Jhawk

Beard isn't going anywhere unless it is a blue blood and even that might be in question. Jay Wright is never leaving Nova, even for a blue blood. He made that program a better job FOR HIM than any other job in the country. Beard is on the same track, the difference is he hasn't gotten over the hump like Jay did. If he doesn't get over the hump he will be ripe when the blue bloods start to look for a new coach. But until then Tech is as good a job as any. He'll be at tech for at least 5 more years.

I'm sorry but you can't give the credit Myers credit for GSW. Durant was going there because he wanted a guaranteed championship. Cousins went because he was injured an almost nobody offered him a deal. He literally called GSW and said he'd go for the minimum or whatever he got. By all accounts, Jerry West made that blueprint and set everything in motion. Nobody was saying "Bob Myers built this team" when West left for LA. Everyone was saying "West is going to make the Lakers irrelevant in LA with what he has to work with at LAC based on what he did with GSW."

I fucked that post up badly. The list I put down were just examples of former players to coach and then I say "rarely does this work out" which I meant to say "look at all these fucking idiots."

And he’s terrible while also scheduling one of the easiest schedules in all of college basketball. It’s incredible that Georgetown can be as bad as they are given their history. Truly something to behold. 2018 - raked 96 by kenpom. 351 noncon SOS. 2019 - ranked 100 with a 292 noncon He went 15-15 and 19-14. Even JT3 is laughing.

Correct. I thought he was asking about former standout players becoming coaches at the college level in general. That being said, you could probably make the argument that avery wasn't a great NBA coach either, just had Dirk and jason terry in their prime when the west was basically the spurs or lakers. Dantoni was selling his fools gold in phoenix so Dallas only had to beat the spurs. Before Shaq and Wade won it in 6.

Mullen Drexler Ewing Avery johnson Sid Lowe to an extent Very rarely does this work out. Penny and Mike Miller should be interesting for a year or two. They both are heavily connected into AAU so they will get players early being fresh out of the circuit. But at some point you have to win. If they don't win then the pipeline will dry up quickly just like it did or is for the guys above. I can't see Penny being there longer than 3-5 years. He's probably hoping for a shot at the NBA.

You guys are right, but he is always looking to make his team better, which is more than 90% of the GMs seem to be doing more than once a year. He also has been able to move players thought to be untradeable pretty well. No one thought oladipo or Kanter could ever be moved with their contracts and he turned them into PG13 and Melo. Melo was always going to be an abortion but Kanter had years on his deal. The harden deal gets a worse rating than it should. At that time they were adamant about not paying taxes. He kept the two guys he felt would stick around the longest and almost got to a championship with them. If your budget is slashed then you have to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. KD was never going to be a lifer in OKC so that's not really something you can knock Presti for. Even if he would have traded westbrook to satisfy KD, KD would eventually leave for a championship, which they aren't going to get in OKC. Regarding coaches, I'd say his retention of coaches is worse than his hiring decisions. Maybe me thinking he is a top 5 GM says more about the GM talent pool than it says about Presti. Paxon certainly isn't winning a front office of the year award. Morey, West, Riley, Buford, Ainge are the top execs. Aside from that, there is a big drop off. All of those guys have a much better market than OKC to work in as well.

Yep. You look at the cavs roster and rebuild and this is the perfect job for him. He's not going to be a contender, but he is going to get to coach young players and Kevin Love will be fun to coach for him. He basically gets out of the recruiting drama and still gets to coach developing players for the last 4-5 years of his career. He's making $3.4M at Michigan so he'll probably get a nice little bump in pay for his retirement plan. The guy probably isn't going to coach past 70 unless it is in a much lower pressure environment. He seems to be one of the good guy, pure coaches, in the game. I can't imagine him wanting to deal with a bunch of drama in his final years, and that's what is happening at the college level right now.

Michigan has some strong delusion. Beard, Wright, and Stevens are made men. I can actually hear Jay Wright laughing from 1200 miles away at even the thought of this. If Donovan wasn't fired this year then he isn't walking from the job that pays him $4M. He'll get any college job he wants should he ever get fired. No reason to take a Michigan job right now.

So basically espn is wondering the same thing we are... where the fuck does michigan look for a new coach? Boyle wouldn't be an awful hire and he'd probably definitely leave Colorado. Crean would take the job because he's a whore.

