Lots of Sam, and some other stuff

Know why I like Mondays? (Other than Warren Sapp, who I fear is destined to finish second?)

No games. Therefore no angst. And calm. A nice feeling of calm.

But what the heck, let’s rile some folks up. Too much calm is a bad thing:

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Can I say this? It’s never a case of black and white. There’s never a clear cut cause to any team’s woes and it’s no different with these guys right now.

The roster has flaws (backup PG, wing depth), the coaching needs improvement (creativity on offence) and the players have to be more consistently good. It’s not one, it’s not two, it’s all three.

The quick fix? There is none. Everyone has to get better.

You can’t put it all on the GM, all on the coach or all on the players. Responsibility has to be shared.

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Now, here’s some Sam stuff I hope answers a few questions:

Good Sam

The good players get better

STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR

There's Good Sam.

I don’t think you can make an argument against the fact Chris Bosh is better than he was four years ago; Jose Calderon has turned into a good player from a suspect one as a rookie and Andrea Bargnani is better today than he was as a rookie. The coach has put them in a position to improve and they have.

The combination of Jermaine O’Neal and Chris Bosh is working.

There were concerns whether he could make two bigs work together. In the five games before he got hurt, O’Neal averaged a double-double and Bosh had three double-doubles, a 40-point game and a 30-point game. They are a potent duo and the coach figured out how to make them one.

He has the respect of the players.

I’m sure there is some under-the-breath grumbling in the locker room – as there is in every single locker room in the NBA – but the players listen and generally play hard for the coach. No one has “tuned” him out.

He wins

Since Bryan Colangelo remade the roster after his first half season on the job – ridding it of a lot of detritus – the Raptors are 94-83, have won a division title and been in the playoffs two springs in succession. That’s an upward trend.

He can minimize the flaws in marginal players.

Kris Humphries has flaws that the coach can hide because when Hump tries to do too much, he sits him; Jamario Moon has flaws but somehow gives the Raptors what they need night-to-night. That he doesn’t drive the ball has as much to do with his mental makeup and ball-handling skills than anything.

Bad Sam

A predictable offence

DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

And there's Bad Sam.

Far too much reliance on the high screen-and-roll, which teams are now finding ways to defend. I’m as sick of ‘horns-up’ as you are. And I imagine some of the players are, too. More ball movement side-to-side is a must. This speaks to the inability to find shots – open or otherwise – on a regular basis for a gifted shooter like Jason Kapono.

He can be intractable

I’m not sure how much advice he takes from his assistants, or even his boss. All coaches are paranoid to a degree, sometimes Sam’s degrees are too high too often.

Slow in-game adjustments

Maybe this goes more the flaw listed above but there’s no question he could better reacting to situations more quickly. When to double-team, when not too; when to ride a hot hand, when to call different sets. Room for improvement? Absolutely.

A forgetful mind?

Yeah, I think he should probably un-bury Joey Graham at the moment and let him get a block of games and minutes, mainly at the expense of Jamario Moon. Sam’s a big proponent of ‘how-you-practice-determines-whether-you-play’ and I believe some guys are far better game players than they are practice players.

Last-minute creativity

I can think of a couple of occasions in one-possession games when we saw something different. Neither worked. I speak of the lob to Bosh in the last possession of the Nets series and the halfcourt lob to T.J. in that game in Atlanta last year that the clock operators blew. There has to be more.

On balance, it’s my opinion the good out-weighs the bad and I don’t believe firing a guy with a 6-7 record coaching this team is a prudent move. I respect and understand there are those who disagree, somewhat vehemently, and that’s fine. I would expect the same respect and understanding of my opinion.

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And now, maybe some levity? After all, we’re as much about goofiness here as we are anything else, right. Someone asked in the weekend mailbag about players and smoking. This really didn’t lend itself to a story to tell there so I’ll tell it here.

World championships in Indiana in 2002, Yugoslavia, a big favourite to win it all, gets off to a start like 0-2 or 0-3 and something and it looks like they might not even make the medal round. Precarious, indeed.

