Points in the Paint 11.27.08: Turkey Day Edition

Posted by Rob Bonnette on 11.27.2008

Fired Coaches!

Hello everyone and welcome to special Thanksgiving edition of Points in the Paint. This week it's all about fired coaches, who like those poor Turkeys in the Sarah Palin interview, got their heads chopped off. And there was a pretty big trade involving a team that I suffer for every season. Dig in everyone!

The Firing Squad!

Well, it doesn't take long, does it? We're a dozen games in and two coaches have already gotten pink slipped. Fist, PJ Carleisimo gets run in Oklahoma City after a 1-12 start, then Eddie Jordan gets the heave ho from the Washington Wizards after starting 1-10. I think both of these guys are getting screwed, personally. PJ had been in exile as an assistant coach for several years after losing his job in Golden State (mainly for getting choked by Latrell Spreewell), and had finally gotten another shot at a head coaching gig with the then-Seattle Sonics last year. The Sonics (now the Oklahoma City Thunder) were in an obvious rebuilding mode, and was supposedly going to stand by their new hire as their young players matured into the stars of the future. Well, after an (expected) bad year last season, I'm sure the front office was looking for some form of improvement out of sophomores Kevin Durant and Jeff Green along with some good things from rookie point guard Russell Westbrook. What they've gotten from those three so far is a mixed bag at best. Durant is scoring a few more points than he did last season (22 per game vs. 20), and is shooting much better from the floor, but is down slightly in every other category. Green is also scoring a little more (14 points per game, up from 10 last season) but shooting worse from the floor (but better from three point range) than last season. Westbrook has shown some promise, but is still coming off the bench right now and is shooting an abysmal 38 percent from the floor. The two veteran additions, Joe Smith and Desmond Mason, don't seem to have helped much either. The rest of the roster remains in tact from last season led by veterans Nick Collison, Earl Watson, Chris Wilcox, and Damien Wilikins, along with developing (hahaha) talents Robert Swift, Johan Petro and Mahmoud Saer Sene. This team is collection of guys with potential alongside some veterans who look OK on paper but wouldn't be starting for good teams. Those kinds of teams usually don't win much, so it's not a surprise to see them in last place. But 1-12 is embarrassing, so Carleisimo got fired. Sorry, Thunder fans, but until you land that game changing player (which Durant is not) your team will be wallowing at the bottom of the standings.

And now to the Wizards. There was a lot more drama here than in Oklahoma City, so this might take a minute. Jordan had been the coach there for the last five seasons, and made the playoffs four straight times. But the last two seasons have been filled with a lot back and forth between him and Gilbert Arenas, not to mention tension between Jordan and Wizards GM Ernie Grunfeld. First, the Arenas situation. Since arriving in D.C. along with Jordan, Arenas has turned into a local superstar with his picture plastered all over downtown. To be blunt, he got too big for Eddie to have any kind of authority over. And while Gilbert isn't a bad guy by any stretch, he's enough of a class clown type to drive any coach nuts. He scored a lot of points and excited the fans, but didn't play any defense and the rest of the team often was relegated to standing around and watching him when they were on offense. The saving graces were that he could go for 40 or 50 on any given night and that some kind of way he was able to run the team just well enough that they scored a lot of points and his two All-Star teammates, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison were able to get their 20-plus points per game to go along with Gilbert's 25 to 30. Everyone else was pretty much left to get table scraps, though, which hurt. Then Gilbert got hurt at the end of the 2006-07 season, and everything turned upside down. He was out for the 2007 playoffs along with most of last season, and yet the team managed to hang together (often playing better than they did with him) and get into the playoffs again as a fifth seed. Fast forward to this season; Arenas has signed a six year, $111 million dollar extension over the summer but still isn't ready to play yet. Starting center Brendan Haywood, coming off a career year, gets hurt in training camp and is out for the season. So now they're down two starters from last season, including their only legitimate seven footer. Bad times. Butler and Jamison are still playing well, but can't carry what's left of a roster this time around. The team overall is being outshot 47 percent to 44 percent, and outscored on a nightly basis 103 to 94. They lose ten of eleven games to start out, including two embarrassing losses last week: one to Houston, where the had a seven point lead after three quarters and went to lose by twelve, and then to New York, which only played seven guys (five of whom played over 40 minutes) yet managed to score 122 points on not run out of gas in the fourth quarter. There were rumblings about the players quitting on Eddie, and after those two defeats he was done.

