I pose this question because I just read an article from David Berri over at The Wages of Wins Journal as well as a few other similar view points on what really lead to Cheeks being fired…
What Scott Skiles learned last season, and Cheeks has learned this year, when the shots stop falling you can lose your job. What’s not clear is what a coach can do to restore shooting efficiency. After all, if coaches could change the rate at which shots find the net, we would see more consistency with respect to this aspect of basketball. – The Wages of Wins Journal
How much impact could Mo have on the Sixers shooting efficiency?
Why can’t they score? Break everything down, and that is the essential question for this year’s Philadelphia 76ers. A team that overcame its shaky half-court game by running opponents into the ground a season ago has suddenly become unable to score in any environment, and it cost coach Mo Cheeks his job. – John Hollinger, ESPN.com
What could Cheeks have done to help the Sixers score more points both in the half court and on the break?
Now, Mo Cheeks is the scapegoat because he has personnel which doesn’t fit. His two best (most expensive) players excel in different systems. Igoudala needs to go [fastbreak]; Brand needs a slower game where he can work on the block. – Brian McCormick, BMac’s Blog
Are the current players really that incompatible? Is it even possible for this roster to gel? If so, what could Mo have done to help the players on this roster gel quicker and play well as a cohesive unit more consistently?
The impact of coaching is a much larger debate that has been going on for a while and has heated up considerably within the last few months. David Berri will actually be releasing a book based on new research surrounding the impact or lack there of coaches have in the NBA called Stumbling on Wins. Philosophically we could discuss it, but I much rather keep the conversation limited to Cheeks and the Sixers. I mean, we are a Philly Sports Blog.
Those thoughts and conclusions in particular really caught my attention though and got me thinking more about the Cheeks the coach, his firing and this team. I plan to express my opinion on all of them over the next week or so. But I wanted to throw it out to you guys to get the wheels turning in your head.
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How many teams in the NBA play both the full court and the half court game extremely well and are comfortable with both? Especially successful teams!
This is where one would model that blueprint.
Here are some links about what the Princeton Offense are and how Eddie Jordan and other New Jersey Net coaches and assistant coaches used this unique offense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_offense
http://www.nba.com/wizards/news/princeton_061228.html
Mo, whether it was in Portland or in Philly, people never knew what a Mo Cheeks style of offense was. Really, it was just based on the pieces he worked with and not establish a system of his own liking where he needed the pieces to make whatever Mo wanted to work at all. Mo is a nice guy, but could not speak up to Management about the particular pieces he wanted for a Mo Cheeks type of offense, whatever that may be. I’m sure management would have thought about it, whether the request would or could happen at all. Similar to when students have the opportunity to ask a teacher about a certain topic you have trouble with. That right to ask is there, it’s a matter of using that right.
Anyway, I hope he does find another job within the Sixers organization! After all, he is family when it comes to the Sixers!
What Mo could have done: Obviously you can’t do anything about open shots…if players consistently miss open shots that come within the flow of the offense, that’s on the player’s lack of ability to shoot in game situations, and never the coach.
IMO, it is the coach’s job not to get players to “shoot well”…but to orchestrate an offensive system where high percentage shots are being consistently taken, in a sets that fit your given team’s personnel best. Cheeks did not do this, and does not seem capable of doing so.
Shots will always be missed, whether you are a great shooter like Ray, Peja or Kapono, or a crappy shooter like 95% of our current Sixers team. But since we have no dominant scorer like an AI to make us competitive every game by hoisting the team onto his shoulders, and if shooting is a hardcore weakness, it should have been Mo’s job to set up a system that caters to our STRENGTHS:
a. Athleticism
b. Unselfishness (if you look at our roster, everyone’s naturally this way…they resort to selfishnish IMO due to inept offensive coaching)
c. Potential for balanced scoring, where multiple players can regularly chip in 12-17 ppg.
d. Good balance of players, for not having a legit SG. We’ve got a veteran, sometimes savvy PG…two athletic slashers, one of whom get hit a jumpshot and has a good post game (Thad), the other who looks to distribute and attacks the rim (Iggy)…one big that is a legit high post, and sometimes low post presence to run our offense from inside-out…one guy for easy put backs.