A friend and I are talking to Peja Stojakovic one off-day at Conseco and we bring up the dire straits the team’s in and we wonder just how seriously everyone’s taking the predicament.

Says Peja, and I paraphrase a bit:

“Seriously? We’re taking it seriously. Vlade (Divac) is taking it so seriously he quit smoking.”

Must have worked because Yugoslavia beat Argentina in the gold medal game, one of the top five games I’ve ever seen anywhere.

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And now some mail:

Q: Is it just me or has Kris Humphries looked descent in the past couple of days. He's been shooting pretty well and hitting his free throws. It didn't hit me that he's doing well until I saw Hollinger Stats on ESPN that ranks him #9 in the entire NBA, 1 spot above Bosh and 2 above Kobe. And the rest of the Top 8 are all All-Stars. Now I do agree if he plays more minutes, those stats will fall, but Sam should really start playing him at least 20 mins a game. What are your thoughts?

Serge A, Richmond Hill

A: The Hump’s been very good since he’s had some time in the rotation but the danger with him as always been the more he plays, the more he wants to and that’s where trouble lurks.

Maybe a couple of minutes more – he’s averaging about 20 – but that’d be it.

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Let’s see, Eddie Jordan coaches a team that’s always injured, he gets the most of the mercurial Gilbert Arenas, he’s in the playoffs every year despite a spate of injuries, he somehow keeps the team together when two of his centres – Brendan Haywood and Etan Thomas had fistfights on three different occasions, including once in the locker room. His GM can’t keep a key backup like Roger Mason Jr. when everyone knows Arenas won’t play a full year because he never does. He restores some sanity to a franchise after Michael Jordan, Leonard Hamilton and, yes, Doug Collins made a mockery of it.

And he gets fired after 11 games? Man, they should name the arena after him, not fire him

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For some reason (pre- and post-games shows of games I wasn’t at and various out-of-market games that are available elsewhere) I’ve seen a lot of Raptors TV lately and can I just say this:

Surely to goodness there’s a big enough body of Matt Devlin work that he can do promo voice-overs rather than dredging up year old Chuck Swirsky ads, no? I bet Leaves TV doesn’t use Ward Cornell.

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This is interesting. Or it’s not, I’m not sure.

With the firing of Eddie Jordan, Sam Mitchell moves up to second on the list of longest-serving head coaches in the Eastern Conference, behind only Lawrence Frank.

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And, to wrap up:

Q: Never try to use MLSE having to spend money as a valid excuse for not making a good basketball decision. We have to pay $45 a seat to sit in the top corner of the ACC. We deserve better.

Mark F, Toronto

A: Ding! Ding! Ding!

Comments

[Poppa Vlazo]

"He wins

Since Bryan Colangelo remade the roster after his first half season on the job – ridding it of a lot of detritus – the Raptors are 94-83, have won a division title and been in the playoffs two springs in succession. That’s an upward trend."

Are you kidding me?!?! The Raps have gone from 47-35 to (a maddeningly inconsistent) 41-41 and are struggling mightily this year against half decent to good team. Yes, they have been in the playoffs two year in a row, but this was playing in easily the worst division in basketball in 2006/7 and a brutal conference in both years. Making the playoffs under those circumstances is not a significant accomplishment to be celebrated, especially when you s**t the bed when you get there, which they did both years.

I think only so much credit can be giving to the coaching staff for developing players, and I don't agree that he can hide the flaws in marginal players. He can't hide Kapono's D, Bargs inability to rebound and Parker and Moon's inability to get to the basket (or play perimeter D for that matter). Problem is that he has too many marginal players with flaws to try and hide.

[Justin]

Top corner seats to Raptors games are not $45. They are closer to $25.

[Matt]

I was always a Mitchell fan and have turned the cheek on some of the bad youve mentioned above. However Im starting to see less of the 'good' in Sam youve described.

