Player The Methodical Meritocracy of Maestro Mitch Johnson and his Many Minions

[Paramore]

I hope Wemby goes the Bill Russell archetype......

allow the others to play the motion offense, but shine the brightest at the defensive end

 

[couchman]

- Mitch is in the convo for COTY and he deserves it.
- One area where I want to see him improve is in using the coaches challenge.

- We have been abysmal at using the coaches challenge this season so far, burning it incorrectly and early in games early in the season, and then just abandoning it completely in recent games, preferring to save the TO. Waiting for a guy with a tablet on the sideline to tell you if you can win a challenge doesn’t work anymore. Most of the time the refs aren’t giving teams time to do it that way anymore. For the challenge to work, players have to be absolutely certain a call was wrong and then signal immediately to coaches to challenge. Then coaches can decide whether using it in that spot is worth it. That’s how OKC uses it and it works.

 

[Exstatic]

- Mitch is in the convo for COTY and he deserves it.
- One area where I want to see him improve is in using the coaches challenge.

- We have been abysmal at using the coaches challenge this season so far, burning it incorrectly and early in games early in the season, and then just abandoning it completely in recent games, preferring to save the TO. Waiting for a guy with a tablet on the sideline to tell you if you can win a challenge doesn’t work anymore. Most of the time the refs aren’t giving teams time to do it that way anymore. For the challenge to work, players have to be absolutely certain a call was wrong and then signal immediately to coaches to challenge. Then coaches can decide whether using it in that spot is worth it. That’s how OKC uses it and it works.

You complain that he used it early, then not at all,but if you don’t want him to use it early, and there’s no occasion to use it late, then you criticize him for not using it.

 

[LeBowen]

Hot take, but I don't really care about challenges before 4th quarter unless it's something blatantly wrong or a challenge to get a key player out of foul trouble.

 

[couchman]

You complain that he used it early, then not at all,but if you don’t want him to use it early, and there’s no occasion to use it late, then you criticize him for not using it.

I’m okay using it early, middle, or late as long as they have a system for it to be a good successful challenge over 90% of the time. Even a 70% success rate is too low because the bad challenges cost you a valuable TO.
Teams like OKC have figured it out. They have challenged 26 calls this year and only 2 of them were bad challenges. When I see what they do? They rely on their players to ask for it when they are 100% sure it will succeed.

 

[couchman]

BTW, the Thunder win 92% of their challenges. Mitch is ok at 72% but the process is what I think can improve. At least we’re not like the Clippers who have challenged 25 calls this year and only won 6 of them! lol

 

[spursistan]

In Cup Final, 18-7 on the season including 9-3 without Wemby. Can't argue with the job Mitch and his crew have done so far.

He will likely have his rookie coach moment in the playoffs, but that's expected of every postseason neophyte.