What system would have been best given the above: As many have said on here…an offense predicated on off the ball movement, lots of backdoor screening, quick passes, and an offense predicated on outhustling/energizing teams in a halfcourt set where players buy into making the extra pass. And, of course, running. The more this type of team stands around running iso plays and only shoots after 1-2 passes, our offense drags to a standstill, we resorted to selfish play, and no chemistry existed.
Eddie Jordan: Guys, I’ve seen A LOT of Eddie Jordan being in DC, and I am warning everyone, I really wouldn’t be so quick to fall in love with him. He, like D’Antoni, is NOT a defensive coach…not that he doesn’t care about it, and not that he doesn’t get his guys trying to improve…but the majority of his time is spent on getting his team to play good offense.
I really like EJ and think he has a ton of strengths…but Avery Johnson is just as an ideal canditate because I think he is A+ for getting guys to buy into a system, disciplining, holding people accountable, and getting his players in spots where they are able to best score. If you look back at how much his Dallas teams improved from Nelson’s…it took an incredibly strong mix of X&O’s knowledge, as well as teaching/leadership/coaching ability.
Not saying either is or should be “our man” right now…but I’d warn any from thinking EJ is this savior that would walk in and change everything. He’s not that…but he is a very sound offensive coach.
Win. Win. And win. And/or pack the house. All that it’s about at pro level.
When new management arrives, unless incumbents are above
reproach, it’s usually just a matter of time before directory is revised.
Mo, due to local legend status, Lynam backing (presumed), last season’s results climb and array of player changes, was granted more time than he might otherwise have gotten from alert businessman Stefanski. This particular Cheeks-directed team reeked for two months and view of horizon wasn’t pretty. Ax was inevitable.
When interviewed Mo often mentions how his team struggles in the half court set and offense. Well that means he or his assistants were not good enough at drawing up plays to get his better players open shots. Too often the Sixers would come from a time out, run a play and it looked a mess or it was a turnover. That’s coaching. In addition to his laid-back approach he was or didn’t seem to be a very good X’s and O’s coach. The 3 man weave he used at the top of the key just wasn’t productive. He often used to run pick up ball at the Sporting club in center city. He is a very nice guy.
Here are a few quotes from Cheeks’ press conference this morning:
“First of all, now I have a little bit more time for The Sports Club …” (there you go, RRose)
“This is a tough situation for me, but it’s part of the business. If you’re not winning games, things happen. I can’t express my appreciation as much as I’d like. No one understands the feelings inside when you get fired.”
“I used to say when we had a bad game, ‘It’s a moment, and it will pass.’ Well this is a moment. I take solace in the fact I did the best I could. This is not about pointing fingers. I’m not even going to go into the X’s and O’s part of it. I’m not going to go into the blame game. No one that gets fired can come up here and say, ‘Look’ no one feels good about it. I would assume the Sixer organization doesn’t feel good about it.”
“Whether we could run, didn’t run, I’m not getting into it … There’s a lot of things in this life that are just not fair, there’s no point for me to discuss those things. My job is to go out and win games whether they hired 10 new players or 1 new player … We went out everyday and tried.”
“What we were going to do is what we tried to do. We were going to run. We didn’t do it as well as we would have liked.”
“I thought we were going to run. It’s not going to benefit anyone to say, ‘We couldn’t run, we couldn’t rebound,’ It does me no good to say those things.”
“Anytime you get let go it hurts, not being able to finish … finish what we started. I really thought we had an opportunity to win.”
“It does come down to having certain players who can do certain things. But it also comes down to the coach getting the certain players to do certain things.”
“I had some quality players and character-wise, I don’t think I can get much better.”
“I think it’s a good basketball team. They have good young players and if they keep going they have a chance.”
“You just know things are not going the way you want them to. Having been around this business for 30 years, you know how things go … There were games for us that could have turned it a different way.”
