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

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

allow the others to play the motion offense, but shine the brightest at the defensive end
 
- 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.
 
couchman said:
- 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.
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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.
 
Exstatic said:
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.
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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.
 
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
 
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.
 
Two blowouts this week alone!
We’re getting better as a team.
Our schemes on both ends of the floor not only make sense, but everyone on the floor is actually working together cohesively to execute them. We rarely see the kinds of miscommunication and wasted possessions that plagued us the last 3+ seasons. That’s basketball IQ, but also coaching.
Mitch absolutely has to be a leading COTY candidate.
 
I don't know if Mitch is doing a masterful job of coaching or not. It definitely helps when you have young players playing exceptionally well. But I'll say this, he's figured out the lineup, which is more than half the battle. Pop would definitely be rolling out worse lineups, overplaying Jeremy, probably phasing our Carter completely. He's even easing Victor back into playing coming off the bench. And it's all working.
 
LeBowen said:
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.
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It's not a hot take, and Mitch should be much more focused on this particular use of the challenge: keep an eye on Wemby's every foul during the game, and try to use the challenge to protest the arguable ones, and get the foul withdrawn.

He is the DPOY with offensive gravity of Shaq, far too valuable to ever have his minutes - and his defensive intensity - reduced due to foul trouble. It's such a high opportunity cost to use the challenge this way....... I need someone of y'all to tweet this to Mitch or that Spurs reporter that steals shit from here to pick it up tbh :st-lol:
 
Bringing VW off the bench has down low improved the first quarters, at least on offense. The movement has been more fluid, and then he comes in and it's hammer down. Something to still figure out once he returns to the starting lineup, when we were getting some slow offensive starts.
 
bozhemoi said:
Bringing VW off the bench has down low improved the first quarters, at least on offense. The movement has been more fluid, and then he comes in and it's hammer down. Something to still figure out once he returns to the starting lineup, when we were getting some slow offensive starts.
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I was thinking about this. Imagine if you could sell Victor on the idea of being MVP and 6th man of the year, in the same year
? Sounds almost farcical, but if the starting unit in this situation could hold serve, and we have Victor (and let's pair him with Harper coming off the bench - better yet, we solve the starting guard rotation by rotating guards paired with Victor), we could salt the games away by the end of the half.

Well, that was fun to write. Not a very serious thought, and besides I want to see KJ get his this season.
 
I, for one, believe Mitch & Co. have done a masterful job of implementing new and more modern systems. I think Pop read his players very well and kept it simple for the Sochan's on the team. The coaching by committee with Sweeney and Williamson clearly involved in decisions throughout the games has been nice to see. They are meshing very well.

These 2 OKC games should be very interesting. Doubt we could win both, but, the lineups and approach will be something I'm watching. One more loss this week truly humanizes OKC and buys the Spurs confidence and a way to ascend the conference ladder.
 
As I said even during last season after Wemby and Fox got shut down, Mitch is obviously a great basketball mind and knows how to create an offense.
We got defensive assistants who are desperately trying to fix our defense when Wemby sits, which is easier said than done.

Mitch's next big test are in-game adjustments in important games where there's no room for error and playing someone who's getting exposed even for a few extra possessions can cost you the game.
Like Barnes in the Cup final.
But I'm optimistic he'll come around and be more ruthless with cold players.
 
My favorite development this year has been Mitch tapping into what each player does well. Organizing your talent into the right swim lanes is really hard. And he currently has everyone playing to their strengths and not getting trapped by their limitations. I hated pop’s projections and fantasies with this team where he’d just try to wish things into reality. Super harmonious right now.
 
Having Victor not start has been masterful. We know the offense can be elite without him and when he comes in off the bench he pretty much shuts down the other teams offense.

Pop would have never. Victor would have been paying like 3 or 4 4 minute stints and with 3 minutes left in the 3rd be done for the night.
 
Follow-up thought on Wemby coming off the bench. How effective could it be as a surprise in late-series playoff game?
 
I've loved the limited minutes strategy by playing him in the most important parts of the game (more in the 3rd and 4th quarter and less in the first half to keep to the minute restriction but still have him out there when the game is on the line [if it's a close game that is]). He didn't do that with Dylan (playing him in crunch time), but maybe that's because Dylan's a rookie and he wouldn't have played him anyway in those end of game minutes early on? I always thought with these minute restrictions that you're not supposed to play the player in crunch time due to the added intensity and pressure. Did Pop ever do this? Maybe he did with Manu, but I can't quite remember.
 
Washington and Atlanta are playing very bad, and the thing where he comes off the bench has no long term viability.
 
I don't especially recall us running rotations last year capping everyone's play at around 25 minutes as attempt at load balancing. Surely we did not, as bad as we were. But now that depth is a strength, I bet we see tons of it.

We have three back-to-backs in January. 6 games in 10 days seems like a lot, but 2 full days off after each home games will help.
  1. 2nd - @Pacers
  2. 3rd - vs Portland
  3. 6th - @Grizzlies
  4. 7th - vs Lakers
  5. 10th - @Boston
  6. 11th - @Minnesota
 
It looks like it will all work out in the end, but Pop was holding us back so much over the past years.
Every single role player we have has taken a significant step forward this season, ones that couldn't defend shit look competent on that end, there's way less chucking and empty possession and we can see the new assistants holding players accountable for their fuck ups during games.
Such a huge upgrade over Pop not caring and Brett Brown being happy to get some pre-retirement paychecks.
 
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