Reposting some articles on coaching changes and impact from May 5th.
Also, like many here, I do not consider PoMo to be a "Neanderthal," and I have rarely seen that opinion offered by informed fans or pundits. Most analysts and pundits I've read seem to regard him as an excellent communicator and perhaps limited tactician who deserves credit for the work he has done with the team but may not be the answer going forward.
And it's worth noting that the view that coaches are "mostly" interchangeable is based on limited analysis and data -- there isn't a large pool of peer-reviewed experiments or studies available, despite the penetration of the idea that coaches are crucial components of team performance. So what does "mostly" mean? Some coaches are worth the investment; some aren't. Most here would consider that swapping Claude Noel for Paul Maurice as interim and later head coach of the Jets made a positive difference -- the team got fitter, became more structured, and developed a style of hockey that exploited team strengths and addressed longstanding weaknesses. So why shouldn't we expect a similar positive impact with a coach replacing PoMo with a very different team?
I think this thread has contained some carefully thought-out and nuanced takes on coaching evaluation and directions that are well beyond the FIRE MAURICE THAT JABRONI!!! PGT complaints. I'm not sure it's as simple as a debate between enlightened sophisticates (Maurice supporters) and uninformed reactionaries (those arguing for a different, more modern or at least more tactically diverse coaching staff).
Is Changing the Coach Really the Answer? - Freakonomics
What does all this mean? Henry Abbott – of ESPN’s True Hoop – suggested in 2008 that the argument that NBA coaches don’t tend to change player productivity indicated that coaches could be replaced with “deck chairs.” These studies, though, don’t indicate that teams are better off without a coach. That is because none of these studies looked at a team with and without a coach. What these studies did is look at teams or players with different coaches and failed to find much of a difference. That suggests that coaches in sports are not very different from each other. It may be true (and more than likely very true) that you are better off with a professional coach than with a random person grabbed from the stands (or no one at all). But it doesn’t appear that the choice of professional coach matters much.