Players Getting Better: Correct me if Im wrong but in practice and games is not most of the 1-on-1 teaching done by the asistants? Triano with the swingmen, English with the bigs, Evans with the point guards?
JO/Bosh: Is being able to get two all-star caliber players to perform together really a big compliment? Is that the level of expectation at this point?
Respect of Players: When a player has a meltdown on the court at how bad your team is performing - not sure thats the highest show of respect.
He Wins: .500 is not really winning, especially when it comes with as many blown double digit leads as it has this season, and the playoff success Mitchell has 'enjoyed'.
Utilizes Players: Benching someone before they screw up is not maximizing your players talent. Coaching and teaching (as you preach in point 1) maximizes players talents so that they dont make the same mistakes over and over, not just limiting minutes.

Its time we expect more from the coach, and win because of him not in spite of him. We shouldnt have to force positives for the man in the position. Eddie Jordan was fired beause he couldnt take the team to the next level - thats he nature of the job. They are the easiest to get rid of and make a change to try to improve the way the team is playing, right or wrong.

[Jason]

Doug,
Great layout on the Sam issue. You have 4 goods and 5 bads.
Perhap you could add how Sam works the officals as a good? He seems to really be on them alot but doesn't get T'd up very often. I've always thought that was a very strong point with Sam and I don't think its very easy of a task. He's one of the better coaches when it comes to working officals.

[adam m]

theres been lots of talk on raptors board about reuniting vince and raps.
hypthetically, if a deal arose that vince could be had without disturbing our core players, jose, cb, ab, and jo, would bryan colangelo pull the trigger?

Blogger's note: 99.99999999999 per cent no. Not with $51 million left on his deal after this year. Among sundry other reasons

[Tree]

Doug - thanks for addressing the Sam concerns instead of ignoring them. From the comments section here, it's obvious there's a lot of angst aimed at him, and taking the time to write about it is appreciated by your readers (no matter which way you lean).

[Blake Kennedy]

"I don’t think you can make an argument against the fact Chris Bosh is better than he was four years ago; Jose Calderon has turned into a good player from a suspect one as a rookie and Andrea Bargnani is better today than he was as a rookie. The coach has put them in a position to improve and they have."

We can move Bargnani off the "improved by Smitch" list, since his improvement was made in his summer away from Sam, coached by people who weren't Sam. He hasn't shown a lick of improvement when it's been Sam Mitchell working with him, and for good reason. Sam is a good student of the game, but appears to be a lousy teacher.

As for Bosh, it's a risky proposition to attach much improvement to Smitch's instruction. That kid was born for greatness, to a large extent. And I'm sure Jose wasn't being coached by Sam at the 2006 Worlds when he regained his confidence, although Smitch certainly did take a lot of interest in him in his rookie year (and almost ruined him).

And why doesn't his defensive teaching get grilled? Right now Toronto is the 5th-worst defensive team in the NBA measured in points against per 100 possessions. We added a great defensive big man in O'neal, Bargnani has improved immeasurably and we're still terrible? Why no heat for him for not ordering screens to be switched in the last regulation play against NJ, instead of ordering players to fight over screens (like he did) and get hung up on them, freeing players for an open shot (like what happened)? Everybody in the place knew that the Nets were going to look for a down screen for Wince, except Smitch?

At some point the man needs to be held accountable. This post is a promising start, but it doesn't go nearly to the depth that it should.

[pk]

Last firday's Nets game was my first game at the ACC, and I sat up in the 319 area; I have to say I fairly enjoyed the view.
It was do-able once a while, costing about $65 + service charges.
What they need to bring down the cost is the food + beverages, I paid something near $4 for a bottle of coke... ridiculous.

[John]

Doug,

We've seen so many NBA players who just doesn't play hard enough after signing a big fat contract.(Larry Hughes, Bobby Simmons,etc)

Do you think this applies to coaches as well?

Blogger's note: Perhaps, but not to the same degree, I don't think.