I can see OKC going both routes... trade and rebuild or keep him and pay him for his entire career. The first would piss the fans off big time around here. I think the OKC fans know they are 20 years away from getting a ring going through 2-3 rebuilds in that time until they hit the magic formulas again and end up with another lineup like KD/JH/RW. But that doesn't mean the OKC fans are ready to wander the woods for 20 years. Living in Tulsa, I get the sense that they would just enjoy good basketball even if their ceiling is the second round of the playoffs. I think mixing up the roster is the right thing to do, but that doesn't mean it's going to be received well. RW is the type of player that won't come home for his jersey retirement if you trade him against his will, and sending him to phoenix isn't going to get him closer to a championship so you have to think that would be against his will. Westbrook isn't going to win OKC shit but he is a great guard to build your franchise history on. You want his jersey in the rafters so other players can envision seeing their jersey in the rafters. Presti would really be stepping out on a limb to trade him, but Presti should make the move if its there. His worst case scenario is that he has a job in 3 seconds if he gets fired. Given what he has to work with in oklahoma, he might be the best GM in the league, certainly in the top 5. I don't know that West or Riley have the same success presti has had if you put them in OKC. That being said, Devin booker doesn't get OKC any closer to winning a playoff series so unless they are just stocking up on picks then why even make the trade?

I really thought belein would get a title this year or last year. Big loss for college basketball. If he was 10 years younger and self left Ku he’d be one of my first calls to come to Kansas. Great coach, clearly going to do his swan song at the highest level then call it a career.

I never said coaches back off players. I said big name players do whatever they want when they’re on the court. You can coach a player to pass every time he touches the ball. Once he’s on the court you aren’t in control of his actions. If you yank him for not passing he is going to be frustrated and if he is one and done caliber, which all 5 stars see themselves as, then he probably isn’t going to change because he is a 5 star and one and done for his offensive talent not his defensive effort. His offense is going to get him in the lottery. I never said beard will lay off them or should expect to lay off them. I said it’ll be interesting to see how he works with talent that traditionally doesn’t outwork the competition, just out talents the competition. I can actually see beard going the knight route and under-recruiting because he can play his style and get more out of kids that have to give 100% all the time. At ku we have a ton of fans that wish self would focus on 3-4 year guys rather than top 10 guys specifically because of what I have stated. Frank mason and devonte graham did more for KU than Wiggins and embiid combined and every fan recognizes that but you need a guy who can get you 20 any given night and FM/DG weren’t that guy until years 3-4.

The problem for Portland is the real splash brothers are on the opposite team and they get hotter than the sun far quicker than cj and dame.

I’m not sure where you’re going with this. All I’ve said is that 5 star players typically give more effort to offense than defense these days and that it’ll be interesting to see how beard handles that. I get what the expectations will be. As a KU fan we expect every 5 star to be the first pick in the draft and having to bandage the floor burns on his knees every game. But that just isn’t the case. As far as accountability, that’s your opinion. Plenty of big time recruits have gone to programs with lesser developmental coaches and have be “given the keys” because they want to be given the starting roll, not win it. They want PT over anything because in the one and done era the one year is just an audition for the 5 star player. i don’t see what grad transfers have to do with a conversation about 5 star recruits. I think you want to be defending your program against something that I’ve never even implied. Beard is great for tech and tech being good is great for the conference. It’ll be fun to watch the talent he brings in and how he manages that talent once it gets there. Coaching is just half the game when you turn over your roster every few years.

I’ve got no read on him. 247 seems to think he’s KU bound. We can offer him the most and need him the most so there’s that. Evan Daniels picked him to KU and he’s like 97% accurate over the last year. Apparently Memphis has a lot of guards knocking on their door, including the recent duke decommit. KU needs him badly and apparently his reclassification was suggested by KU with self meeting with him the day after that announcement. I think he announces at the end of the month.

I’m sure Illinois thought the same thing about self and Memphis thought the same thing about Cal. I’m also not sold on him. No entitlement to it. Coaches move to better jobs every year. There is a lot more samples of coaches that move than coaches that stay. I think Chris Mack is the best young coach in the country if you give him the basketball resources that a blue blood would offer. And it has nothing to do with vacancy. No school with a coach that is a championship winner is interviewing other coaches to build a list of guys they want. If self wants to be here for 20 more years I don’t care if beard wins 2 nattys in that time. I’m dancing with the girl that brung me.

I get that, but the truth is that if he is a blue blood caliber coach then no program will be a better job than the one he has created until that job can offer the opportunity to be a legend at a legendary school. At KU for example he would be the 9th coach in the history of the second winningest program of all time at the school where the original mastermind of the game AND the top of the coaching family tree worked in Naismith and phog Allen. Being a success at a program where your picture gets hung on the wall next to those two is something that you can’t create yourself. If he isn’t going to come to KU after sustained success at tech then I want him to stay right where he is. He still needs some years in my opinion before he’s ready for that blue blood job. Have to see sustained success in both wins and recruiting.

