Still want the Lil' General instead of Eddie?

by Kyle Weidie on Oct 7, 2008 2:24 PM EDT

Ok, so the season hasn't even started and I'm already defending Eddie Jordan like we were kin.

But after reading the latest Wizards Insider post....sizing up the "Other Side" Dallas Mavericks, I can't help but thinking that Avery Johnson would be wrong for the Washington Wizards....partly because of the lil' Dictatorship environment (the fastest way to lose players), but mostly because of Johnson's purported stringency on offense.

Now, I'm not going to name the names of those who have stated that they would rather have the Lil' General instead of Eddie Jordan.....and I'm not even saying that the names I'm not naming are wrong.

Rather, I'm just thinking that what was good for the goose (or geese) in Dallas may not be good for the ganders in DC (and yes, I'm calling those in Dallas females....suck it Cowboys fans).

This represents the view of the user who wrote the FanPost, and not the entire Bullets Forever community. We're a place of many opinions, not just one.

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I just can’t see Gilbert Arenas, Stevenson, Nick Young, Andray Blatche, and some others doing very well in a rigid dictatorship. Not that a little discipline on Offense isn’t needed, but from what I’ve read, Avery was way beyond that… to where the Offense was almost stagnant.

Butler, Daniels, Songaila and Jamison would probably be fine – but the others confidence and creativity would just wither on the vine.

by Rook6980 on Oct 7, 2008 4:00 PM EDT reply actions

I Disagree and We Will Never Know

I suppose we could speculate on this for eternity, about coaching styles and how they mesh with certain players. But when I doubt, I prefer to judge coaches by their records. Avery Johnson has coached a team to within 5 quarters of an NBA Championship and a 67 win season. His career winning percentage is .735. I don’t even need to state Eddie’s record. Everyone here knows that it is far, far inferior.

Yeah, yeah, commence with the “but he had such great players!” Isn’t it a coincidence how good coaches always seem to have good players?

And I also don’t buy that his coaching was bad for the Mavericks’ offense. The offense looked just fine when he was marching through the Western Conference playoffs in 05-06 or winning streaks of 12, 13, and 17 games in a row in 06-07. Of course, I expect someone to remind me that he lost in the first round in 06-07 due to a bad matchup against a hot GS Warriors club. After all, Eddie has a much better record in first round playoff series.

"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier

by cuppettcj on Oct 9, 2008 8:35 PM EDT reply actions

Isn't that the best part about speculation?

The eternal endless debate?

I hear ya on the “record” thing…but I just don’t think you can (almost blindly) apply any coach to any personnel situation and say, “hey, look at the coach’s record…..this has to work out.”

Representing DC with Wizards & Stuff - Truth About It Dot Net

by Kyle Weidie on Oct 10, 2008 2:29 AM EDT up reply actions

Last I heard

Avery Johnson is still out of a job…. And Ivan Carter seems to think that Eddie Jordan wouldn’t last long on the open market – he’s that well respected in the League.

I doubt Avery Johnson would have Coached the Mavericks to the playoffs and won 43 games if his best player (Nowitzki) was lost for the season, and his backup Center (in this case DeSagana Diop) was lost for the entire year; and his second best player, and 20 point scorer (Josh Howard) was lost for 24 games; and he had to rely on a Rookie mid-first round draft pick to come in and give him scoring punch off the bench; and, and, and…….

But again – you’re right…. we could speculate all we want and will never know

by Rook6980 on Oct 9, 2008 9:42 PM EDT reply actions

Yeah But

Let’s take this rationale and apply it to other coaches. Let’s take Phil Jackson circa mid-1990’s. Let’s subtract his best player, Michael Jordan, for the entire season. Then let’s take away his second best player, and 20 point scorer, Scottie Pippen, away for 24 games. Then let’s take away his backup center, Bill Wennington, away for the entire season too.

I would bet Phil Jackson would have been hard pressed to win 43 games too. Indeed, under bad circumstances in the mid-90s (Jordan for only 17 games), but still much better than the above scenario, Phil Jackson won only 47 games in 94-95. So I guess by this logic, Eddie Jordan is clearly a better coach then Phil Jackson. Or maybe we should actually look at records and performance when comparing coaches.

By the way, Larry Brown went two full seasons without a head coaching job. Is Eddie better than him too?

"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier

by cuppettcj on Oct 9, 2008 10:08 PM EDT up reply actions

point is

I don’t know why you’re bringing up Phil Jackson – when the original discussion was about Avery Johnson (who is NO Phil Jackson) versus Eddie Jordan. But if you want to bring up other Coaches, OK.

Except that Eddie DID win… even without his star players… Something that not many other Coaches can say they’ve done.

The year the Dallas Mavericks won 67 (2006-07) their starters averaged 77 games played. Seventy – Seven. That means that their starters averaged only 5 games lost during the season. 5 games…!!
And some of those games were at the end of the year, when the starters were rested before the playoffs. They didn’t have any lingering ankle sprains; no twisted knees; no partially separated shoulders – NOTHING. So Avery was able to Coach a team that was, for all intents and purposes, completely healthy all year.

In 2006-07, Boston won a total of 24 games. Doc Rivers was a bum. Then Ainge goes out and gets KG and Allen. (talent) The Boston starting five average 76 games played. (injury free) – Boston wins 66 regular season games, and the Championship; and Doc Rivers is hailed as a great coach.

