Uptown wrote:Paladin55 wrote:Original title of this thread:Most of the UK brotherhood now believe we got the better of the Melo trade- so failure to achieve must mean that MDA should leave.
As in my profession, HS teaching, it is no longer the fault of the players (students) that they cannot perform to certain standards. It must be another person's fault.
I'm a teacher aswell (8th grade) and I must say, if year in and year out the students change but the end result stays the same (state test averages remain low) then you have to point the finger at the teacher at some point, especially if the teachers next door have the same demographic of students and thier test scores increase year in year out. Sometimes the teacher needs to reflect on the lesson he just taught, see what went wrong and make the approriate adjustments (change philosphy) to help the students (players) improve. Any one who wants to point fingers is generally part of the problem. If after the first half of this season you can sit here and say the results were the same as the last two years, then there is very little to discuss
First half of the season the players were better than at any point the last two years, but we were still a .500 team. Defensively, nothing had really changed.
Every student is different and cant be taught the same way ( all the players we have are not built for 7 seconds or less)so its up to the teacher to adjust to the students he has. If the teacher has trouble doing this, the administration will usually send the teacher to various workshops for improvement or pair the teacher up with an experienced mentor (MDA could be paired with a defensive minded assistant similar to Thibbs with Doc in Boston). We all have pride, and the hardest thing to do is look into ourselves and admit that we need help. Some of us teachers (coaches) are too stuborn to do that, but if we can be honest with ourselves and admit that its all about the kids (players)and become selfless, embrace the help whether it be help with planning (gameplan), classroom management (practice, player expectations) then it might be able to work itself out. (This is horrible analogy being spun to fit your POV, teachers get paid to make studenst better, coaches get paid to win games and no developing marginal talent is not high on their priority list regardless of how that "talent" was acquired or where he was picked. So please stop with this make adjustments speil. Denver is playing better becuase they received the products of 3-years of MDA coaching - but feel free to spin that against him as well)
So you accuse me of spinning to fit my point of view, then when you take your turn, aren’t you spinning to fit your own ideology as well? So now MDA gets credit for Denvers success? When did MDA have the time to tutor Aaron Afflalo who IMO has been the mvp of that team since the trade. Felton’s shooting 38% from field, 20% from 3 and averaging 8 pts per. With the exception of the ATL game, he hasn’t contributed much, and Gallo has only played in 2 games, his best coming in a lost. That’s the same Denver squad that’s gone to the playoffs every year and made a trip to the western conference finals 2 years ago. They always had better talent than we did.
Perfect example, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen were always known as offensive players until they were put into a system and now they are a part of perhaps the best defensive core in the league. If the students next door averages are blowing my test averages out of the water and these kids are from the same neighborhood, both are on free-and-reduced lunch, as I teacher I'm going to scratch my head and wonder what is the teacher next door doing that I'm not? I suspect that MDA's expectations are different that the norm defensive coach and the culture (classroom management) is different. -- So Doc Rivers had them playing at an elite defensive level after three games? Right? You guys never cease to amaze me. Feel free to mak bad analogies, but unless you provide MDA with a defensive minded BEAST like Garnett who imposes his will on everyone on teh team and some people of the opposing team as well, and the same amount of time Thibs had with these guys you are comparing apples to ornages
How about a defensive system.scheme and a commitment to it. Yes, Garnett is a defensive beast so to speak but he’s also a soldier who follows the orders of his leader Garnett on Thibbs, “Coach is real animated. He’s real emotional. He’s real energetic. That’s what type of defense we try to go out and have. It’s an energetic, consistent defense. It’s a talkative defense, and when you see him on the side, those are the things that he’s put in for us to try to go and carry over to the court." And Garnett is the only anchor a defense makes. The Heat, the team with the hole in the middle ,lead the league in defensive FG% at 42.8, and are top 3, I believe in pts allowed at 94 pts per. The Sixers, the team that’s about to pass us in the standings are yielding 44% fgs to opponents and 96 pts per game. This is up from 47% fgs allowed and 101 pts allowed last year when they had their own defensive beast in Dalembert. With that said, is my reaction to our putrid defense a bit of a knee-jerk, absolutely. But my reactions are more in line with my lack of confidence in the coach we have whose history tells us that statistically speaking, this defense is not going to get much better than it is right now.
I learned a lesson from my teacher friend when I observed her class. Her students came in, grabbed thier folders and got to work on the warmup, started the lesson with no hiccups and robotically, placed the folders back on the shelf just as the bell sounded for next period. I realized that every single minute in her classroom was accounted for. I had to admit to myself that my environment wasn't the same. I would lose a good ten minutes everyday trying to get the kids to settle down and they got used to it. I was losing valuble minutes of teaching time. No I'm not at Knicks practices, but I can guess that the practice environemt is probably similar to how my classroom used to be. Too relaxed, not enough accountability, not enough skill and drill, etc. You cant have a 40 minute emphases when (A) you didnt set the standard before, and (B) and dont continue to follow up and (C)after the test (game) is over your first comment is about missing shots. This tells me the teacher (coach) is not fully embracing the new philosphy that hes trying to get across to the students (players). At some point, the teacher, coach needs to be removed. The state (Dolan) is putting in too much money to allow these students (players) who have just as much potential as some of the students (players) in the same hallway to allow them not to get the proper education deserved to them all because the the teacher(coach)is either inadequate at his job or just too stubborn or not fully committed to change. -- All that shows is your teacher friend is a strict disciplinarian it shows nothing about what results that discipline actually produces in terms of development of those students. Empty argument. And your comments about Knicks practice are based on your own unverifiable conjecture
It’s called having a set structure, a commitment and a mutual understanding between the students and the teacher that as soon as they enter the classroom, they know whats expected of them and the teacher understands what the students are looking for. All I’m saying is there needs be a mutual commitment to defense all the time. We cant talk about defense before the game, then right after the game you’re talking about the missed shots. As I stated earlier, obviously, none of us are at practice, so we can only take the reports from practice, live quotes, watch the games, etc and then assess. We’ve watched all season long, how this team struggles with the high pick and roll. We lost the last two games because of this. So one has to wonder, how much time is being put in to rectify this problem or maybe the scheme that they did come up with is faulty. But something has to change.
Thank you.
