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Nellie is a very good basketball coach. He has a long history of being able to build a good team. He just doesn't coach playoff winning basketball. Think of him as the NBA's version of Marty Schottenheimer.
Sorry, this might belong in NBA forum, but I figured there are enough Mavs fans that might want to weigh in.
Nellie's defensive philosophy seems to be -- don't play any. There hasn't been an NBA champion in the last decade that didn't play solid defense. His only smart defensive strategy was the Hack-o-Shaq and the Bang-o-Bowen. Otherwise, he just seems to hope other teams don't shoot well. Dallas didn't become a serious contender until they got rid of Nellie and Nash, two of their biggest defensive liabilities. I'm just wondering what Mavs fan thinks of Nellie.
Nellie is a very good basketball coach. He has a long history of being able to build a good team. He just doesn't coach playoff winning basketball. Think of him as the NBA's version of Marty Schottenheimer.
Nellie gets jobs because his teams win games in the regular season and because he seems to know talent and how to use his players fairly effectively. The Warriors have the longest playoff drought of any NBA franchise -- they are similar, in some ways, to the Mavericks team that Nellie inherited in 1997-98. For Golden State, a 41-win season, which they haven't had since 1993-94, would be a step up; a playoff birth would be a minor miracle. Nellie is a good enough coach, with his somewhat unconventional and fairly innovative offensive schemes, to get them to those levels at least. That would be success in the short term in that situation.
With his current job, at least, the short-term goals have nothing to do with championships. Start with getting the 8 seed one time. Then worry about repeating that success. Then hope you add a wunderkind player or two, either through shrewd drafting or a good trade, and proceed from there. It's a baby steps situation (much like Dallas was) and I think Nellie might actually be among the better coaches at handling those kinds of situations.
Beats the out of me. I know he got this one mainly because of his track record for turning around bad teams, but primarily because of his close relationship with Warriors GM Chris Mullin.
Even if he does somehow manage to "squeeze" them into the playoffs, his teams never get past the 2nd round.
"his teams never get past the 2nd round."
never? 2003? Spurs were lucky Dirk was hurt.
I agree with this.
Also, he does a great job of exploiting mismatches on offense. He's all about getting the other team to adjust to your team's offense (to with defense). He didn't, actually, used to coach this way in Milwaukee as he had a few very good defensive teams back then. I think he must have just got frustrated with never being able to get past Boston & Phily back then and decided to try to win with offense alone.
The Warriors just want him to get that team going in the right direction before he decides to retire "for real".
to me, Nellie's problem is he is more interested in showing how clever he is and winning Coach of the Year awards than winning championships.
All his gimmicks are great when you have an undermanned team, but when you have a team with a solid talent base you need to focus on playing defense, reboudning, etc. all that boring stuff.
When he coached the Bucks back in the 80s with Marques Johnson, Sidney Moncrief, and Quinn Buckner he understood this, although for various reasons they could never get past the Boston/Philadelphia powerhouses. (Arguably, though, even then there was a year or two he should have beaten them but didn't.)
Mavs were lucky they werent down 3-0 at the time Dirk got hurt. When Dirk went down in game 3 it was halfway through the 4th and the spurs were already kicking their asses. The Mavs needed the Spurs to lose 18 point leads twice to get that series to 6 games. Spurs easily would of swept that series otherwise.
The Mavs were lucky to not choke a 3-0 series lead to Portland in round 1 and Portland had players like Pippen, D. Anderson, and Dale Davis injured for them. In Round 2, they faced Sacramento and Chris Webber injured his knee in Game 2 of that series and were still pushed to 7 games.
WTF? Did you even watch that series? Dirk was so bad defensively at that time that the Mavericks actually played the Spurs much tougher when he went out. Look at Duncan's numbers when Nowitzki played, and then look at them when Najera was the one getting all the minutes at PF after Dirk's injury.
Exactly.
He was brought in to the Mavericks to do exactly what he was brought into GS to do...get them into the playoffs. Once they're there, he'll need to step down and let someone who can coach some defense into them take over, but that's 10 years down the line for GS.
In 2003, the Spurs were lucky they had me.
I have a hard time concentrating on the topic at hand with DarrinS' sig staring me right in the face!
wow, thats a REALLY bad picture of Kerr, lol.
Makes him look like the bad guy from the Phantasm movies..... or like an 80 year old who still has some muscle definition.
Nellie is very innovative and sly. He knows how to plan for certain players. He does things other people wish they would have thought of. He originated hack-a-shaq. He tried the same thing in 03 by fouling Bruce non stop. It usually takes more than a game to figure out what he is doing to you.
Last night, he kept it close by putting basically 4 gaurds and a tall SF out there and forcing Pop to sit Timmy for a bit. Granted, if it were a playoff Tim would be out there. After Tim got back in, they constantly did a pick and roll forcing Tim to go 1-on-1 with one of the quick Gs who drove past him.
The drawback to that is, once you figure out what he is doing to you, his teams aren't built on much substance. This is the main reason he has never done very well in playoff series - because you see the same thing and after a couple times you deal with it.
Well, that and he doesn't coach defense.
That's right he is very good at building a team and getting them to a point where they are close to being contenders. However he is not good at getting them over that final hurdle. Which is why he is always fired once his teams hit a certain level.
Because he's White
Just kidding!!
Stupid owners keep hiring re-treds just like the nfl
Some owners actually know that their team is not going to win a championship with the talent they have, thus they get a coach who can improve the team instead of taking them to the promised land.
A coach is very much the leader of the pack (despite getting paid a lot less than a normal business), and under different situations, teams choose to have different leaders to attain their short-term goals. The reason Phil Jackson is this successful is because he knows he is a hands-off type of coach who can lead a group who knows the basics of basketball to a common direction. A coach like Larry Brown is an excellent teacher who can lead a group of young players who would listen to him, while Don Nelson is great at letting his team have fun.
and Jeff Van Gundy, and Mike Fratello, and Mike Dunleavy, and.....
NBA teams are paid by the league to hire Nellie. Each club that is not really in contention has to take a turn.
The purpose: Higher scoring games for the real contenders AS WELL AS ALSO RANS so that fans will swarm to see the games.
Well, let's be honest here. If not for Steve Kerr and the Spurs in '03, Nellie would most likely have gotten his ring. He is actually just below .500 post season. He coached some pretty decent teams. He also had his best years in Milwaukee while the Celts and Lakers were trading Rings in the 80s, then again with the mavs while the Spurs and Lakers were running them off in the '00s.
He's not been a bad coach by any means. A bad coach is Bob Hill or Ron Rothstein or Isaiah Thomas.
Hit the nail on the head. It's not very often that a franchise player comes through the draft or even the FA. Most teams have to start one step at a time, which means winning here and now. Make the playoffs, even an 8 seed with no chance of advancing, and you become slightly more attractive to free agents. From there, make a trade or two and draft reliable players over the years until you've created a stable winning situation. Once you actually start contending, then you get rid of a coach like Nellie and bring in someone who can win when it counts.
Nellie is not perfect but he did help to create the Mavs as they are now.
You think little general took that team out of his ass?
He sure made them a lot better.
so? little general is a good coach, doesn't mean he'd take the Warriors to the finals.
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