[Jim Rootham]

Doug,
You answered a question about which teams had good management by listing the bad management teams because it was a shorter list. I assume that Washington goes on that list now.

So, what are the top 5 in senior management competence?

Blogger's note: Off the top of my head, I'd say the Spurs and Lakers would lead the pack, Utah would have to be on the list, too. I think Detroit's very stable and competent and a fifth? I suppose you could make a case for Houston.

[Alex]

"Maybe a couple of minutes more – he’s averaging about 20 – but that’d be it."

He's actually averaging 9.6 mpg, the least amount of his entire career. I would like to see him play about 16 mpg. I realize Bosh is on another level right now, and he is our superstar, but it worries me seeing him play 40+ minutes every night.

[Mary]

Doug, Hoopsworld says Mitchell and Colangelo had a closed-door meeting the other day, which was followed by "one of the most aggressive practices to date."

http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=10728

Is there any truth to this? Or just blog speculation?

Blogger's note: Bryan and Sam talked on Monday for a while, nothing out of the ordinary. Bosh didn't take part in the full practice, O'Neal went for treatment an hour before many of the others left the gym, Jose didn't do much more than get up some shots. "One of the most aggressive practices to date" is simply wrong.

[Bball]

Doug, great blog and analysis today. I would add a few other specific weaknesses regarding Sam that you did not mention:

1. Team Identity - Sam has not created an identity for the style of play for this team.

2. Rotations/Role Development - One of Sam's weaknesses is that he does not clearly define roles for his players and settle on a clear rotation for his starters. With clearly defined roles, each player knows what he is required to do when called into the game and when they can expect to see the floor (subject of course to fouls, poor play of the starters, etc.)

3. Defensive Schemes - I don't think Sam's lack of creativity applies only to the offense. He doesn't mix up his defensive schemes enough by using zones defenses. While he will double the opposing team's post players, when was the last time we saw the team double a perimeter player to take the ball out of his hands (ex: Kobe's 81 point game where they didn't double Kobe, not doubling Pierce on the perimeter in the game in Boston to force him to give up the ball to someone else, or notdoubling Vince on the perimeter to force someone else on the Nets to beat the Raptors).

You're right when you say it is rarely all on the coach, player or GM. There is blame to be shared. But, there have been a few games recently like the NJ game and the 1st game against Boston where Sam made some significant coaching mistakes.

I'm not convinced that now is the right time to make a coaching change but if after another 10-15 games the Raptors are 4 games below .500 or if they have 1-2 more games like this one during that stretch, I will not be surprised that Colangelo fires Sam.

I think that one of the most important ways to evaluate Sam is to look at whether, despite all of the roster's weaknesses, is Sam getting the most out of this roster? In my opinion he's not, especially when you see how little he is getting out of players like Kapono, Graham and Moon.

Doug, do you think Sam is getting the most out of this flawed roster? Do you think Sam is among the top 10 coaches in the league (in my opinion he's not)?

Blogger's note: Top 10's pretty subjective given the variety of rosters out there but I'd say he probably be just outside it. And there could be more to be had from this roster but not much. Unless the key players play well every night and someone on the fringe (Parker, Kapono, Moon, someone) has at least an average night, this team's around .500.

[Darko Dubajic]

Just a quick note on that "taking it serious" and smoking in Indy, 2002. I was there with bunch of friends. Night before the championship game, we are sitting in some Italian restoran with half the team, Pedja, Vlade, Marko...and it is 1:30 am.
From there we went to some club down the street and who are we rubbing elbows with to enter the club at 2 am, wouldn't you know, it is entire team of Argentina. And the game, well later that day, was something like 4 pm not even usual 7 or 8 pm.
Nothing like a healthy life style with lot of rest, morning before the biggest international game of their carrier.

Blogger's note: Still turned into one of the greatest games I've ever seen in person and I think you'd agree. Cool story, though.