“Expectations started to mount. I kept trying to find ways to do this and do that … I kept trying to pull and pull and pull and nothing was coming. Then you know it’s time.”
while we are on the topic of firing, and while ed stefanski’s trigger hand is still warm, how bout Bob Salmi GO LIKE NOWW!! seriously if ed listened to this blog and thot bout axing Mo, then PLEASE don’t let me watch the already sucky sixers with a plethora of the “salmi-strator” and “its in effect a pass to your self” and other dumb cliches explaining common sense ball stuff. if i hear another illustration about starting a race on the half court line, i’m gonna fire something ma self!
bski’s post: what a shame he was a class act till the end. well some ppl are maybe just not suited for the head coach position. heck they’re not his headache anymore so i am sure he is quite relieved. i still think he should come back as an assistant coach or sumthin. his presence has a calming effect. tho as a head coach, that calm quickly became lethargy for a bunch of rag-tags that think that the rest of the league will just lay flat and wait for them to come get ‘em. seriously the sixers look surprised when they score and the other team fights back and gains the upper hand; “well guess what? they are nba players like you. they wanna win too and yes they play hard consistently. No one’s gonna hand you anthing. go get it!”
Yeah, jkay. I always pull for a class act like Cheeks to be successful. Great to keep guys like that in the game. I prefer that to continually excusing the behavior of some ignorant s.o.b. because he wins.
Bski: Great find…that was genuinely moving to read. That little monologue should be held as a standard for how all people involved in the NBA…players, coaches, management alike…should hold themselves when speaking to a national audience. Wow…glad you posted that.
I’ve always thought Mo Cheeks is best suited to be an amazing right hand guy, the #1 assistant for a team, as he was with LB, and to really work with and mentor specific players. I hope he finds a staff that will incorporate and appreciate his talents in the future.
Jkay: Haha ABSOFRIGGIN LUTELY! Salmi is easily in the top 5 worst commentators in basketball I’ve ever seen, ugh.
jkay where is Steve Mix? Never thought I’d say that for any reason but Salmi is worse than Sammy. They can both take the same bus out of town.
Clearly Mo would be for that and so would I.
Mo got hired ’cause he did a nice job of caddying for Malone, Erving & Toney on a championship team and he’s a real sport. Enough of the “nice guy” (whatever that means) bouquets. Give me a sharp basketball coach who knows how to win against sharp coaches. He had his chance, worked his personal style. It didn’t work out. Boo-hoo.
jjg: Yep. Mo had a bunch of talent on this team. Now, obviously there are holes, but there is certainly enough talent to be a upper 40’s to 50 win team in today’s NBA. T
Re the last quoted part of Dannie’s post, I really fail to see how Brand is screwing up the running style. The team is among the tops in the league in fast break points – that’s point number 1. Point number 2 is that you do not need all 5 players to run, you only need as few as 1 and a nice pass ahead sometimes. Point number 3 is that to initiate a running style oyu need rebounding and defense, two skills which Brand contributes. Lastly, when Stefanski says that Brand should be the perfect trailer on the break, what with his excellent 15′ jumper, Ed is not blowing smoke.
If you are unable, because of circumstaces, to run, and must play 1/2 court offense, Brand should be able to improve your team, and the Sixers’ inability to do so fall upon the coach. If Dileo holds players accountable for not moving the ball side to side, for dribbling aimlessly too much and for not spacing themsleves properly, he will be successful, because, like I began this post, there is suffcient talent on the roster.
hmmmmmmm. Kevin McHale, coach, former GM of the Timberwolves has just said that bloggers are part to blame for coaches being fired. Interesting.
“If we don’t have a three-on-two, two-on-one, four-on-three, then we’re flowing into an early offense and we have a lot of options. One of the major options is to post up Elton before the defense gets set.”
- Tony DiLeo
Being a “running team” is often used to explain a team that gets points on the fast break. I think DiLeo’s comment, which reads to me like a diluted version of the D’Antoni Seven Seconds or Less offense, expands the concept of a “running team.”
He makes it sound like the first option will be the fast break, but if mismatches aren’t there the team won’t slow down and back it out to set up a traditional offense.
