benji wrote:I don't. That's just networking. Gregg Popovich has four rings because he became friends with Larry Brown being a prime example.
Sure, knowing the right people helps a lot no matter profession you're in but they must know a thing or two about basketball to have earned the respect of their players and enjoyed some degree of success in the league, Popovich having the more impressive resume there.
benji wrote:I mean, what evidence do you have that Mark Cuban does not have a superior head than these people? Or are you just assuming because they're "basketball people", why, they MUST know better!
None whatsoever that conclusively proves he doesn't have a superior basketball mind to people like Avery Johnson, I'll gladly admit once again that's it an assumption on my part. But what evidence do you have that Cuban does have a superior head for basketball or as you put it, his ideas were "vastly superior" to Johnson's? That's assuming all of Johnson's experience is for naught.
Whatever the case may be, there's another question that can be raised here: is it appropriate for a team owner like Mark Cuban to partake in a bit of backseat coaching, specifically instructing his head coach on plays and substitutions? It's his team so of course he's going to question his head coach when the team is struggling, asking why they are losing and what they can do to get better and as the guy who spent millions of dollars to buy the team and signs the cheques so he's entitled to giving his coach a "win or else" ultimatum.
But is he stepping over the line when he's trying to coach the team as well? I think you could say that he is. It's a bit of a jump from asking "What can we do to get better" or even stating, for exampe, "We need to defend better" to "Run this play" or "Make sure this player gets X amount of minutes" or "Make this substitution". You could say that it's his team and he's the boss so he can tell his employees to do whatever's in their job description but I imagine encroaching on the coach like that would make their job difficult and probably a bit insulting to boot.
I admit that I could be way off here, I can only speculate about Cuban's basketball mind and I don't know any more about the inner workings of the Dallas Mavericks organisation than anyone else here so my observations do come from reports that admittedly could be hearsay. Nevertheless, Cuban has reportedly clashed with the last two Mavericks head coaches, which leads me to wonder if it's them or him and if it's him, what that means for Dallas as long as he's calling the shots.
Thanks for the edit Andrew.
The west is tough, and Dallas was dominating the NBA for the last couple of season, not counting this one.
