Assistant Coach Discussion: McMillan And Brooks

The concern for me on Reddick is defense. He may have been limited by physical tools, but I suppose the narrative is that he didn’t care about defense or wasn’t a good defender.

Will he care about defense as a coach? Will he be an effective defensive coach? If not him in that role, who we do bring in to supplement him? He talks a good offensive game, but he was pretty one dimensional as a player. He was a “shooter”.

but then again, so was Kerr.

 

As a player I thought he was a good team defender in Orlando. Lot of that was SVG's system and having Dwight at the peak of his powers though. With him it was more lack of quickness and athleticism vs know-how or effort.

Regardless of who we hire, I think it the assistant hires will be as important if not more so than who's sitting in the lead chair. If we go with volleyball buddies or other coaches with limited experience OR if we go with coaches who's strengths offset the HC's weaknesses and at least a couple of them are able to speak from a position of experience because they've sat in the head chair before.

 

I just can't get behind a Lee or Bud hire. We pulled an apple from the tree with Ham. No thank you. You chop that tree down, light it on fire and relieve your bladder on it NOT grab another apple from it.

 

Gave it a like for language in making the point!

 

I'm going to keep sounding like a broken record - Atkinson came from the Budenholzer tree; he was an assistant there. So, if we taking Budenholzer, Atkinson, & Lee, we're left with Reddick who has LBJ's endorsement and buy-in as soon as he's immediately hired.

From what Irwin said, James isn't interested in Bud, Atkinson or Lee. A couple things that might change this: Lakers last two hires they really didn't care what LBJ thought and they went in their own direction; so, if somebody "pops" at the interview in a good way, they be inclined to go in that direction yet again.

Or

What if Draymond talks to LBJ and gives a thumbs up for Atkinson. He's been closer with him the last few years. LBJ thinks a lot of Green, they're close, maybe he gives him a chance on the basis of one of his good friends saying, "he is solid."

"Right now", It's looking like Reddick. IMO.

 

i think bud and stotts would both be great coaches for younger teams without established stars. not for us right now.

 

“There's no chance that JJ Redick is going to be able to command that locker room...There's only one person that I could see managing this, and I hate to say it, it's gonna be Ty Lue."

Big MEH. Nor is any of the other non Lue candidates if they turn out to not be “all that” and it’s obvious quickly what they’ve got between the ears, and Bron being ignored again is now exasperated. The jokes and actual real interest in Him as player coach I think many of us would find logical and be down with …. if it wasn’t not allowed by the NBA. If Bron is wowed with JJ’s knowledge of the game and excited to scheme in practice, pre-season and in games with him, and of course has to be very qualified assistants chosen, (AD too … if not really miffed or too miffed at JJ’s defensive honors snubbing) (kind of a Big IF) …. then the locker room doesn’t have any personalities that aren’t going to fall in line. Especially if it’s working!

 

This too I find extremely impressive, if anyone did not take the time to listen to. The guy as a role player never took time off basically. Was “driven” and got after it all over again virtually as soon as the season stopped and was like Kobe in that regard, and with the obsession on “practice”.

 

This right here.There is no doubt in my mind JJ is going to be a good coach.That doesn’t necessarily make him right for this team but anyone who has listened and watched him knows how detailed oriented and meticulous he is.I don’t believe locker rooms scare JJ he’s been there and obviously isn’t afraid to confront people as he has shown numerous times.

 

Its so hard for us as fans to engage with this coach hiring process because we have next to no information. We have no idea how involved David Adelman, Micah Nori or Charles Lee are in the Nuggets', Timberwolves' and C Bags' respective success. We have no idea if they have a direct hand in designing their schemes or developing their players, or if they're just doing what the head coach is telling them to do. We have some quotes from current players about how much they like those guys, but unless the players are in open revolt like ours were all such quotes will be pretty vanilla and non-insightful.

We have no idea exactly how well Redick is suited for a head coaching job. All we really have on him are his podcast and ESPN commentary, both of which are purposely kept relatively surface level so as not to turn off viewers (his podcast is obviously in depth). We don't really know what Terry Stotts or Kenny Atkinson were good or bad at in their prior coaching tenures, only that they were both generally fine.

 

But I’ve decided I’m on the what LeBron wants train this time around since he can’t be the coach himself. To have it go south again because he figures out quickly the guy isn’t as equipped game wise strategically … in prep for teams and with in game adjustments … it will be a bigger disaster as this is our and his last shot to try to get to the puncher’s chance level going forward. With good rosters if we don’t screw that up again.

 

I believe that in order to pick out a great coach, 90% of it comes down to having someone in the FO who has a level of discernment and vision. Jerry West and Dr. Jerry Buss had both in spades.
Jeanie, the Rambii and Rob, to a certain degree don’t. This is why they’ve struck out SIX times since Phil.
Roll the dice again fools!!!

