Luke is the man with the halo these days.
IM not sure what Luke will bring that others won't. I realize he did a great job stepping in for Kerr, but one has to credit the team of coach's and the management for keeping a championship team together, motivated and engaged over the summer and into camp for the task of repeating. They did that and 73 wins!!! He was part of that and we want a taste.
Larry bought a HOF career with him, Detroit won "The right way".....And we wanted some of that.
Donnie build a powerhouse long run team thru draft and good picks in Indy. We wanted a taste of that. (why I never think AMare was his "fault")
MDA won 60 games and was the best team in the NBA for a few years not named Lakers or Spurs. We wanted that. Instead we gave him Melo, a broken Amare and a depleted roster. We gave him Chis smith. He did give us Novak.
We wanted Jax to bring that "I was the coach for two organizations that won 11 chips in 20 years!".....and we danced, singed his praise and made Merry until we realize what a shytty roster we had and he tore that mutha down!!! We gave him money, we didn't give him patience.
Now we are down on Phil and look for Luke to bring some of that in which we crave. Bottom line is the roster is what it is and the task for Phil or any other team is how fast can he improve without screwing up the future?
Luke and Phil have been there. As role players. So has Rambo. Luke has less experience than Rambo, but is much younger. Rambo head coached on a bad team. Luke is golden as assistant. So was Rambo. Experience is a teacher. I hope Luke never has to learn this as head coach of the knicks. But it could happen. Just like the other 8 coach's we have had in the last 16 years.
So while we would all prefer A better Blatt or a look at Luke we have to consider that the conditions by which either has to work under regarding cap space, draft picks and trade capacity are going to be the same for either. Both will be hired to run the triangle as a prerequisite to taking the job. This is call "High Correlation". Low correlation would be if Thibs succeeds in Minny and thinking it would have happened here. Not with two different rosters and circumstances.
Is Blatt running the triangle that much better than Luke? Fisher? He of course deviated from the boss's instructions so we can't say he got a raw deal. If Fish stuck to the plan he'd still be coaching, and perhaps not make the playoffs, but how much better would Luke or Blatt have done with the same exact circumstances if they were the coach instead? Same for Kerr? My take is about the same if all things being equal (commitment to the triangle, and only the triangle).
Which leaves us to Rambo. Rambo has the strongest Triangle pedigree of anyone. As a player and as an assistant coach. Would Blatt, if hired by Kahn under the same circumstances faired better if told by his boss "You run the triangle as I say!"? Would he have had problems with young players being inflexible by sticking to the discipline and only the discipline?
But all things are not equal as coach's have to have buy in, be respected and be demanding. Blatt has shown that kind of leadership in other places and if he was accepted by all but Lebron on his team, then he did get a raw deal. Luke carried the torch for Kerr and was already familiar with the players who had all won a chip the year before. I don't know if Luke on a new team can get that charisma and win over his team. I think most of us don't have that buzz about Rambis for many reasons. On paper he is qualified but does he have that presence that great coach's have? Im not sure Luke has it either. We have not seen it (yet).
Sometimes its about the right man, at the right time. Only hindsight will tell us what the right decision is.
