Say they have a full season together to learn, scheme, and mesh. How good would they be in their second season?
I am assuming that Pop would do a better job of reigning in all the iso play that the Clippers currently live and die by. He would also be better at finding which rotations work.
I would also hope that the stars respond better to his coaching? Either they will play as a team or they will implode. I suppose both possibilities are likely considering the players.
Are they a playoff team? A contender? Would everyone clash with his coaching style and end up rebuilding by the end of the season?
Kind of comes down to two trains of thought.
Some here will argue pop hasn’t had to deal with a ton of egos. (I don’t really agree)
Some will say pop did an excellent job managing egos, hence why we didn’t hear a ton about it during the 2000s and 2010s. (More inline with this, when you think about some of the guys who left SA and immediately had issues gelling into a new crew.
I think it’s the 2nd option. In regards to that question.
The other bit is what pop is trying to execute game to game offensively and defensively.
I think pop would get a lot out of PG13 and Kawai when they played especially defensively, maybe even the other two situationally.
Offensively, I have no idea what would happen, what principles he would emphasize or try to atleast, how much buy in he’d get from the big four. The rest of the lineup would likely benefit from him.
I am don’t think the game has passed pop, but it’s been interesting watch him try figure out how to use wemby currently. He obviously knows at base value, what he has, I am not sure he knows what he really wants to do to fully extract wemby (who does though…)
Using more common player archetypes with the modern game (the four players on the Clippers), I think he would get something out of the team. Not sure it would be all four at once.
Would it be better than TyLou? I have no idea, he gets a lot of stick, that roster has had a lot of turnover and he always eventually gets it going.
Very chicken and egg situations. IE is it the players or coach in both situations.
Funny how so much of the blame goes on the coach. Remember all the articles about how Lue was a genius mastermind who remembers every play?
GMs escape so much blame. Clips roster is pretty hilarious. Not only are they full of ISO heavy offense, their defensive players always specialized in ISO defense. Without a premier defensive big, it’s pretty much doomed.
The Lebonbon Heat had difficulty getting just three stars to mesh, but they at least had a clear totem pole with Lebron as the head and Bosh being humble enough to focus on chemistry.
Heat are a great example. I remember them at like 9-9 or sub .500 after 20 games the first year. It came together. Not even saying this will work out for clips, but that the growing pains are normal.