John-Blair Bickerstaff: Currently The 6th Longest Tenured Head Coach

[Sir'Dom Pointer]

Take these numbers as you will:

NBA Study: Which NBA Coach Is The Best At Calling Plays?

What coaches are the best at calling plays? In this edition of "NBA Study," we attempt to answer that question.

www.basketballinsiders.com

Considering the talent that we have, this article should get him fired by itself. Jesus Christ lol

 

[boostorbust1]

And nobody here is surprised by that article, he should allow assistants to call the last plays because JBB sucks at it and has sucked since day 1 with no improvement

 

[2 For The Brew]

JBB said that he wasn’t worried about playing so many games in a short period because we had a deep roster.

Last night was a laboratory example of when you needed to have the ten man rotation in the game plan. Emotional win the night before, road game next day, Chicago missing key players, fifth game in seven nights.

But he went with his 8.5 man rotation (Dean getting very little in the first half and Niang little or nothing in the second) that he’s been using the past few games. Completely contradicts himself.

Then he refuses to adjust in the second half when Don was clearly off and refused to put in Dean for a few minutes in overtime to give our top 6 a rest.

Forget @Comeback kid ”script” description — he’s got the rotation chiseled in stone.

The larger problem is we’re clearly better off starting Don - Strus - Ice - Wade - Allen than our current five starters but I don’t see that happening. As long as we stick with our current starting five that’s going to make arranging other rotations more difficult. I did note that in crunch time we usually only have one of Allen or Mobley on the floor which is very telling.

 

[Dr No]

The larger problem is we’re clearly better off starting Don - Strus - Ice - Wade - Allen than our current five starters but I don’t see that happening. As long as we stick with our current starting five that’s going to make arranging other rotations more difficult.

I feel a little (very little) bad for JBB. He has to play our current starting 5. We’ve invested so much in Garland, Mobley, and DM that he has to start them and play them heavy minutes. Allen & Strus are well paid and have also played well, so he has to play them heavy minutes. Our starting 5 is out of his hands. In theory JBB can choose who he plays, in reality he has to play those guys over anyone else on the roster. Even if he wanted to go with the DM, Strus, Ice, Wade, Allen lineup, he can’t.

 

[ryanf]

I feel a little (very little) bad for JBB. He has to play our current starting 5. We’ve invested so much in Garland, Mobley, and DM that he has to start them and play them heavy minutes. Allen & Strus are well paid and have also played well, so he has to play them heavy minutes. Our starting 5 is out of his hands. In theory JBB can choose who he plays, in reality he has to play those guys over anyone else on the roster. Even if he wanted to go with the DM, Strus, Ice, Wade, Allen lineup, he can’t.

yes he can, specially on a double OT game

 

[sloveniafan]

Yes that lineup DM, Strus, Ice, Wade, Allen was special. But also Allen was just a different player few weeks ago. Double double every night, collecting many (offensive) rebounds, making several shots outside 4 feet with confidence. Is all this change really only becuse Mobley is back ? in theory he should be fresher now.

 

[Comeback kid]

I feel a little (very little) bad for JBB. He has to play our current starting 5. We’ve invested so much in Garland, Mobley, and DM that he has to start them and play them heavy minutes. Allen & Strus are well paid and have also played well, so he has to play them heavy minutes. Our starting 5 is out of his hands. In theory JBB can choose who he plays, in reality he has to play those guys over anyone else on the roster. Even if he wanted to go with the DM, Strus, Ice, Wade, Allen lineup, he can’t.

“Invested so much” as in $$$$?? That used to get a hateful reaction… but it’s absolutely the truth.

The other one is “script”. But now one of the wiser long timed honored gray heads says the rotations are “chiseled in stone!”

It took a little while but we’re learning and figuring this NBA stuff out!!!

 

[boostorbust1]

While we won a some games with Garland and Mobley back the team dramatically starting looking different immediately and began to struggle in a few areas, this was very obvious and its only gotten worse since then

It could be 3 things:
1. JBB doesnt see this, this would be horrible
2, JBB doesn't have the balls to make the hard choices, most likely
3. JBB is trying to see if he can make it work, but this is not a new problem, its the same problem as last year

 

[AustinCarr]

I feel a little (very little) bad for JBB. He has to play our current starting 5. We’ve invested so much in Garland, Mobley, and DM that he has to start them and play them heavy minutes. Allen & Strus are well paid and have also played well, so he has to play them heavy minutes. Our starting 5 is out of his hands. In theory JBB can choose who he plays, in reality he has to play those guys over anyone else on the roster. Even if he wanted to go with the DM, Strus, Ice, Wade, Allen lineup, he can’t.