In Phoenix, the whole Seven Seconds or Less offense was based on the fact that, for a period of time at least, the Suns shot a better percentage when shooting during the first seven seconds of the play clock as opposed to the final seventeen. We don’t have the talent that D’Antoni had, but we have struggled to create scoring opportunities deep into the play clock.
Is DiLeo developing an offense that extends the period of “transition” to take advantage of defensive disorder in the early seconds of the play? Would this increase the team’s ability to take higher percentage shots? Should Mo have given this strategy a shot? These are the questions I ask myself.
Boomdizzle, I liked what Deleo had to say also, U.Mass under Calipari used to run the secondary break as well as anyone. I!m gonna give Mo a pass right now till I see how the rest of the year goes, but I agree with Morty in that the talent seems to be here. What could Mo have done different ? Discipline players that didn!t perform up to snuff; [L.Will./gunning] [Sammy/not screening well] [Iggy/leaving his feet on defense] etc. And doing what HE wanted to do instead of what his G.M. wanted. Ex. If he wanted to start Iggy at the 3 and Willie at the 2 than go in the G.M. !s office and fight for it. Mo doesn!t seem to handle change well and starting this year with 3 new starters at the 2/3/4 did not, to me, seem like a Mo kind of decision and probably was a reason for the slow start.
yea why did steve mix get fired? salmi is beyond awful.
mike: i have no idea. comcast did not want to renew his contract for some reason. it doesnt make sense. did he want the world? i dunno but for an announcer i mean how much can you pay? how much cheaper are they getting salmi? don’t they know that salmi’s awfulness is costing them as many viewers as the difference in salary saved. i dunno this makes no sense at all.
CMON GUYS @ COMCAST, U’RE KILLING URSELVES AND US IN THE PROCESS TOO. THIS GUY IS REALLY TERRIBLE. LOOK AT THE PHILLIES AND SEE WHAT AN EFFICIENT ORGANIZATION LOOKS LIKE; THE PHANATIC IS RATED TOP MASCOT, THE PARK SELLS OUT (WINNING HELPS) BUT THEY INTERACT AND UNDERSTAND THEIR FANS. COMPARE HARRY KALAS TO SALMI, CMON. OK THEY HAVE CHRIS WHEELER BUT ARE SMART ENOUGH NOT TO KEEP HIM IN SMALL SPURTS. ITS BUSINESS PPL!
guest: power to the people meen. lets keep hammering on. maybe someone might listen.
SALMI NEEDS TO GO!
suede: silver lining? – for the first time, we may be able to see what kind of team/talent we have- no BS!
wow i knew they weren’t scoring points, but the sixers are the 3rd worst scoring team in the entire league, just above charlotte and kevin durant’s future former team (credit to bs).
The Tony Dileo Jazz Trio – Sam Dalembert, Andre Iguodala & Lou Williams – will perform tonight at Philadelphia’s intimate Wachovia Center. Backing musicians will include the venerated Elton Brand of Peekskill, NY and Detroit area sideman, Willie Green. Accompanying
vocals will be provided by Thaddeus Young out of Georgia, LA-based Andre Miller and the always entertaining Reggie Evans, whose home is where the buffalo roam. Indiana Pacers are special guests. Emceeing
is Philly host Ed Stefanski, whose been known to bring down the house (and hammer). Audience participation segments are guaranteed! Tickets going fast, but not fast enough according to the accounting
firm of Snider & Lukko.
I really don’t think there was anything that MO was capable of doing to keep from losing his job. He gave it his best shot, lets see if some fresh eyes and thought turn it around, hopefully he decides to remain with the organization.
As far as the Salmi/Mix discussion, I was a huge fan of the Mayor and I really don’t care for Bob all that much. I watched a game on NBA TV the other day with the famous Zumoff/Mix collaboration and I couldn’t remember why I liked the man so much, it almost made me appreciate Bob Salmi. If only we could clone Zumoff…
The worst hands down combination there is and may ever will be is the horrible NBA TV Gametime tandem of Chris Webber and Gary Payton. I never knew how much I really disliked either one of them untill I got a good look at their true personalities. I feel so bad for Ahmad Rashad, I just want to go save him somehow.