[Lavi]

Adam,
Right now Vince Carter has monster games against one team in the league. Frankly I'd rather see VC destroy the Raps every time he plays them rather than experience the frustration of seeing him smile at, hug, and high-five players of opposing teams while wearing a Raps jersey. No thanks.

[Andrew]

Doug,

Do the Raptors have the most knee-jerk fans in basketball? Call me crazy, but I believe that the Raps can put in one of those magical runs in the second half of the season, just like two years ago, once they hit their stride. The only problem I see is that it's going to get worse before it gets better. The Rapocalypse is nigh.

[George]

Being a Head Coach, I am sure, is no easy job. If players, assistants and management begin to lose faith in you, you have lost. I am not going to jump on the Fire Sam bandwagon. But I think that beyond "Good Sam" and "Bad Sam" (and “Friendly Sam” and “Grumpy Sam”), articles today portray a "Humble Sam"; A Sam, who is admitting his mistakes and taking blame, for some of these losses. 3 - 7 record in the last 10. I am sure that the meeting with BC was anything but routine. And I am guessing that Sam's back on the hot seat. Let’s see how he responds in the next 10 after the unveiling of this new persona.

[Western Raps]

One question for Doug,
do you believe that Sam would still be the coach if he had not won the award a few years ago. No!
Some quick thoughts:
1) Why is it that we are force-fed Andrea and Jamario game after game until they work out their problems when Joey is nailed to the bench. I really hope they do not trade him until another coach (which is coming this year) has a crack at him.
2) Why is it that the Raps use the same defense game in and game out when their PG is visibly hurting and none of them besides JO can play a full game of man on man? Hey coach, try something new!
3) The Raps were good for the last 2 years because of their 2nd unit. Having Jose, Andrea, Hump, and Delfino come off the bench kept them in games. Funny how bad that unit looks this year, hey coach, why not try Ukic to shake things up a little.
4) Why wasn't Sam fired minutes after the lose to NJ. They had a 7 point lead with a minute left. Try playing some zone D to take a little time off the clock. And why are they chasing players around the foulline on the last play when they are leading by.....3?
Anyways, just venting, but the moment that Mike D' came available from the Suns he should have been hired. It's not 1980 any more, please stop coaching like it is.

[Raj G]

Doug - good, balanced analysis of the Sam situation. Well done.

[Brendon]

Doug:

You make valid points on both the pros and cons of coach Mitchell. However, as others have commented here, individual improvements (Bosh, Calderon) are unlikely to be highly attributable (some, yes) to the head coach. Put another way, I would ask if their improvement under Mitchell is any more less than I would expect under another head coach. Of this we can't be certain.

I am also not in favor of "he wins" as a pro....the same logic would apply to former coach Wilkins who was lauded for high number of wins not taking into perspective losses. Sam has managed to do reasonably well with his roster yes, but I think the focus should be tangible progress in the areas the club has been weakest in; i.e. a stagnant offence and defence. I've seen little progress in these areas and we are unlikely to much more than .500/first round playoff team again. I agree though, this is not the time to fire Sam, but if we finish the season in a similar fashion as last year, I strongly believe Coangelo will be looking for a head coach replacement.

Blogger's note: If they finish the season at .500 and lose in the first round of the playoffs, I fully expect you to be correct.

[Jojo]

I also appreciate your honest breakdown of Sam. I respectfully disagree with the final verdict though. If nothing else, I haven't seen much if any improvement in addressing many of the weaknesses, which are largely Xs and Os related (and Xs and Os do matter, whatever else is true about the Jimmys and the Joes). He's had a few years under his belt now, and I'm not sure those are areas that he can improve on in any significant way. That doesn't mean he's the sole problem for the Raps' ills, but if there's a better coach out there to be had, and MLSE is willing to go for it, seems like a no brainer to me. Anyway, I can see how the 4-year extension might have tied some hands. That was BC's mistake though.

