TrueHoop Network 3 on 3: Hired to be Fired

2015-02-09 Off By Nate Smith

Welcome TrueHoopers, Spencer Percy of Queen City Hoops, and Aaron McGuire of Gothic Ginobili. In this week’s TrueHoop Network 3 on 3, we’re discussing the league’s coaching carousel, the Magic, the Kings, and who’s on the hotseat.

1. Jaque Vaughn was fired this week, and interim coach James Borrego was named as interim coach. What qualities do the Magic need in their next head coach? What candidate could provide them?

Spencer: Orlando needs a coach that’s going to bring a defined style of play to this roster. Seems to me that the ultimate problem with Vaughn is that he experimented a little too much, which developed inconsistent play. This front office is well aware of the young talent it has, and it wants results now.

Names like Scott Skiles and George Karl have circulated the rumor wagon for this job and I think either guy could bring some stability to this young core of players. Karl is clearly the better overall coach that is an offensive mastermind, while Skiles is much more of a defensive minded coach. Really just depends what the front office is looking for. I’d lean Karl and I’d be willing to bet that he has some serious interest. There’s a learning curve for this roster, but not a huge one – especially in the eastern conference.

Aaron: Jacque Vaughn had one real job as Orlando’s coach during the post-Dwight rebuild. Develop young talent and give the management a look at as many different play-styles and lineup configurations as possible. Three years later, Vaughn was fired because the goal has evolved — Orlando now needs a coach that can cobble together the best-fit identity for the players Orlando has put together. With their core talent in place, they now need someone that can adapt a winning system from the personnel they’ve got.

Nate: Vaughn ran out of time to establish an effective system in Orlando, and failed to figure out the best way to get these guys to play winning basketball — or even .500 basketball. The next coach needs to be able to establish an identity, figure out who plays and who sits, teach Elfrid Payton to play point guard, and figure out how to use Aaron Gordon. The management felt this team has a lot of talent, and I do too. You should be able to win ballgames with Oladipo, Harris, Vucevic, O’Quinn, and Frye. The Magic’s biggest problem is they haven’t had an effective point guard in a league where you have to have one. George Karl would be the likely candidate here. He turned Gary Payton into a hall-of-famer, and if he can do for Aaron Gordon what he did for Shawn Kemp and Kenneth Faried, Karl seems like a no-brainer. So naturally, the Magic brass are letting him go to Sacramento, where he doesn’t fit at all.

2. Now that Jacque is gone, Whose seat is hottest? Do you expect him to make it through the season?

Aaron: He staved off much of the heat last season by making the playoffs. But the situation is getting hotter for Randy Wittman. I doubt Wittman is fired by the end of the season, but Washington is going to have to do some serious soul searching if they bow out meekly this season. While Washington’s management has stated their support ad infinitum, it’s hard to imagine that continuing if Washington lost in the first round after their best regular season of the Wall era.

Nate: Brian Shaw is in an impossible situation. In a league where you need to either be getting better or getting drastically worse, the Nuggets are a team with talent at key positions who keep playing just poorly enough to lose. The fact that George Karl took this team on a 57 win campaign two years ago doesn’t help him either. (Until the Michael Malone firing, that was the worst firing of the last 15 years). Nuggets management has unrealistic expectations about this team, its abilities, and its talent level. It has for years. Heck, they ran the 2013 draft with a GM they’d hired a week earlier. They’ve been hurt by Dino Gallinari’s injuries, the mediocrity of Aaron Afflalo and Wilson Chandler, and their innability to channel Kenneth Faried’s energy into wins (or to even conjure that energy). And let’s not even talk about the disastrous Javale McGee bet. How much of it is Shaw’s fault? Who knows. He will probably be dumped before year’s end in an attempt by GM Tim Connelly to figure out which players want to be there, and which don’t. I’m betting most don’t.

Spencer: It doesn’t sound like interim head coach James Borrego is going to make it through the season since the team stated that he would assume the coaching duties on a “day-to-day basis”. So, it’s probably safe to say that Borrego’s seat is really warm.

3. George Karl is reportedly in talks to be the next head coach of the Kings. Is this a good fit? Can Karl turn this into a winning roster?

Nate: In a word, no. And if you thought the Nuggets management was a mess, let me introduce you to the Kings, whose management model seems to be “too many cooks:” D’Allessandro, Mullin, Ranadive, Boogie Cousins’ agents…  The Kings best chance for winning is a slow paced, grind it out team based around back-to-the-basket scorer, DeMarcus Cousins. They should be trying to trade for Brook Lopez and establishing a front court like the Grizzlies and their Gasol/Randolph duo. A guy like Jeff Van Gundy who coached Yao and Patrick Ewing would seem a perfect fit. Instead, they’re looking for “a more dynamic offense,” and a faster paced coach like Karl. George Karl isn’t turning Darren Collison into a star the way he did Ty Lawson. This roster doesn’t fit him, and this management mess definitely doesn’t fit him. Run away, George! Run away!

Spencer: Karl could be great regardless of where he went. The greatest value that Karl can be to Sacramento is maximizing the offensive power on this roster and get this team to buy into the idea of sharing the ball more. He can also open the front-office’s eyes to what type of players they need to be acquiring in order to build a winning roster around DeMarcus Cousins. Hint: a different one than currently constructed. Much different.

Aaron: Cousins — as the NBA’s closest thing to a throwback 90s center — would be a unique challenge to fit into a Karl offense, and Karl’s teams generally require a point guard that can take an outsized offensive role. I’m not sure Collison really is capable of that. They don’t have a versatile defender that can help mitigate the defensive flaws of a decidedly up-tempo game (a la Nene or Kemp). It could work, but Karl would need to be willing to adjust his gameplan around a superstar player with skills he’s never really dealt with before. He’s clearly the best of the experienced coaches on the market, but that roster gives me major pause.

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