Usually I'm not one to disagree with the Grand Poobah of Raptor Bloggers over at RaptorBlog.com but Mr. Carefoot's post on Sam Mitchell's lack of accountability last week had me shaking my head. Not that I usually come rushing to Coach Mitchell's defense, but given some thought on the subject of accountability and the responsibility of the coach I'm not sure if Mr. Carefoot's arguments hold water.
Let's go back to Coach Mitchell's quote...
"It's not the calls or the plays, it's the players making the play in those situations. The only thing you can do as coach is get the ball into the hands of the people that night that you think can make a play and hope they make a play."
While some may believe that Coach Mitchell is shifting the blame onto the players what he's really doing is displaying the reality of how much the coach can actually control once the ball is in play. The coach sets the play and from that point on it's up to the players to execute. Even a perfectly run play can fail because no shot once launched is guaranteed to hit the bottom of the mesh. The players are fallible. They're only human after all.
In his quote Coach Mitchell doesn't call out any players and blame them for not making the shot. If anything, Coach Mitchell is demonstrating that he understands that the players aren't perfect. I doubt Larry Brown has ever expressed that belief. If I was a player, I'd like to think that the coach understands that the ball doesn't always bounce perfectly even if I'm putting everything I have into the game. I'd place my trust in a coach like that.
Likewise, Coach Mitchell is showing his trust in his team. Against Memphis a couple Saturdays ago, he placed his trust in Derrick Martin to make the play at the end of the game. Unfortunately Martin failed to score and the Raptors lost. Coach Mitchell was doing two things here: one, going with the hot hand and, two, rewarding a player who had done a great job that night getting the team back in the game. Doesn't that send a message to the rest of the team that if you play hard and do the right things, you'll get rewarded with some primetime opportunities? Last time I checked motivation is one of the key responsibilities that a coach must provide.
Naysayers may argue that at the end of the Memphis game, Coach Mitchell had a duty to call a play that put the Raptors in the best position to win the game. Mitchell played a hunch and lost. It hurts but that's the nature of any sport -- you never can tell. Back in May 1994, with the Bulls down 2 games to the Knicks, Phil Jackson chose not to put the ball in the hands of arguably the best all-around player in the NBA (Scottie Pippen) and instead called a play for Toni Kukoc. We all remember that Pippen flipped out but do we all remember that Kukoc made a 23-foot fade-away to the win the game? Kukoc made the shot. Is Jackson a coaching genius?
Jackson would certainly lead you to believe that he is. It's a role he's carefully crafted for himself. Nine NBA championships are hard to argue against but when faced with a rebuilding situation in Chicago Jackson opted out. In fact, Jackson has never coached a team without Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen or both. Or Kobe Bryant or Shaquille O'Neal or both. And even with "just" Kobe Bryant, Jackson has had Lamar Odom -- an incredibly talented player good enough to be selected to America's Olympic Team. The only genius Phil Jackson has really displayed is the ability to put himself in a position to look like a genius.
By Mr. Carefoot's argument, maybe we shouldn't be in awe of all of MJ's game-winning shots, maybe we should be applauding the coach who ran the plays to put the ball in his hands. The fact of the matter is, even if the coach on the opposing team runs the perfect defense to counter whatever Coach Jackson has decided to do, MJ made a play to win those games. This is exactly what Coach Mitchell is arguing in his quote.
Martin himself is often described as an extra coach on the bench. If that's the case, then isn't he the most likely player to make the right decision at crunch time? I don't recall a chorus of sportswriters or bloggers asking Martin why he chose to attempt the shot he did. Nor did they ask him if there was a better play he could have made. Was there an opportunity to pass the ball? Did you think that taking the final shot was the best play to win the game? Mr. Carefoot didn't hold Derrick Martin accountable for any decision he made after the ball was inbounded to him. Apparently players just do what the coaches tell them to. If that was the case, there is no need for players. The NBA could convene a group of officials to decide which play run by the opposing coaches is better and then decide which was more likely to succeed.
Once the ball is in play the only factor a coach has on the game resides in the heads of the players. The coach's most important job is to teach skills, strategy and game awareness. The best example of this was the 2001 Duke University basketball team. That team won the NCAA championship that year and Coach Mike Krzyzewski rarely called an offensive play all season. By any account that is a masterful coaching job but he wouldn't have succeeded had his team been populated by lobotomized zombies no matter how physically talented they were.
Perhaps Mr. Carefoot missed his own point when he states that "I will suggest that this team's improvement is primarily due to the fact that, as of this writing, 69 percent of the team's overall minutes of playing time have been filled by players who were not on the roster last season." Yes, that may be the case but it may be hard to distinguish if the team is better because the players are more physically gifted or because they are better at learning what Coach Mitchell is teaching them.
Dude. Kind of a change of direction the The Flagrancy with this post, huh? I mean, what with the glaring absence of dick jokes and all.
Posted by: Don Paco | January 13, 2007 at 06:48 AM
I believe you mean dildo and tampon jokes.
Stay tuned.
Posted by: The Blue Baller | January 13, 2007 at 08:20 AM
Yes I have a biased response as Scott is a friend and I'm an Admin on Raptorblog.
I think you missed the spirit of Scott's blog.
You say correctly "The coach sets the play and from that point on it's up to the players to execute."
Scott is saying the "plays" Smitch writes up are suspect. Smitch should be looking at his plays, which is part of his coaching, and less at the players trying to run them.
You were dead on with the rest of your comments, but that was after you chose to rip on the missed point. IMHO.
