This is mainly all the players fault. Flip has a good offensive scheme and a decent defensive scheme all the players have to do is execute it and it will work as proven in the past. Ernie and the rest of management have put together a team with tons of talent but the players just lack the willingness to trust the system and trust each other on offense and defense and to do the little things on the court.

This team could work and would work if everybody bought in to Flip’s offense and defense/rebounding in general. The players on this roster have the ability to do everything we want them to but most of them just want to be “the man” too much to actually get it done, therefore this team is likely to get blown up.

NM

The hardest part here is where does the coaching end, and the players begin? I know that doesnt make a whole lot of sense, but let me explain. It is really hard to tell how much is coming from the coaches, and how much the players are just not listening. For example, is rebounding not emphasized enough at practice/flim sessions, or are the players simply not listening? This goes for all the little things too, sharing the ball, rotating on D, etc.

As for management, they have put together a great roster in my opinion. Including guys who can do the dirty work (boxing out, setting picks, sticky man D). Deshawn has definately fallen off, but he was good at playing his role pre-back injury. Mcguire is criminally underused, and oberto cant do enough of anything else to be effective, leaving haywood trying to pick up all the slack from our stars and scorers.

Flip, I do not know how to judge at this point. I have some issues with his rotations, but i probably would no matter who was coaching if we are losing. Although if he cannot motivate our players to do everything necessary, that is a big problem (but like i said, its hard to tell whats happening behind the scenes)

50% Flip, 40% Players, 10% Management

Flip thinks way too highly of Earl Boykins. He needs to cut down his minutes because he dribbles too much and creates terrible mismatches on defense. Flip needs to stop trying to turn Gil into a true PG and let him do what got him to three all-star games (this is beginning to happen). Flip needs to play McGuire more often.

That being said, the players need to TRY HARDER and play with MORE PASSION. Jamison needs to stop chucking up terrible contested shots. Gil needs to cut down turnovers. CB needs to…play better in general.

Ernie put a lot of nice pieces together in the offseason. This roster is way too talented to have this record. That’s on Flip and the players. But if Flip is actually the problem, then it’s on management for hiring him.

You start to notice a trend when different coaches yield similar results. I think Flip is off the hook for the most part. The players seem to have a combination of low basketball IQ and high selfishness… that’s a bad mix, and the reason why I think they keep forgetting how to play the right way. You can see how frustrated Flip is getting. My only fault with him is that he doesn’t consistently bench players (including Arenas and Jamison) who routinely ignore his sets and instructions. I thought the 3rd quarter stunt he pulled a few games ago by benching the starters was great, but its sad that he needs to do that more. And yes, management gets a huge share of the blame for bringing in too many “me first” players who play the same kind of game. I’m going 70% players / 20% management / 10% coaching.

Many of you fellas looks like you’re giving Flip a pass but I disagree.

Yes, Flip is a proven coach with a very good track record and he has a proven system that wins. But his inability to successfully adapt his system or his decision making to fit the personnel of this team has been very troubling.

Flip cannot just instill hunger on the players and instill offensive and defensive discipline overnight and he cannot undo years of bad habits on both sides of the ball. However, he can bench players who are unproductive and that is one of his best weapons as a coach, but he’s only shown flashes this year of using this as a real weapon (the Philly game where he subbed out all the starters is obviously the best example).

Flip has overplayed DeShawn Stevenson and Boykins. I think at times he even overplays Jamison and Caron when those guys don’t have anything going. My opinion is that our coaching staff needs to find a better balance of playing offensive guys with defensive / glue guys, and they need to find a better balance of playing veterans and giving some developmental minutes to younger players like McGuire and McGee.

I can’t blame management too much for Gil or Antawn’s contracts, because there were competing offers at around the same amounts. We didn’t overpay them, the question was whether or not to let them walk. Is this team better/in a better place without them? I just don’t really think so. Sure, it makes rebuilding harder, but this oughta be a 50-win team one piece away from contention.

Flip gets some of the blame because, well, he’s schemes ain’t working so well. I know they’ve worked elsewhere, but with this lineup, something isn’t right.

The rest is on the players. Lack of heart, lack of passion, lack of hustle, lack of Caron playing how he’s supposed to play, lack of Gil recovering to form night-in, night-out, lack of role players playing their roles.

because ernie fired EJ and brought in flip and now we suck. if EJ was coaching this team we’d be all offense and bad habits and no defense and gambling all the time and caron and AJ would be good and gil would do his thing and we’d be 15-13 and having fun and looking forward to adding even more firepower in miller.

and just think how much fun that would be.

Lets not forget, we won 19 games last year and Flip was nowhere to be found. Granted Arenas is back, but his production has been so inconsistent it’s hard to gauge where he is at.

Throwing that kind of sick money at a shoot-first point guard coming off back-to-back knee surgeries is mind numbing to me. Now we are handicapped with that contract because no one will touch it with a ten-foot pole. Thats why I dole out 50% over to management.

I think Flip (for the most part) is doing what he can. I would like to see Nick Young become a permanent fixture in the starting rotation.

On the one hand, our general predicament is management’s fault. This team was not built with a championship formula. Rather, it was built on the hope that 100% health would make a decent team into a contender and that, at the very least, the same core that finally made Les Bullets watchable again would continue to be a middle of the pack playoff team that would sell tickets. The reason we don’t have a prayer of winning a championship is the management’s short sightedness and contentment with mediocrity.

On the other hand, its the players’ fault that we are completely terrible. This team is talented and, on paper, fairly deep. Despite good seasons by Haywood and Blatche, no one else is really playing a team game. Foye has regressed completely, Butler has become a gunner, and Antawn has started jacking 3s and looking for his stats instead of leading our team. I can’t really blame Gil here that much – he is working his way back and he really shouldn’t be asked to do as much as he is when we have 2 other all stars and 4 other really high quality players on the roster (on paper Haywood, Blatche, Miller, Foye look like a really competent supporting cast for a core of 3 all stars). We should be slightly above 500 with delusional hopes that Miller’s return will herald a rise to the #4 spot in the east, but instead we are languishing as one of the league’s crappiest teams. That is 100% of the players.

I don’t think Flip has done a good job getting the most out of a poorly constructed roster, but I am going to give him a pass here. What I think we have seen is what happens when you try to employ a concept that only works with team play, ball movement and unselfishness when all of the player’s are selfish (and your best player is coming off 2 years on the rack). I think Flip’s system has exposed how poorly constructed our team is and how selfish its players are; I don’t think that our team has exposed how crappy Flip’s system is.

Flip misjudged the situation from day one and set the wrong expectations, and didn’t even have everybody on the same page in terms of expectations. He insisted that Arenas was the leader, but this leader wouldn’t commit to anything (rightly so).

To this day, the expectations are out of whack and not shared. Everything flows from there. No legit plan, and whatever the plan is, no buy-in.

50% lineup selection 50% players

One of the real issues is the culture and coaching that occurred while Eddie Jordan was here. Eddie was a decent coach, but he was not a disciplinarian and his inability to rein in the team led to his dismissal.

The players however need to be responsible especially the veterans who have been here.

Finally, what was Ernie thinking with the 111 million dollar contract. Arenas has great potential, but he is an incomplete player with a below average supporting cast. He needs to actually play some defense.