Last night was a display of exactly how GS won 73 games and championships before KD. That team moves the ball better than any team in the last 20 years at least. KD allows them to not have to move the ball to win and that’s why Klay and curry look like lesser players when KD is out there. But when you take him off the floor Kerr gets those bums to move the ball and the splash brothers splash. If KD is out for the rest of the way I might actually root for GS given how hard they play and when you have their original big 3 out there with something to prove it seems. Bucks v. GS will be epic if KD is down. With KD I don’t think the bucks have a chance. I would even add that if KD can’t be close to 100% then Kerr should keep him off the floor. A 70% KD trying to do too much might make the team worse given you want the ball in the splash bothers’ hands.

Yep. It’ll be fun to see the rise of a national player in tech so up close. Hopefully beard stays until KU snags him. I think he could get a duke offer if K goes though.

So would you bench the #1 pick in the NBA draft for it? Would you demote him to a 6th man even though he averages 17 on 12 shots a game? The other effect this has is that it will signal to other 5 star guys that they will be expected to do things they won’t want to do or they’ll be benched. Being benched doesn’t bode well for draft stock and thus you start not having 5 star guys look at your school because you coach them too hard. This is a pretty big debate among KU fans so it’s interesting to see how tech fans feel. You want the best talent but beard and self didn’t get where they are with 5 star guys up and down the roster.

I don't think he'll "cater" at all either and time and time again has proven that you always get the best players possible. Always get the bets players. The issue isn't catering to a prima donna, it is how hard is that 5 star guy going to work on the court when the game is going. Wiggins was a great talent and one you take 100 out of 100 times. But I can tell you that not one time did wiggins get on the floor for a loose ball. He also wasn't a lock down defender despite having one of the best wingspans in the country relative to his position on the court. He was capable of being a great offensive player and a great defensive player but he was just a great offensive player because that is what matters when you have your eyes on the next level. My point was that 5 star guys ALWAYS have their eyes on the next level and for a coach that made his name on the defensive side of the ball that is going to take some adjusting. That is why I also brought Self into the convo. He was known for a more methodical offense (high low) and a superior defense when he first came to KU. Taking on one and done recruits in recent years hasn't really given Self the chance to have EVERYONE focused on solid team defense. Its seems like a little adjustment, but it is massive because you can coach a kid all you want but you can't control what they do on the court during the game.

It’ll be interesting to see how the talent works with the coaching now that big time recruits are going to tech. Will the defensive coordinator role be as important when you have far more talent on offense? We know that 5 star kids are 5 star because of their offensive prowess and not necessarily the defense they play. Will they listen or will they slack off on D? Tech is about to go through the adjustment pains that the top schools have been dealing with since 1 and done started. There are a lot of KU fans that wish self would recruit top 20-75 guys instead of top 10 guys because the 5 stars don’t feel the need to give effort since their raw talent is above many other recruits ceilings. It’ll be fun to watch beard grow into this level of competition.

The celts are the perfect example of why you need a good locker room to win at the highest level. All the talent in the world doesn’t mean shit when one or two guys don’t want to play Hard with each other.

You're 100% right there, but I'm not convinced that they're going to even get 1 other free agent of Kevin Love's caliber with lebron. I really think that other players don't want to play with him unless they are C grade guys that can get in good with him and get a big contract because he likes them. That's why I made the point about Phil, West, Riley. Those guys would look at his demands and put up their resumes and say "get on the court and play, leave the strategy/coaching to me." I think the only possible FA they are in the mix for would be Kyrie because he knows what he is getting into. That doesn't really move the needle for the lakers in terms of competing for a championship. And why else would you pay two guys a max contract unless you thought you could win it all? Also, would Kyrie go back to lebron? I think he would but what if he could never compete for a title with lebron? If he knew that then would he go? I think they're players for AD, KD, and Kawhi (if he doesn't get to the championship) if they get rid of lebron. I think they land PG13 in a few years too if they don't have lebron. Obviously Lebron is in a different stratosphere, but he has that melo stink to him. Everyone loves him and thinks he's great.... they just don't want to play with him because of how he controls a team/coach/front office. Once again, you are 100% right about bird in the hand, but I think that part of cleaning up the drama is getting rid of the biggest queen in the league, Lebron.