PS...You have tampon jokes? Do share.
Posted by: Efman | January 14, 2007 at 10:44 AM
Fans have to realize that there is a coach on the other sideline as well. Should the opposing coach choose a defence that counters whatever play Mitchell sends in then it is up to the players on the court to read and react. Once again it comes down to the players making the right choices/plays at the right time.
Posted by: B-Huge | January 15, 2007 at 10:49 AM
you are all losers
Posted by: I hte you | January 15, 2007 at 11:13 AM
Yes, only real winners take the time to post a comment such as that. Thanks for showing us the way to popularity and success in life.
Posted by: B-Huge | January 15, 2007 at 01:55 PM
Me want Uno and Dos again. HA HA HA.
Posted by: | January 17, 2007 at 04:38 AM
I just found out about this. My only response is to kindly suggest that you purchase and then consume an economy-sized bag of dicks.
Seriously though, Sam changed his tone almost immediately after I wrote that and publicly accepted blame at least twice within a week of my blog post. While I would never be egotistical enough to admit that I think it might not be a coincidence... it's certainly interesting.
Let's just say that a large percentage of the Raptors org reads my site, including their head of PR and several of their players. Perhaps the message got back to Sam. Probably not, though. Anyway, back to my corporate cage.
Posted by: Scott Carefoot | January 17, 2007 at 03:08 PM
Yes, a lot of the Raptors org and NBA players read RickBrunson.com and it didn't stop him from sucking.
I thought Sam was right to step-up and take the blame for the situation where Joey Graham screwed up that foul situation. If it is a communication issue then, Sam should take the blame because that's the core responsibility of his job. If a coach can't communicate effectively, he's not going to coach for long.
Assuming that Sam is being more accountable based on your post, do you actually believe him? Or is this just a PR move?
Posted by: B-Huge | January 18, 2007 at 12:05 PM
B-Huge: It's hard to say what motivated Sam's change in tactics. I'm not a mind-reader. He's clearly not stupid. If he figured out (one way or another) that being more accountable will help his job situation, he's smart enough to know what he has to do.
Regardless, I don't have a hate-on for Sam or anything like that. I just don't see him as the coach of a championship team. If he gets a three-year extension after this season, I'll be discouraged.
Posted by: Scott Carefoot | January 18, 2007 at 05:30 PM
When a coach has to be told to play certain players (more minutes to Andrea and start Jorge) and the team starts playing well, you really have to wonder about things more than just accountability. Check this out and you'll see more of why Sam Mitchell is a good assistant coach:
c-raptors.blogspot.com
Posted by: cRaptors | January 23, 2007 at 02:39 PM
While I do not think that Sam is an elite coach I am encouraged by the fact that we can see Mitchell becoming a better coach as he gains experience. Throughout his 2.5 years at the helm he's changed his style and tactics. That already makes him a better coach than Don Nelson or Mike Fratello.
Posted by: B-Huge | January 24, 2007 at 11:22 AM
24% of Americans believe that the Internet is able for a time to replace them with a loved one. For obvious reasons, such sentiments particularly prevalent among residents of the United States alone. Both men and women can replace the beloved, beloved trips to the World Network. However, the willingness to such transactions vary among followers of different ideologies: conservatives frowned relate to this idea, and the "progressive-minded" on the contrary, Nerkarat it.
Study company Zogby International also showed that every fourth resident of the United States have their own representation in the web-site or internet-stranichka. Creating internet-dvoynikov most passionate about young people (18-24 years of age) - 78% of them have personal Web page. In doing so, 68% of those surveyed said that the World Wide Web, they do not appear in its original capacity, their virtual overnight seriously different from the real.
Only 11% of Americans would agree implantable microchip in his brain, which would provide them with direct contact with the Internet. But the situation is changing, in the case of children. Almost every fifth resident of the United States would agree to equip their child safety device which would allow him to track the movement in space on the Internet.
10% of U.S. stated that the Internet brings them to God. " In turn, 6% are convinced that because of the existence of the World Wide Web God away from them.
And how you feel? Sorry bad English.
Posted by: Zeratulss | November 12, 2007 at 07:49 PM
Two new studies show why some people are more attractive for members of the opposite sex than others.
The University of Florida, Florida State University found that physically attractive people almost instantly attract the attention of the interlocutor, sobesednitsy with them, literally, it is difficult to make eye. This conclusion was reached by a series of psychological experiments, which were determined by the people who believe in sending the first seconds after the acquaintance. Here, a curious feature: single, unmarried experimental preferred to look at the guys, beauty opposite sex, and family, people most often by representatives of their sex.
The authors believe that this feature developed a behavior as a result of the evolution: a man trying to find a decent pair to acquire offspring. If this is resolved, he wondered potential rivals. Detailed information about this magazine will be published Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
In turn, a joint study of the Rockefeller University, Rockefeller University and Duke University, Duke University in North Carolina revealed that women are perceived differently by men smell. During experiments studied the perception of women one of the ingredients of male pheromone-androstenona smell, which is contained in urine or sweat.
The results were startling: women are part of this repugnant odor, and the other part is very attractive, resembling the smell of vanilla, and the third group have not felt any smell. The authors argue that the reason is that the differences in the receptor responsible for the olfactory system, from different people are different.
It has long been proven that mammals (including human) odor is one way of attracting the attention of representatives of the opposite sex. A detailed article about the journal Nature will publish.
Posted by: ComsaballySal | November 16, 2007 at 01:50 AM