On Hump, I think there are a few more minutes available if there's any agreement that Bosh is playing too many minutes, especially with Bargs playing the 3 for now. Sam hasn't been consistent in awarding good game play (see Joey and Boston game 1, for example), and that's not the best way to get the most out of your players.

[Amr]

I tried the VC to Toronto reunion scenario on ESPN trade machine.

It works with Parker, Bargnani, and Graham.

You can make an interesting argument to do the deal:

Incentives for NJ to do the deal - free up cap space for 2010 (which they want to do, and there are rumours that VC will be on the block in Feb)

Incentives for TO to do the deal - Exchange two decent players and one marginal player for a certifiable NBA allstar/go-to wing player.

Many in TO may perceive the deal negatively in terms of TO's cap space in 2010, but one should consider the fact that JO $23MM salary will come of the books that year. That gives them ample room to re-sign Bosh (add $4-5MM per year to his contract), and another $15-19MM in cap space for other players)

Not sure how VC would be welcomed back into the TO locker room though...

[GM]

One of the reasons Bosh is so good this year (except when playing Boston and Detroit) is because of the stagnant offense. They're riding him. Everyone stands around and watches him work. I think Sam has the capabilities to institute a more varied offense (witness two seasons ago when there was lots of motion and the ball moved to the open shooter all the time) but he keeps this offense, I'm thinking, to appease Bosh.

[Kelsie]

Hey Doug,

I liked your coaching analysis earlier today, it was fair and objective. I didn't want to address this again but reading this blog again has forced my hand.....

Can Mitchell be more innovative offensively? Sure, he could but with new plays comes the expectation that they have to be executed properly and that falls into the laps of the players.
Our execution offensively hasn't been as good as it has been in the past and it needs to improve soon.

I love those people that say that Mitchell hasn't developed anyone. Anyone remember Calderon's first two years in the league? I do recall a certain coach abusing him daily on turning the corner off pick and rolls and surveying the defence, either taking it to the hole or pulling up. A lot of Jose's success can be attributed to Sam.

Every year Bosh has gotten better. It's mostly due to his hard work but I guess cause we're under .500 Sam obviously had no hand in his rapid development and continually evolving game right?

A blogger mentioned that Bargnani's develeopment came through other coaches. Really now? So in his rookie year when everyone was raving about him and he was helping this team win I assume Sam had no hand in that or in putting him in the right positions to succeed. His second year had to be Sam's fault cause Bargs played poorly but now that he's playing well again, it should all be attributed to the 2 months he spent in Vegas with these anonymous coaching geniuses? lol.

Sam makes mistakes like every other coach in the league, but we're now a team that is in the playoff mix every year which is something we've rarely had.
If after mid-year we're still seeing the type of basketball we've seen recently then maybe at that point it might be time to pull the plug or make change for change sake like everyone seems to want to do, but I do remember the only year we won our division we started a lot worse than this, so I can tough it out and refrain from trashing the team until I've given them a chance to improve their play. Way too much what have you done for me lately attitude on this blog and not enough real students of the game who understand that it is a long season and you can't tell me what will happen by the end of the year based on 1 month of basketball. It's not like they went 1-12. They're 6-7.

The only thing I ask of you Doug is come mid-season or whenever things improve (which they will) that you re-post some of the "fans" comments from the last two days and highlight the talk of "the team sucks", "fire Mitchell, and bring in coach a,b, or c" who won't make any difference and would require us to upheave our system mid-year, so that hopefully in the future they will give some serious thought to the difficulties and rigors of becoming a good team consistently in the NBA, year in year out, before they post their nonsense.

[Andrew R.]

Haha, well said^... "The Rapocalypse".

Doug, my favourite entry of yours to date. Well put together and addressing the issues most of us have on our minds.

For me, the one thing I'll look for this season is improvement in offensive schemes. So far, Sam has improved on something every-year; handling personnel, motivating players, defensive schemes. If he can translate an improvement in the offensive (which I think he's always been too non-chalant about) into wins by half-way, he's a stays this year and next. If not... bye.