Now what about the coach-GM tussle between Eddie and Grunfeld? My interpretation of it was that Grunfeld, as all GMs do, drafted some layers that the coach didn't use enough for his tastes. Olekski Pecherov and Dominic McGuire got little to no run under Jordan, while Andray Blatche minutes were inconsistent. Free agent point guard Dee Brown wasn't getting much playing time either. That's four guys not playing much on a team with two starters out for the season and a third (point guard Antonio Daniels) who has been out for a few weeks now. Pecehrov and McGuire are seven footers, which should have meant at least some minutes on a team without its starting center, as is Blatche, who couldn't get in the starting lineup under Jordan or consistently get past the 20 minute mark in playing time. So why didn't Jordan play these guys more? The same reason most coaches don't play guys: they don't think they can play. Pecherov is one of those seven foot three point specialists that GMs love but coaches and fans hate; when your team needs low post play, he's no help. McGuire plays with a lot of hussle and energy but has almost no offensive game to speak of. Brown was a free agent pickup who wasn't expected to play much, because he isn't all that good. And Blatche is Kwame Brown redux, a seven footer with every tool to be a great player except for discipline and work ethic. Jordan had been going with his three healthy starters (Jamison, Butler, and guard Deshawn Stevenson), centers Etan Thomas and Javale McGee, forward Daruis Songalia, and guards Juan Dixon and Nick Young for most of the game. Blatche would get anywhere from 4 to 26 minutes from Eddie, and managed to disappoint pretty much every time out there. (More on him later.) So in a nutshell, you had a losing team where the coach was not playing guys that the GM wanted him to, so the coach got fired. That's my take at least. Now, back to Blatche. I labeled him Kwame Brown redux for good reason. He's the type of guy who gets coaches fired. Seven feet tall, great wingspan, can run the floor and jump out of the gym. But no heart, no work ethic, none of the intangibles that turn great physical specimens into great players. So what happens is that you get the occasional night where he scores in double figures, block some shots into the stands, and throws down a monster dunk. And everyone, especially the GM, wonders out loud: why isn't he playing more? And then you find out why when over the next four games he's a turnover machine who plays no defense and doesn't know his spot on the floor at either end. So the coach gets pissed and sits him down. And then the GM gets pissed at the coach because the coach won't play this awesome talent that he drafted. And then, if the team loses too much, the coach gets fired and the new coach promises to get the phenom to realize his great potential. So that guy actually gives him major minutes, and gets let down, and gets fired. Rinse. Repeat.

So how did Jordan's replacement do in his first game as head coach? A resounding 24 point win, no surprise at all. When coaches get switched midseason the new guy often gets a resounding win in his first outing. And of course, Blatche played the best game of his career; 25 points, 12 rebounds, 5 assists, and 5 blocks in 29 minutes. And two of the other guys Jordan didn't play much, Brown and McGuire get more minutes and do fairly well with them. So that seals it; Jordan was the problem, right? Uhh……no. The Wizards were playing the defensively inept Golden State Warriors, who give up career high performances to a lot of people. Reality comes tonight against Orlando and Dwight Howard. Somehow I get the feeling that Blatche won't be duplicating last night's work. The proof will come over the next several weeks, when interim coach Ed Tapscott will have to deal with these guys night in and night out. And to be honest with you guys, I don't care if Blatche goes on to be an All-Star now; he's still a bum in my book. I wouldn't want him on my team.

Knicks fan update!

I know these have been less and les frequent as time has gone on, but I'm sure any longtime readers know why. My team stinks real bad, as last night's drubbing at the hands of the Cavaliers showed once again. But since they made a huge trade, there is some actual news to report here. They dealt Zach Randolph, Mardy Collins, and Jamal Crawford away and got back Cuttino Mobley, Tim Thomas, and Al Harrington. This trade isn't about this season, or next season for that matter; it's about the summer of 2010. All three of the guys they picked up have expiring contracts in 2010, while the ones they dealt are signed beyond then. You throw in Stephon Marbury's contract, which runs out in 2009, and it's obvious what's going on here. The Knicks are clearing out as much salary cap space as possible in the hopes of landing Lebron, Chris Bosh, or Dwyane Wade. As of right now, they only have four guys who will be under contract past 2010, and two of them are on rookie contracts. Now they'll probably keep some of the guys on the roster, like David Lee and Nate Robinson, but don't expect to see any big signing before then. It wouldn't shock me if they traded away their 2009 first rounder, either. Why get another young player who will cost another million or two when you can save that space? So am I willing to kiss the 2008-09 season (and probably the 2009-2010 one) goodbye in hopes of landing King James in 2010? Sure. I would like them to at least be competitive, though. Right now they're fielding a lineup with no one over 6-foot-10, and starting Lee at center. That won't hold up well for too long; but it's what we've got to work with unless D'Antoni decides to take Eddy Curry out of mothballs and play him. It's a big gamble, but if it pays off it will be worth it. I did like Crawford and Randolph though; they didn't do much defensively but at least they were good scorers. I like Wilson Chandler, too, and I've been a big Lee booster from day one. But it's all about progress, and 2010.

OK, that's it for this week. I know I was supposed to talk about Greg Oden, but maybe next week. And I'll expand on this Lebron in 2010 thing, too. Until then, enjoy Turkey Day!