Triano What does this mean? Part II

So I saw that my previous article got posted on a forum and saw that people were nice enough to talk about it which is much appreciated. After seeing some of the comments I thought I'd right a sequel to that.

First of all, my apologies for not including pop and adelmen, they definitely deserve it and just slipped my mind.

Second, in terms of Mitchel, what I meant was what some other people alluded to in that he is great at getting teams with less talent to play hard and play motivated. Thus he has strong value with rebuilding teams where the fans want to see the team still try. Even in the wake of that disaster raptor season before the playoffs, you have to give him props for keeping hte lid on what could have blown up into a team chemistry nightmare. As such, for young teams like the wolves, the grizzlies, the thunder, Sacramento, hes a goodfit for these teams. This is mainly due to the fact that people often say you are what you coach. He was heralded as a hustle player which is what he coaches and which is why he's not good in the playoffs where x's and o's, in game adjustments, in bound plays win out over hustle because usually everyone is hustling.

Third, the aspect of the importance of coaching. I did not mean to imply that coaching was unimportant what I meant was that the real significance of high quality coaching comes in the semi finals, conference finals, championship. AT the end of the day, less talent doesn't beat great talent but good talent can be made great with coaching. For example, with the Raptors this year, they don't need to bring in a high quality famous coach because the goal is to get back to the playoffs. For this mission, talent is more important. Once playoffs are reached, those one or two pieces that are added bring that talent up the necessary threshold. Its here where such talent is amassed that you need the high quality coach to push you over the edge and as someone alluded to, manage personalities. To sum up, its not that coaching isn't important, is that different levels of coaching meet different levels of teams. The poor rebuilding teams, need a coach that can still get you motivated, that can force you to play hard. The teams striving for playoffs and who are happy with the second round, this is where the majority of coaches who are just medium quality can fit. To get this far, generally the team with more talent wins and the priority of the team is to add more pieces, not fine tune. Finally, the championship calibre teams are generally already loaded with talent and the differentiating point comes from your head coach who knows how to manage all this talent, find the best fit for the team and can add those 3-5 wins that could mean home court or a championship.

Triano, What does this mean?

Well first off, congratulations to Triano on his deal!

So what does this mean for the raptors?

In a nut shell, nothing really. Coaching is perhaps the most over estimated aspect of basketball team performance in the league. In fact, for the most, there are really only a handful of coaches whose mere presence can add to the win column while the vast majority of head coaches out there are really only as good as their roster. Look no further than Mitchel, or Doc Rivers is perhaps an even better example. The year before he wins coach of the year, the celtics had what, an 18 loss streak and a record that rivaled the worst all time in NBA history. What did it take to win, a complete roster revamp. The same thing with Mitchel and the Raptors.

With the exception of george karl, jackson, sloan, jeff van gundy and carlisle, (apologies, I forgot to include the GREAT pop and adelmen) the rest of the coaching faculty are relatively mediocre, each with their own strengths and weaknesses but are made better by the right fit. Dantoni with a running team, mitchel with a younger team, jackson with managing star personalities and so on so forth. Its in fact extremely unfair to coaches that they carry the blame for underperforming teams but ironically, i think even the gm's know that its unfair, and in most cases, its simply to keep the fan base from rioting.

So why keep Triano rather than bringing in another mediocre or even a star coach. Well, no matter how a good a coach, you still need a talented roster. What I've seem to noticed is that the star coach is what helps push teams to title contention and as the raps are far from contending, its more crucial to change the roster now, and bring in the star coaches to help push us over the edge in a few years. Which also explains the length of his contract.

Other than that, there are really only two other reasons to keep him. The most important being that the players like him. What resonates with title contending teams? continuity and consistency. These need to start in the head office to spread down to the team and truly allow them to take steps. Every time something changes, you start again and the raps definitely don't need to take another step back. The last reason really is that he will be much more affordable as opposed to another mediocre coach which is extremely important with the roster makeover the Raptors need to make. In fact you'll probably se the raps make one big financial move while trading into the draft for low cost high potential roster picks to ease the burden should bosh leave while maintaing a decent roster. With the resigning of delfino, parker and pops, a low budget sg signing and returning marion through bird rights is enough to take huge steps forward but we'll get into that more after the playoffs.

Here's to a denver cleveland final!