DFF
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- Feb 28, 2002
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Raptors Discussion: v93 | Panic level rising significantly
- Thread starter The Nemesis
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Critical13
Fear is the mind-killer.
Agreed. I am not saying Nurse is immune to criticism, but considering what he's done so far in his career....might be a guy you want to give the benefit of the doubt too more often than not. I can't think of many NBA coaches who deserve a longer leash.
Yeah, he was always going to be afforded opportunity to figure it out. But it raised some eyebrows to see his team playing away from their strengths, looking unprepared in particular which has always been a strength going back to the G league and beyond.
I think there were several factors in play but it wasn’t so much about the struggles as much as how they came about. Many seemed self inflicted and some of his in game decisions were almost silly.
Cloned
Begging for Bega
- Aug 25, 2003
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Nurse isn’t afraid to try anything, and sometimes that leads to bad things. But you gotta take the bad with the good, because on balance he’s far more good than bad. You don’t wanna neuter his unorthodoxness, because that’s part of what makes him such a good coach.
Oh I agree. With him it’s always been far more good but I think he struggled early on and it was his first stretch of bad. He didn’t look good, didn’t sound good, appeared things may be different going forward etc.
I think he’s absolutely one of the best in the game, I just don’t think some of the suggestions early on were completely without merit.
I’m glad he’s figured it out. That was always the best case scenario.
Offensive guru.
I think he could be partly responsible for a little more depth in Siakam’s game this year.
Cloned
Begging for Bega
- Aug 25, 2003
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Thanks.
Sucks to lose him, but they did the right thing obviously giving him permission to explore career upgrades.
Nurse's coaching tree continues to grow, anyway...great win last night, this team is finally gelling.
For sure. I think Nurse probably sees it as a big loss - he tried to bring him over when he was first hired as HC and they go way back.
Critical13
Fear is the mind-killer.
They are good, but right now we don't really know how good they are. They compete their asses off night in and night out and give their opponents a fight more often than not, that's all you could really ask for with a bunch of late round, second round and undrafted players...I love this team, they're bunch of dogs.
BlueForever75
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- Oct 4, 2017
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I believe they knew that Finch was leaving. Hence the reason for bringing the 905 coach up as an assistant.
Anytime that you win an NBA championship the coaching staff is in great demand. Nothing we can do.
Best of luck to Finch with Minny.
Anytime that you win an NBA championship the coaching staff is in great demand. Nothing we can do.
Best of luck to Finch with Minny.
Maybe. But I think there was something uniquely different about the Raptors situation early on that really created a perspective we weren’t used to seeing. They went away from what they’re good at and much of it was tied to coaching and tactical decisions.
Suntouchable13
Registered User
The thing is that when you want to doubt this team, they surprise you. If you ask people if they can beat Philly or Brooklyn in a 7 game series, people will say "no". But I don't think you can say definitively no. This team is not a sure out against anyone.
saska sault
Registered User
New roster additions severely under performing. Baynes and Len duo lost us a few games early on. No rebounding, cant stretch the floor, nowhere close on either end of the court. Its a long season and hes coaching a team that has big deficiencies, takes time to figure out what you have. I think if Masai and Bobby can find a center to force Baynes to a reduced role or even trade we fix alot of our issues. Imagine the raptors with an actual inside presence to take the pressure off Fred and Kyle.
blue stick
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- Jan 28, 2019
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Philly schmuck Korkmaz scores 16 in first quarter. We've been vulnerable to attack of the killer schmucks getting personal bests against us too often. Time for one of our schmucks to step up.
lebdafor norris
sleepy
- Mar 14, 2011
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Raptors strategy is about taking the ball out of the opposing superstar, player's hand and forcing their role players to step up so games like these were bound to happened, the most frustrating game to me was still that 2nd Boston game when 2 of their role players in Pritchard and specially Ojeleye played like its game 7 of a playoff series.
BlueForever75
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Almost worked again and has been working. Nothing wrong with this strategy. It only becomes an issue when you playing a 3 headed monster in Brooklyn. Who do you shutdown? Its very easy with their system to shutdown 1 player, sometimes even 2. But 3? Not going to happen. They will be picking their poison in those games.
xtra
Registered User
Simple we just send someone to take harden to a strip club all night before the game and double team the other two
Wolves' Gersson Rosas walks down gauntlet to hire Chris Finch as coach – The Athletic
Finch is the coach whom Rosas believes can turn things around for the team with the worst record in the league, and no amount of criticism for a lack of a formal search process that included any candidates of color or for the timing of hiring Finch right on top of firing Saunders was going to dissuade Rosas from making the decision he deemed to be necessary and right.
“At the end of the day, where we’re at, we have to be realistic with ourselves,” Rosas said. “We got the worst record in the NBA. We’re struggling on both sides of the ball, and we really lacked the confidence as a result of that, and we can get the real change we needed by making the decision we made here. We needed to be bold and direct with this opportunity.”
