only thing that can hurt you is a game-tying three. So the opponent drives to the goal and you leave the man you are closely guarding at the three point line to defend the rim. The driving opponent tosses the ball to the player you left wide open at the three point line for an uncontested three.

The fact that you're fishing for singular possessions 63 games into the season says alot to your biasness. If our players were low IQ, you would be able to speak to their game as a whole not fish for singular possessions.

For example, I can speak on how SVG is a terrible coach by pointing to:

his rotations - no feel for the game, has overplayed Adams and Bledsoe when other teams were clearly not even guarding them and our offense stagnated. He has done this many times in the 3rd and 4th quarter. He has not fully utilized the roster and has not been able to find effective rotations despite having a fully healthy roster majority of the season.

His adjustments- He has failed to adjust to any changes a team has made, he runs the same offense and defense all game. He finds something that semi works and sticks to it, no matter what adjustments the other team makes. He always fail to counter adjust. I.E. how he has beaten this point Zion mess into the ground. A clear misuse of Zion. No reason Zion should be running point guard for 4 consecutive quarters. Just because Kobe had handles, that doesn't mean Fisher didn't bring the ball up and set the offense. He did the same mess with Hedo Turkoglu in Orlando

His offense - 0 creativity. As said above the only thing he has found that semi works is point Zion, and he's abused that to the point of other teams beginning to just figure it out and wall up. He doesn't know how to get the team going. He couldn't even find plays to get JJ Redick going. But of course, most are novice and will point to "tOp 10 oFfEnsE" when its really just Zion being historic and Brandon being great. And we wonder why their drained on defense.

His defense - This was supposed to be his calling card. Thats a lie. His defense sucks, JJ even called it out saying that SVG just expects you to guard your man straight up all game. I started watching closely and its true! No creativity to his defense, its simple high-school sets. That mess was only effective with Dwight Howard in his prime, in a era where only a handful of 4's actually shot the 3. That's why he don't know how to defend the 3 or adjust to it. He's out of his era. Teams just abuse us. Is Adams low IQ? No. So why does he keep dropping back on every P&R leaving him in No man's land? Because the coach is telling him too. All it takes is one P&R at the top of the key, and our defense is discombobulated. A few swing passes later and the other team has a wide open shot. Go watch the Celtics game we won in overtime, look at how much energy our guys had to expend to cover for SVG's abysmal defensive system. They were running around like it was a game 7 playoff game. That is highly unsustainable over 82 games.

See how I can break down why SVG is a bad coach? Nobody can explain how he is a good coach. Just blame the players. Its ridiculous. A decent coach would've had this team in the playoffs. SVG is the worse coach in the league and on top of that, Nobody on our roster even likes him. Zion whole demeanor changes when Stan's name is even mentioned in a post game interview. Not one player has said anything positive about Stan the entire season. If that's not telling then idk what it is. Idk whats with this blind love fest for SVG but its definitely unsettling.

[As I See It]

The fact that you're fishing for singular possessions 63 games into the season says alot to your biasness. If our players were low IQ, you would be able to speak to their game as a whole not fish for singular possessions.

You have a season full of player screw ups to choose from. Our roster (as a whole) is just basketball dumb. From NAW to Lonzo; from Kira to Zion; from Hart to JAX, they do some of the stupidest things situationally in basketball, I have ever seen in my life. This is not a knock on any of their physical skills individually and hopefully they grow out of it, but, as a bunch, I've seen more basketball "smarts" in my Sunday Afternoon Church League than I see from them.

However, you make valid point about this "Point Zion" foolishness. He has the ability to be much more dominant than Luka. So why are we trying to create Luka 2.0 here in New Orleans instead of Zion 1.0. He a finisher; not a orchestrator. I can't imagine Karl Malone running point for the Jazz with a John Stockton on the roster. Nor could I imagine Charles Barkley running Point with a Maurice Cheeks on the roster. Or even Lebron James taking the ball out of Kyrie Irving's hands as a staple when in Cleveland. Nobody fears Zion Williamson, 25 feet from the basket.

I can tolerate Point Zion has a change-up, but as a steady diet, it diminishes and under-utilizes his skillset.

[Excelsior88]

SVG deserves to be stripped of his title just for not bringing this defense up since, as some have pointed out, it was supposed to be his calling card. His bread and butter, if you will. So with that said, I hear Becky Hammon is ready for a head coaching job.