 

I doubt Tim knows much else other than his basketball analysis, but oh yeah if it doesn't work out like Westbrick, we can blame LeBron again!



In reality, how many FO get to choose 3 coaches?!?!???

Usually it's a clean out. Lakers got too much nepotism going on.

 

I will say, I am surprised that Rob is surviving all of this. I know Jeanie isn’t interested it dropping him, but still.

I feel like 2020 can be credited the same way Disney can credit some of its success in a way. Disney was successful with Eisner AND Wells. When it was just Eisner, it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t the same. So 2020 goes to Rob AND Magic. Everything after that is all on Rob. It hasn’t been great. Hasn’t been terrible, but it’s not great.

get some fresh blood somehow and let’s go again. It’s been long enough, but not too long that they couldn’t recover fully from a complete shift.

and before we all think it, NO, it’s not a matter of getting rid of Rob for like Bob Myers or anything like that.

just get all new people. Jeanie can develop trust in other people. There is more out there than the usual suspects.

 

I'll try not to ramble too much but I'll try to pass along a bit of what I've learned over the last couple of decades as I've been involved in a number of hires both large and small for several businesses and a major university.

There's always an element of unknown when hiring in any organization. However, there is also more information available now than ever before. We may not know everything about assistant coaches but that does not mean that teams and search firms do not. Particularly the recruiters and search firms. It's their job to know and many are very good at it. Its how they stay in business.

Are there some people with natural eyes for talent? Yes. But they are outliers. You are going to be much more successful by doing the work and properly vetting candidates than just taking a swing. The vetting process becomes even more important IMO when you have candidates who have never served in the role before. An easy way to start is just by taking an honest look at your org and what its strengths and weaknesses are.

A sports team works a bit differently than the business world but there's definitely overlap. With us, you also have a carousel of coaches over the last decade so there is a history of failure at the position that needs to be factored in. Why do they keep failing? Is it the players? the pressures of the job? Management style? Combo of all of that? You want to get some kind of feel for all of that before you do anything else. Naturally, you also need to factor in your personnel and what else is going on in the league. Who's ahead of you? Who is catching up with you? Is your roster settled? Who would you bring in and why?

And so on and so on.

You get all of that together and either gather candidates on your own or (preferably) let a search firm identify people who appear to be a match for the factors you need. Again, there are really good folks out there for identifying talent. Even better, the search firms can generally even tell you the strengths and weaknesses of guys along with their recommendations. You can make a very informed hire based on how well the candidate matches up to the team we have and what we want to do moving forward. If that guy fails, at least you know you did your homework.

There's just no reason to leave a million dollar hire in high pressure role like this up to chance or to base if off of a relationship someone has with someone. Especially one that's just two guys on a show.

Have I seen gut feeling hires work with inexperienced people? Yeah, I have. But I've seen it fail way more times in way less stressful jobs that coaching the Lakers.

I'lll throw on the purple and gold glasses and support whatever hire we make, but this is typical Lakers being guided by a big name. That worked for Dr Buss who was definitely one of those gifted people with eyes for talent, but his kids don't seem to have inherited that so I am skeptical.

 

This is where I am at. Let Lebron have who he wants, sign them both for 3 more years. If the coach shows great things, let him stay on, if he ends out not giving us what we need, at least we went along with Lebron and he most likely would not leave because of a bad coach. Ultimately, these next few years are all about Lebron, or he will leave during this off season and it is all over anyhow. Then anyone we sign will be screwed anyhow, as we will be at the bottom of the west.

Ultimately, Pelinka needs to have a great interview and vetting process, so that he can take those results to Lebron and get his input.

I don't have any predilections about who is going to be a great coach here, but I am not down on JJ. Smart guy who I suspect will end out being a very good coach if that is what he wants to do. I already respect him more than I ever did Ham. Ham was not an intellectual guy, he was a rah rah buddy type. Guess, when we hired him, I thought that Lebron wanted him and perhaps he could motivate the youngsters but his lack of proper scheming was the worst and it was the end of him. I think JJ will command more respect.

 

Don't see this occurring with Jeannie at the Helm. Maybe if one of the other brothers started running the team????

 

interesting perspective.

i will say from my perspective that as search firms entered the picture for upper admin hires in higher ed, the quality went downhill in a hurry. iow: your search firm better know your business. is there one specifically for the nba or even just for major pro sports non-player personnel?

 

Yes, there are several that deal directly with coaches and executive level positions in sports teams. I don't know them by name as I've never worked with a team but they do exist.

 

I also run a software as a service business that helps medium to large companies make better hires. I should know what I'm talking about.

The biggest predictors of job success are personality fit, IQ and previous experience. Being friends with the management or important employees is definitely not one of them.

This is why letting Lebron have his pick, AGAIN, is amateur hour.