And my point is, (AND WAS) that you can’t judge a Coach’s performance unless he has players… If he doesn’t have players, he won’t win. Period. AND, probably more importantly, those players must stay healthy for the majority of the year.

It’s my belief that Eddie Jordan is one of the best Coaches in the NBA… a better Coach than Doc Rivers; better than Avery Johnson; better than Mike Brown…..

I already know your position – so this is my last post on the subject.

by Rook6980 on Oct 10, 2008 12:35 AM EDT up reply actions

I lied

One last point…..

Name one other Coach, currently in the NBA, that could make the Playoffs with Jarvis Hayes, Michael Ruffin, and Calvin Boothe playing significant minutes.

by Rook6980 on Oct 10, 2008 12:44 AM EDT up reply actions

I See All Your Points

I just don’t think you can dismiss a coach’s record when you are comparing him to someone else. Despite all of the good things that Eddie appears to have done for the Wizards, the fact remains that he has a losing record as a head coach. He has never gotten the Wizards to win more than 45 games, and the last time he even got them to win 45 games was four seasons ago. He has only won one post season series. His record speaks for itself.

I brought up Phil Jackson to prove a point, and I’m sorry you missed it. You can’t say that someone isn’t a good coach just because they have had success with great players. Phil Jackson had the best basketball player of all time, but that doesn’t mean that any bum off the street could have coached that team to 6 NBA Titles. Phil Jackson is a great coach because of his accomplishments, not because of hypotheticals. Avery Johnson is a better coach than Eddie Jordan because of their respective accomplishments.

Then you talk about the injury situation again. Did you ever think that maybe the Mavericks starters weren’t injured so much because their coach didn’t push them to 40+ minutes so many nights? The player who averaged the most minutes for the Mavericks was Nowitzki with 36.2 MPG. The starting 5 averaged only 31.5 MPG. Eddie, on the other hand, pushed Caron to 39.9 MPG and Jamison to 38.7 MPG respectively last season. The Wizards starting 5 averaged 33.6 MPG, and 32 year old Antonio Daniels was forced to play more minutes last season than 23 year old Devin Harris was required to play in 06-07. Is it any wonder that the Wizards keep breaking down during the season?

Here’s a thought. Maybe if Eddie would utilize his bench and rest his starters more, we wouldn’t keep listening to this broken record about poor Eddie and these injuries every season.

Which brings me to my next point, a response to your hypothetical challenge:

Name one other Coach, currently in the NBA, that could make the Playoffs with Jarvis Hayes, Michael Ruffin, and Calvin Boothe playing significant minutes.

Consider the following stats below:

+-------------------------------+    +-------------------------------+
|   2006-07 Dallas Mavericks    |    |  2006-07 Washington Wizards   |
+-----------------+------+------+    +-----------------+------+------+
|Player           |  MP  |  PER |    |Player           |  MP  |  PER |
+-----------------+------+------+    +-----------------+------+------+
|Greg Buckner     | 1372 |  7.8 |    |Jarvis Hayes     | 1626 | 10.7 |
+-----------------+------+------+    +-----------------+------+------+
|Austin Croshere  |  727 | 10.9 |    |Calvin Booth     |  380 |  9.6 |
+-----------------+------+------+    +-----------------+------+------+
|Maurice Ager     |  214 |  2.9 |    |Michael Ruffin   |  271 |  4.4 |
+-----------------+------+------+    +-----------------+------+------+
|AVERAGE          |  771 |  7.2 |    |AVERAGE          |  759 |  8.2 |
+-----------------+------+------+    +-----------------+------+------+

Somehow, Avery Johnson was able to fit in three players whose average PER was a full point below our notorious trio, play them an almost equal number of minutes, and yet he still won 67 games. And he did so without making a single starter average more than 36 MPG. The average MPG for our Big 3 that season? 39 MPG.

"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier

by cuppettcj on Oct 10, 2008 8:32 AM EDT up reply actions

Nice point, counter-point

However, the Mavs were pretty good that year, outscoring their opponents 100 ppg to 92.8….while the Wizards, with their defensive inefficiencies on the other hand, were outscored by opponents 104.9 to 104.3. I would be curious as to how many minutes of the Buckner, Croshere, Ager triumvirate came in garbage time vs. the Hayes, Booth, Ruffin trio.

Let’s see, looking at 82games.com, Buckner appears in 5 of the top 20 most used 5-man units, but not Croshere or Ager.

On the other hand, Hayes appeared in 10 of the top 20 most used 5-man units….Booth appeared in two of the top 20….Ruffin in zip.

This doesn’t have much to do with the coaching argument….but I was curious on a further comparison between the three players from each team.

Representing DC with Wizards & Stuff - Truth About It Dot Net

by Kyle Weidie on Oct 10, 2008 9:38 AM EDT up reply actions

That's Probably a Wash

Good research, but like you said, it really doesn’t affect my argument. Hayes had the second highest PER of the six players (only 0.2 points from the highest in fact), so it doesn’t surprise me that he appeared in 10 of the most used units. A 10.7 PER isn’t that terrible for a bench player. What’s surprising is Buckner. Buckner had a lower PER than either Hayes or Booth, yet played in 5 of the most used units and had the second most minutes of all six players. He was the Arvis Hayes for the Mavericks, but even worse!

"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier

by cuppettcj on Oct 10, 2008 1:51 PM EDT up reply actions