*Joins the Fire Dunlap bandwagon*

[Pizzy]

So I know me and several other posters have no problem being completely patient with the team this year, from the front office, to the coach, to the players. Its a painful growing process that requires several steps, so I'm not getting angry from moment to moment. I just like to see a plan and see how it is executed. Right now the team has a plan, but its in the beginning stages of being executed. Losing sucks, but I'm just watching player development right now

But I have a question to those that are always ready to move on to the next thing. There's all these threads saying how Biz is a replaceable stiff, MKG can't ever improve, Mully is a 7 foot Ben Gordon without the shooting, Gordon is a 6'3 Tyrus Thomas with a shot, Tyrus needs to be returned to a padded room wearing a shirt with extra long sleeves that tie in the back, Haywood is garbage, Diop is double garbage, Hendo is a tremendously, superbly, incredibly average player, etc....

But then you blame Dunlap for not turning them into a great team. I mean which is it, is it a terrible coach holding down great players from becoming a good team, or is it terrible players that can't learn or execute the coaches plan, holding them from becoming a good team? Because if it is a ragtag group of players that collectively are incredibly inexperienced, have low basketball skills, or have low basketball IQ, then why is it so shocking that the team will play bad. Stan Van Gundy or Jerry Sloan would do all the yelling and media manipulating that they can, and the players would still get lost on defense, make dumb passes, and not be able to execute a post move.

It is incredibly easy for one player to completely mess up an offensive or defensive set, causing bad rotations or inefficiencies with the ball that lead to a bad result. When you have that many members who are inexperienced, low skilled, or basketball retarded, then the chances of screwing up per possession are extremely high.

Also, everyone is stating that our team is badly coached, but have you considered how incredibly easy it is to coach and game plan against the Bobcats? Well:

1) There is no post presence, so you don't need to double and can stay at home on all the shooters and penetrators. Let them try to make a move down low, and you can make it incredibly tough on the guards
2) Kemba and Sessions are the only players that can create shots off a dribble. Trap or double them to get the ball out of their hands, or make it extremely tough to get a shot off. If they struggle, the team is done.
3) MKG is not a threat outside 10 feet, and Hendo doesn't look for his shot enough, so sag in the lane to make them take their hesitant jumpers; there will be a lot more rebounds, and you'll also have more rebounders in the lane.
4) Gordon is hot 1 out of 5 games, but if he is hot, he'll turn the ball over 5 times and won't get others involved, so don't have to worry about him. Plus he's easy to score against.
5) Mully voluntarily takes himself out of the paint, and shoots inefficiently enough where the risk of letting him launch 3s is worth it.
6) Bobcat defenders are so young and inexperienced, compound plays will confuse them, leading to bad rotations and wide open 3s
7) Bobcat big men bite on every ball fake. Enjoy the feast down low

It's tough to play poker when everyone knows 3 out of 5 of your cards every hand. Even with the best of game plans, the deck is stacked against us every game. We're just hoping a player has an incredible wild card hot hand to squeak out a win, but this isn't reliable.

Let Dunlap get a good hand, and then we can see how good he really is. Until then, just chill.

^This. All day long this

[Scrapper1]

Dunlap doesn't have much to work with.. look at Eric Spoelstra.. he is a terrible coach with a team full of stars, so he looks great. Just like Mike Brown with the Cavs. How great would Phil Jackson have been with a mediocre team for once instead of being aligned with groundbreaking players and teams that were on the cusp of excellence before he arrived? This team will be a great team one day.. but, the coach is the least of whats wrong with it.

[Felton for Prez]

I fully agree that it's the players and not the coaches that matter most. Obviously, Dunlap got dealt a bad hand. I am also not saying that he should be canned tomorrow. What I am saying is that frequent HORRIFIC losses, lack of heart and lack of direction are signs more is wrong than just the players. If you aren't asking questions about the coach given the performance, then you are simply giving him a pass and it might as well be anyone coaching the team.

BTW, if we wait to pass judgement on his coaching abilities until he gets a "better hand", he may be coaching here for a long long time.

I don't like being this negative but blindly accepting a plan is naive. That plan needs to be questioned from time to time and that is healthy.

