Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

It's always greener on the other side of the fence, but then you read other teams message boards, and realize they all want their coach fired too.

 

Yes, I'd imagine even SA fans want Pop fired, because he is old, falls in love with scrubs, doesn't emphasize defense and the game has moved past him. lol.

Even with all the hype, I see C Bags fans bashing Stevens.

Steve Kerr also gets criticized a lot for no reason.

 

Not sure I get the point here. So because great coaches are getting criticized we shouldn't be critiquing Luke? He's not in the same breath as Pop obviously and probably not Kerr either. Stevens is a coach who has taken his team to the conference finals.

What's Luke done? Got us to 35 wins with his garbage rotations? I'm going to feel free to bash away as I see fit as long as his coaching stinks. Should he be immune to criticism on this board?

 

^
There's no point. We're just discussing things as usual.

 

Easy target, when they don't have the ball in their hands

 

I will certainly agree that could be the case. But Luke does have a history of fielding crappy lineups like last year when he insisted on starting Larry Jr. over Randle to the detriment of the team.

But I'll concede that Kuz continuing to start instead of Hart after Ingram returned from his suspension might have been a FO dictated move. It's almost impossible to distinguish who's responsible for that at this point. They may very well be fattening up the calves for slaughter re: BI and Kuz.

Still, playing Hart at the 4 off the bench? That's some BS.

 

Also, I'm just not convinced yet that Walton is a good coach. I still think his days are numbered or at least in question until he gets us into the playoffs and wins at least one series there. Just like the young guys on our squad, he's going to have to prove it. He's on just as short a leash given Lebron's timeline. This year, get us into the playoffs and make some noise there. If we land two more superstars, I'm not sure he's going to continue to be given the reigns. I can see us moving for a more experienced coach.

 

I'm saying making the coach the scapegoat for all your team's perceived troubles is a constant across the NBA whether your team has a winning record or not. At some point you have to put this "the team is winning in spite of their coach" narrative into perspective. If every team has fans that think this, then maybe the coaches aren't the problem, and it's the fan's demand for perfection and refusal to give the coach the kudos for what the team does well. We don't see most of what the coaches do, so the only things we can critique are the things we see like rotations, and such, but 90% of what a coach does is implemented in practices. We don't get to see it, but the proof is in the pudding ie. our record.

Luke has his flaws. Every coach has their flaws. But we're 5th in the west and 2 games behind #1. If I told any of you that would be the case 23 games in you'd be very happy with that position. Luke deserves some praise for that.