Here is the thing, Garland and Mobley don't stop that lineup from getting 12-15 minutes a game. JBB does. Absolutely NOTHING stops there being a sub out after 5 minutes to this lineup. Then you can bring it back mid second. That is on Bickerstaff and no one else.

 

[BigZ94]

I hate this moron so much, Wade back to the fringe of the rotation and our best 3 point shooter (Merril) back to DNPs. It’s disgusting honestly and shame on anybody who was fooled by that good stretch we had where he was forced to play our bench. He’s a dumbass and I’m 100% certain the offense we ran during the Garland Mobley injury stretch was drawn out by an assistant. First round exit bound at this rate. Back to the same old garbage iso offense. If it wasn’t for Struss going god mode against the mavs we would have lost that too.

 

[Dr No]

“Invested so much” as in $$$$?? That used to get a hateful reaction… but it’s absolutely the truth.

The other one is “script”. But now one of the wiser long timed honored gray heads says the rotations are “chiseled in stone!”

It took a little while but we’re learning and figuring this NBA stuff out!!!

It’s not just the money. In Mobley’s case, it’s the time, hype, & hope more than the money. (It will become the $$$$$$$$$ when he signs his next deal). They sold a narrative with certain players at the center. It’s pretty tough to go back on that narrative without losing face. It can, and should, be done. But it’s the kind of thing that can get a GM canned

 

[buzzdog]

It’s considered NBA 2K to suggest Sam Merrill is gonna come in for Darius Garland in overtime and double overtime in a game where Darius Garland is the team’s second leading scorer with 7 made 3s of his own.

Merrill needed to take some of Garland's minutes during regulation time in order to preserve Garland's legs and stamina for crunch time, same for Mitchell. Getting your key players a little rest on back to backs is something winning coaches do so those guys have more juice in the final minutes. Both Garland and Mitchell are maximum effort players who have shown that they can wear down and lose their legs, which means their shots don't go down in crunch time, especially considering that Garland is still working his way back from the broken jaw and Mitchell has been off kilter since he got sick and missed 2 games. And don't give me the Derozan spiel, he's 6'6" , athletic and long, and he preserves himself during the game, expends energy in spurts compared to our undersized max energy guards.

It's about knowing your players in order to get the most out of them and to set them up in the best chance to succeed.

 

[Jscc]

Yes that lineup DM, Strus, Ice, Wade, Allen was special. But also Allen was just a different player few weeks ago. Double double every night, collecting many (offensive) rebounds, making several shots outside 4 feet with confidence. Is all this change really only becuse Mobley is back ? in theory he should be fresher now.

That lineup would get destroyed in the playoffs. The plan is for DG, DM, Mobley, and JA to be our best players that you surround with shooting. It may take some more time because DG and Mobley missed a chunk of time to injuries.

If those four aren't your four best then you blow this thing up because we have seen too many seasons with early career LeBron surrounded by roleplayers. The Cavs would smoke teams during the regular season, win 60+ games, believe that would work in the post-season, and then learn the hard way when those roleplayers had to play in the half-court against teams that would let LeBron get his while locking everyone else down.

DM, DG, and Mobley have to be consistent producers for the plan to work. DM is. DG looked like he was last season, but has had a rough one this year. Same for Mobley. If those three aren't your guys then this whole thing isn't going to work. It takes time. It took Tatum and Brown took seemingly forever to click and they looked incompatible for most of that time too.

 

[Rich]

So the primary argument seems to be Mitchell and "role players" ( Allen was playing like a star. Mind you) would be destroyed in the postseason and that's why you need to integrate Mobley and Garland.

OK. Well, that's conjecture.

Meanwhile, we have actual, real world evidence that the Big 4 lineup gets destroyed in the playoffs as, well, it got destroyed in last year's playoffs.

 

[wuck]

my take on the roster is that 1-through-10 (and maybe 11 or 12), the cavs match up pretty well with many teams and could have a fighting shot in the playoffs with tactical substitutions. but 1-through-8, they are not headed to the top.

i wish i could give some sort of fancier and more sophisticated read, but i am just increasingly disappointed that we have built a pretty interesting and flexible roster but are not maximizing our playoff options. we don't have a better chance at bringing merrill off the bench to loosen up a playoff zone or subbing okoro and wade when we need a critical defensive stop. we use mobley to make a critical in-bound pass, when all we need to do is make one pass to someone who can shoot free-throws at a decent clip. blah blah blah. i've written it all too many times.

i am not saying players 9-12 are all-stars that will save us. but they can be used so much more effectively, and they are no more prepared to do so now than they were a month ago. i don't see them learning how to contribute more in the last 20+ games. maybe we will max our 1-8 players in the next 2 months, but the season actually suggested at times how we could actually max our 1-12 players over 6 months