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Bomani Jones just played race card on Steve Kerr hire
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Let me paraphrase what he said but he said "What does it say that Steve Kerr with no coaching experience got 5 years 25 million? Especially when Larry Drew is getting fired for making it to the 2nd round, a proven coach like Brown who improved the Cavs by 9 games is fired after one year? How Lionel Hollins was fired after making conference finals. Mark Jackson was unfairly fired. Kerr is the owner's golfing buddy is his only qualification. It's like the owners are trying to run all the black coaches out of the league."
An ignorant statement to make and I doubt it's a big deal. Is Kerr overpaid? Yes he is but teams make dumb decisions all the time. Mike Brown has been fired three times in four years and there is an outcry. That's not being fired due to race that's being fired due to incompetence.
An ignorant statement to make and I doubt it's a big deal. Is Kerr overpaid? Yes he is but teams make dumb decisions all the time. Mike Brown has been fired three times in four years and there is an outcry. That's not being fired due to race that's being fired due to incompetence.
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You can argue whether or not Mark Jackson should have been fired. His performance on the court would suggest he shouldn't have been. His performance off the court is a bigger question mark.
Hard to argue the hiring of Steve Kerr though. He's one of the few "talking heads" that when he talks you tend to think "yep, he knows what he's talking about." If you're going to fire Mark Jackson, you better damn well hire someone the caliber of Steve Kerr to replace him.
Larry Drew got fired because he had a talented roster in Atlanta and basically kept them in neutral to going backwards (one first round win, two first round losses in three years).
Mike Brown is well established on the Mt. Rushmore of Shitty Ass Coaches.
Lionel Hollins should probably get another shot and the job he did in Memphis was solid. Who knows what the dynamic was between him and ownership. However, he did have a 4.5 year stint coaching them - which isn't a short stint for a coach.
I'm pretty sure that Mark Jackson will get another shot. That's not a question.
You know that you're going to have to overpay to get a guy like Steve Kerr. So that is what it is.
This isn't a case where most guys are making 50% of that. And the ones that do, are normally coaching for small market teams where the expectation for winning isn't there.
Spoelstra should be in that range shortly.
If there's been a move away from black coaches it's because black coaches tend to be former players. Most front offices have moved towards using analytics and it seems like the "old school" former players fight it. Front offices don't want to have to fight to implement analytics.
Anyone with any percentage of brain agrees that Scott Brooks needs to be fired in OKC. So we all agree that winning regular season games and even deep playoff runs does not make you a good coach. The Hollins, Brown and Drew examples are sunk in that comparison.
The NBA has also been way out in front of every other sport in terms of minorities in coaching and front offices. I think they deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point.
In the end I think he's wrong. But let's not just cry race card and dismiss the question.
2) While I do think that there is value in basketball analytics, I also think that there's a risk of over thinking not only what the data is telling you, but in also trying to turn the game into a very robotic process.
Any sport is a series of events that require constant adjustments. You may have a report that says I go to my left 80% of the time, but if I know that you're cheating that way, maybe I'll go right 80% of the time.
At the end of the day, the only stat that really matters is winning or losing.
I laugh at the FS people that say that a corner 3 is easier than a normal 3 and they have the stats to back it up. No shit ... it's a shorter shot. I don't need to run stats to know that I should make a shorter shot more often than a longer shot.
They overpaid for Kerr because they had to due to New York courting him. I don't think it is outrageous, even if he is overpaid. These NBA teams are rolling in money. What is over paying by a million or 2 in the big scheme of things? Not every owner is a cheap bastard like Clay Bennett.
A president that millions and millions and millions of people did not vote for. A president that recieved millions and millions and millions of votes just because he's black. It is a terrific thing that we are at a point where a black person can be elected president. But you'd have to be a fucking simpleton to think that mean racism is no longer an issue.
Your points on analytics shows a complete misunderstanding of what they are.
First, almost no one thinks analytics are the only thing that should be used. The data is a tool not the be all end all. But it is an incredibly useful tool and coaches that want to go with their gut and ignore the data no matter what are going to find themselves out of the league.
Whether a player goes left or right isn't really analytics. That's something that's been scouted in basketball as long as basketball has been around.
The corner 3 idea is like 10 years old. But if it was such a no shit idea how come it took the Spurs coming along and using analytics to exploit it?
Analytics built the Bulls defense that has been so great. Analytics built the Spurs offense that has been so great. There's a general misunderstanding of them. When the Blazers were beating the Rockets a lot of people saw it as some defeat of analytics. But the Blazers are one the most analytic heavy teams.