The hiring of Finch is further testament to Rosas’ unshakeable belief in his vision. In times like these, when an executive has had a difficult time getting traction with his plan and finds his team flailing near the bottom of the standings, there can often be an overcorrection. If a novice head coach is fired (see: Kurt Rambis), the replacement is often a proven veteran (Rick Adelman). If the fired coach was a taskmaster (Tom Thibodeau), a players’ coach (Saunders). If an offensive coach didn’t work out (Flip Saunders), maybe try a defensive-minded one (Dwane Casey).
But in tabbing Finch, Rosas is doubling down on his philosophy. Rosas and Finch have known each other more than a decade and teamed up to win a developmental league title for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in the Houston Rockets organization in 2010. The two helped push the envelope from a scoring and analytics standpoint in the minor leagues and ultimately were a part of the Rockets team led by Daryl Morey, Mike D’Antoni and James Harden that changed the face of offense in the NBA.
....................
“Everything happens for a reason. This is a place I really want to be. This is a place I wanted to be in 2019,” Finch said. “Not every situation is for every candidate. And that’s just part of the process.”
The process is what is drawing so much scrutiny right now. Rosas said the timing and the circumstances, including the strict restrictions placed on teams during the season to try to limit the spread of COVID-19, made it difficult for him to conduct any kind of an open search for the job. The Wolves were at the whim of teams to grant permission for coaches on their staffs under contract to interview, which Rosas said limited the field. So rather than reopen things with a fresh search to find Saunders’ successor, Rosas went back to the due diligence done for his initial coaching search in 2019. He interviewed Finch, Saunders, David Vanterpool, Juwan Howard and Darvin Ham, among others, before ultimately deciding to retain Saunders, whose relationships with Taylor and team focal points Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins figured to help Rosas transition into the job.
At the time, Rosas was interested in adding Finch as an associate head coach, but the New Orleans Pelicans blocked that move, sources told The Athletic. So Rosas and Saunders made Vanterpool the top lieutenant and put him in charge of coordinating the defense. That Vanterpool was not elevated to interim coach when Saunders was fired after spending the last 18 months on staff was worrisome to some in the league. That there was no consideration of any candidates of color at all in a unilateral hiring process was of even larger concern.
“Anybody that knows me knows how important diversity is to me, and it’s a big part of who I am and what I’m about,” Rosas said. “Our staff and the diversity we have speaks for itself.”
Finch is the coach whom Rosas believes can turn things around for the team with the worst record in the league, and no amount of criticism for a lack of a formal search process that included any candidates of color or for the timing of hiring Finch right on top of firing Saunders was going to dissuade Rosas from making the decision he deemed to be necessary and right.
“At the end of the day, where we’re at, we have to be realistic with ourselves,” Rosas said. “We got the worst record in the NBA. We’re struggling on both sides of the ball, and we really lacked the confidence as a result of that, and we can get the real change we needed by making the decision we made here. We needed to be bold and direct with this opportunity.”
The hiring of Finch is further testament to Rosas’ unshakeable belief in his vision. In times like these, when an executive has had a difficult time getting traction with his plan and finds his team flailing near the bottom of the standings, there can often be an overcorrection. If a novice head coach is fired (see: Kurt Rambis), the replacement is often a proven veteran (Rick Adelman). If the fired coach was a taskmaster (Tom Thibodeau), a players’ coach (Saunders). If an offensive coach didn’t work out (Flip Saunders), maybe try a defensive-minded one (Dwane Casey).
But in tabbing Finch, Rosas is doubling down on his philosophy. Rosas and Finch have known each other more than a decade and teamed up to win a developmental league title for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in the Houston Rockets organization in 2010. The two helped push the envelope from a scoring and analytics standpoint in the minor leagues and ultimately were a part of the Rockets team led by Daryl Morey, Mike D’Antoni and James Harden that changed the face of offense in the NBA.
....................
“Everything happens for a reason. This is a place I really want to be. This is a place I wanted to be in 2019,” Finch said. “Not every situation is for every candidate. And that’s just part of the process.”
The process is what is drawing so much scrutiny right now. Rosas said the timing and the circumstances, including the strict restrictions placed on teams during the season to try to limit the spread of COVID-19, made it difficult for him to conduct any kind of an open search for the job. The Wolves were at the whim of teams to grant permission for coaches on their staffs under contract to interview, which Rosas said limited the field. So rather than reopen things with a fresh search to find Saunders’ successor, Rosas went back to the due diligence done for his initial coaching search in 2019. He interviewed Finch, Saunders, David Vanterpool, Juwan Howard and Darvin Ham, among others, before ultimately deciding to retain Saunders, whose relationships with Taylor and team focal points Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins figured to help Rosas transition into the job.
At the time, Rosas was interested in adding Finch as an associate head coach, but the New Orleans Pelicans blocked that move, sources told The Athletic. So Rosas and Saunders made Vanterpool the top lieutenant and put him in charge of coordinating the defense. That Vanterpool was not elevated to interim coach when Saunders was fired after spending the last 18 months on staff was worrisome to some in the league. That there was no consideration of any candidates of color at all in a unilateral hiring process was of even larger concern.
“Anybody that knows me knows how important diversity is to me, and it’s a big part of who I am and what I’m about,” Rosas said. “Our staff and the diversity we have speaks for itself.”
The Nemesis
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