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MT_Swoopes
Joined: 18 Nov 2004
Posts: 1840
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 Posted: 07/02/05 7:57 am ::: Will Anyone Dispute That The Real MVP Of The Sun Is... |
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Mike Thibault? He is to his team what Larry Brown is to the Pistons. If you have seen the Pistons perform, whenever Larry has been away due to his health, you know what I mean.
He is an excellent example of how championships aren't won on paper. I love his coaching style.
If the half of the league had coaches as good as him, this league would be A SIGHT TO SEE!
There is NO EXCUSE for any team to be below .500. EVERY TEAM IN THIS LEAGUE has quality players. For the first time, I can look at every roster and see a minimum of two all-star quality players. There were good players who couldn't get a roster spot this year. I don't mean good as in, they could just beat me on the court. I mean good as in world class good, and can beat my a*ss on the court. I remember when this league had athletes trying to pass for b*asketball players, and couldn't make a dam*n layup. Now, the league has a whole crop of women with true b*asketball skills.
The league has an excellent product in the level of quality b*asketball players. Until they get a very good product in coaching, then I am placing almost total blame on the coaching for this league to not be as great as it can be.
Thibault is the standard for me. I thought he did a helluva job last year. This year, he is off the charts.
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VandyWhit
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 897
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| Posted: 07/02/05 8:08 am ::: |
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| Quote: |
| There is NO EXCUSE for any team to be below .500 |
I agree with you about Thibault, but I think that math is a good excuse. It's a little early in the a.m. for math, but I think the only way no team could be below .500 is for no team to be above .500.
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MT_Swoopes
Joined: 18 Nov 2004
Posts: 1840
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| Posted: 07/02/05 8:23 am ::: |
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| VandyWhit wrote: |
| I agree with you about Thibault, but I think that math is a good excuse. It's a little early in the a.m. for math, but I think the only way no team could be below .500 is for no team to be above .500. |
I understand your point and am not exactly sure how correct that math is. I didn't mean in the literal sense, but to say that there are a lot of teams at the bottom of the standings who should be and look a lot better than they have up to this point. Especially, Charlotte and Phoenix, 'cause they have fundamentally sound floor generals.
Dan Hughes gets a pass, 'cause he lost his potential future star to a torn ACL and Ferdinand is stuck in the backcourt with Johnson, who will never be as good as she can. Why? She plays DUMB BASKETBALL!
She sees field goals for herself that don't exist and make no sense with respect to the team game. In a game in SA against Houston, she went right to the basket in the halfcourt with three defenders in front of her. She doesn't pass or dribble back out. She goes right into one of the Comets and picks up the offensive foul and lays on the floor in pain. I was glad Cooper (who was commentating) said, "That was real dumb. What do you think is going to happen when you make that decision? Of course, you're going to get hurt."
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Alepp03
Joined: 25 Nov 2004
Posts: 1385
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| Posted: 07/02/05 8:36 am ::: |
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MT you are on target.
First, let us applaud the Mohegan group for choosing him as their coach. His moves as a GM have been strategic, deliberate, and in some cases daring. He has placed pieces of a puzzle together, and they all seem to fit. I am beginning to wonder if Brooke Wycoff would have been the difference in a couple wins last season for this team as well.
He hasn't been afraid to make waves. He trades All-Stars and let's MIPs go. He takes chances on low-profile players and has turned his starting lineup into a collection of All-Stars accompanied by the most effective bench in the league from the stopper Wycoff who is money from long range, to the scorer Ashja Jones who changes the game when she replaces Dydek, to the quiet Jen Derevjanik who comes in and directs traffic allowing Whalen to become a lethal scorer at the 2.
The best part about this team is that they seem to have improved every step of the way since Coach T has taken over. One can only hope that this continues, and the Sun show the league the way. This truly is the type of coach every team needs.
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accommodatingly
Joined: 21 Nov 2004
Posts: 2191
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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| Posted: 07/02/05 9:11 am ::: |
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Agreed about Thibault and the Sun's team play. Also agreed about Dan Hughes, although when the SASS came here (and our Lynx walloped them) I was surprised by what I saw: not great on-court decisionmaking, but not Pee Wee forcing things either (except when she was guarded by Amber Jacobs, which was understandable)-- the SASS were actually passing the ball around, looking for the open player, and if anything became too tentative.
Disagree about Phoenix, who still lack size and experience at the post, except for Vodichkova, who doesn't always show up: if Irvin and Stepanova both start playing, look up to speed, and the Merc are still losing, THEN I'll start to blame the coach and the management-- not until.
I wonder how teachable something like the Sun's offense is-- how much of it is Thibault being a superb offensive teacher, and how much of it is Thibault finding and getting the players who can make that offense work. Some of both, of course.
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pilight
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 07/02/05 9:23 am ::: |
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| Hughes is a good coach. My recollection of him in Cleveland was that he over-subbed a bit, it's hard to develop stars and/or leaders when nobody plays over 25 minutes.
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PennyTfan1
Joined: 19 Apr 2005
Posts: 728
Location: Cleveland by way of Southeast Alaska
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| Posted: 07/02/05 11:15 am ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| Hughes is a good coach. My recollection of him in Cleveland was that he over-subbed a bit, it's hard to develop stars and/or leaders when nobody plays over 25 minutes. |
spot on pilight.
Dan fell in love with the concept of having a "rotatation" far too often and rarely ever showed an ability to recognize a hot hand and ride that player during the course of a game. It didn't matter if it was Chas Melvin, Penny Taylor, Lake Jones, Deanna Jackson off the bench......someone would go on a run of hitting 3 or 4 shots in a row and then immediately find themselves sitting on the bench because the time on the clock dictated to Dan that is was substitution time. The classic for him was a time in 2003 in a game against the Mystics where Penny Taylor had 28 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists, and 5 steals (or, as admiral would say....she was having a good WVGM day) with about 11 minutes left in the game. He yanked her out because his rotation indicated that it was her rest time and 3 minutes later, the subs had taken an 8 point game and turned it into a 14 point lead. What happened? She never got back into the game at all. I was sitting close enough to the bench that night to hear Cheryl Reeve practically screaming at him to put her back in because she was close to a triple double (not to mention that with 11 minutes left and the way she was playing, I think she could have come close to a quad double or, she at least would have easily scored 40+ that day if he had left her in) and he just told Reeve to zip it because he didn't want to be accused of running up the score. He tried to do the same thing to her the night she broke Cleveland's single game scoring record versus Phoenix but it didn't work because when he called on Lake to go in for her, Lake said.....leave her in coach.
What SASS fans have to get used to with him is that he has difficulty embracing talented players and letting them do their thing. He LOVES blue collar players though. San Antonio wil win under his direction (50 % of their games anyhow) once the players get acclimated to his defensive schemes and demands. Don't ever expect to see quality offensive basketball from one of his teams though.
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