[Mustachio]

this whole thing is flat out stupid. We won 7 games last year. We are a better team this year... what more could you possibly ask for when Brendan Haywood and Ramon Sessions were you're biggest additions to a 7 win team.

We were never going to win games this year, its part of the plan, get over it.

[Icky Thump]

So I know me and several other posters have no problem being completely patient with the team this year, from the front office, to the coach, to the players. Its a painful growing process that requires several steps, so I'm not getting angry from moment to moment. I just like to see a plan and see how it is executed. Right now the team has a plan, but its in the beginning stages of being executed. Losing sucks, but I'm just watching player development right now

But I have a question to those that are always ready to move on to the next thing. There's all these threads saying how Biz is a replaceable stiff, MKG can't ever improve, Mully is a 7 foot Ben Gordon without the shooting, Gordon is a 6'3 Tyrus Thomas with a shot, Tyrus needs to be returned to a padded room wearing a shirt with extra long sleeves that tie in the back, Haywood is garbage, Diop is double garbage, Hendo is a tremendously, superbly, incredibly average player, etc....

But then you blame Dunlap for not turning them into a great team. I mean which is it, is it a terrible coach holding down great players from becoming a good team, or is it terrible players that can't learn or execute the coaches plan, holding them from becoming a good team? Because if it is a ragtag group of players that collectively are incredibly inexperienced, have low basketball skills, or have low basketball IQ, then why is it so shocking that the team will play bad. Stan Van Gundy or Jerry Sloan would do all the yelling and media manipulating that they can, and the players would still get lost on defense, make dumb passes, and not be able to execute a post move.

It is incredibly easy for one player to completely mess up an offensive or defensive set, causing bad rotations or inefficiencies with the ball that lead to a bad result. When you have that many members who are inexperienced, low skilled, or basketball retarded, then the chances of screwing up per possession are extremely high.

Also, everyone is stating that our team is badly coached, but have you considered how incredibly easy it is to coach and game plan against the Bobcats? Well:

1) There is no post presence, so you don't need to double and can stay at home on all the shooters and penetrators. Let them try to make a move down low, and you can make it incredibly tough on the guards
2) Kemba and Sessions are the only players that can create shots off a dribble. Trap or double them to get the ball out of their hands, or make it extremely tough to get a shot off. If they struggle, the team is done.
3) MKG is not a threat outside 10 feet, and Hendo doesn't look for his shot enough, so sag in the lane to make them take their hesitant jumpers; there will be a lot more rebounds, and you'll also have more rebounders in the lane.
4) Gordon is hot 1 out of 5 games, but if he is hot, he'll turn the ball over 5 times and won't get others involved, so don't have to worry about him. Plus he's easy to score against.
5) Mully voluntarily takes himself out of the paint, and shoots inefficiently enough where the risk of letting him launch 3s is worth it.
6) Bobcat defenders are so young and inexperienced, compound plays will confuse them, leading to bad rotations and wide open 3s
7) Bobcat big men bite on every ball fake. Enjoy the feast down low

It's tough to play poker when everyone knows 3 out of 5 of your cards every hand. Even with the best of game plans, the deck is stacked against us every game. We're just hoping a player has an incredible wild card hot hand to squeak out a win, but this isn't reliable.

Let Dunlap get a good hand, and then we can see how good he really is. Until then, just chill.

Damn! Exactly!

[BETCATS]

I've said it before and I will say it again: things may point to Dunlap being a bad coach, but we need to keep him for the entirety of his contract for two reasons. The first is that we do not want our coaching position to becoming a revolving door. The team has had 5 coaches in 9 seasons. If we want to be taken seriously, we need to show the world we have some consistency. My second point; we have a talent disparity. While I believe the roster is not being properly utilized, it still wouldn't be a playoff team regardless of who the coach is. We will be making our adjustments this summer and Dunlap should be given the chance to coach whatever we end up with. Then we will really see if he can coach or not.

Maybe we can pawn off the obvious talent disparity, the high lottery pick we get, and the fact we have a clearly defined direction to agents of decent free agents this summer when it comes time to convince them if we keep Dunlap. But if we fire him, after two straight years of sucking and another "fresh start", it'll be an even tougher sell.

TLDR: sometimes having the same coach is better then having a good coach. This is one of those times.