Flip leaps into the Penthouse

our team is already disciplined on the defensive end. why would flip opening up the offense more make us not play defense?? you think ben wallace and sheed are going to start playing matador defense just so they can get back to the other end and play offense?? the pistons offense will be spurred by great defense not by taking the ball out of the basket and running it up.

i dont' know if you've been watching kidd the last few times we've played him. he basically gets locked up. i say we can run with any team in the league because 1 - 5 on our team can run the break not just 1 - 3. the difference is with us when our break doesn't work our half court game is still more effective than other teams. also our second unit can run better than our first. arroyo, delfino, evans or dupree on the break is scary for opposing teams. maybe i overestimate our teams ability maybe you underestimate us just because you haven't seen it done. we will all know how it's going to work in a few days.

well i watched our pistons games and i wouldn't classify our offense as something that works. we also lost the championship last year so i wouldn't classify our offense as something that worked. yeah we win games but i think that's more of our defense. our offense was just predictable and our droughts were just terrible to watch. san antonio locked our predictable offense up. lb kept running the same play anyway. lb must have been a fan of not changing what works too. flip adding some offensive variety can only help. if not chauncey can still call 4 down and pass the ball to rip.

Kgreg

I don't advocate changing the essence of our team (power and size) by pretending to be the Suns. We blew many transition opportunities last year as a result of being lead by a guard not skilled in the fundamentals of spacing & timing, creating passing angles, or drawing the defender for easy dimes. With proper instruction and practice our top flight rebounding team squad be able to significantly raise our per game transition scoring. Thus relieving some of the pressure of running 1/2 court sets to perfection.

I dont think that Flip, or any other competent coach, is able to significantly change the outcome of the team's success. I mean Larry Brown was the most talked about active coach last year. And the Pistons were still able to go to game 7 of the finals. I still was very impressed with Flip Saunders' first conference. I think that the Pistons are just as good as they were last year, if not better. The only thing that could change the Pistons success is if the Heat can show that their trades will pan out to have good chemistry.

Well, in my opinion, only 2 teams made it to the Finals last year. We were one of them. Only one of them was there there year before. We were that team.

In my estimation, whatever we were doing with LB seems to me to have worked. Now, you add 8 pts to game 7 and we have 2 titles in two years. Would you think that a team that successful needs to make a coaching change? Would you think a team that successful needs to have it's gameplan (offesive OR defensive) retooled? I certainly don't.

yes. whatever we were doing was not good enough last year. joe d saw that and brought in a coach that could fix that. he brought in a coach to add those 8 pts we need. i think lb's resistance to change really cost us last year. he should have changed the lineup in miami series playing elden more to rest ben. he should have gave up on small ball in the new jersey series. i think we lost last year and it was definitely ours to win. a few adjustments and we could have dogged san antonio.

this is all moot because lb did not want to be here. so yes i think a man that doesn't want to coach an nba finals caliber team to go coach some misfits in ny so he can be the center of attention warrants a coaching change. lb was fired because he wanted out not because we wanted him out. if the pistons wanted lb out we would have fired him quickly and signed mcmillan who was our # 1 candidate i think. but lb drug it out and we ended up with the best available coach in flip.

flip is below pop and cola but ahead of van jeremy. i suspect the quality of this squad will make flip look very good. just like the quality of miami is making van jeremy look pretty good.

Coach rankings

I'd have to agree with bball jay.

I think Pop is the best coach in the league right now.

Rick "Mr. Personality" Charlisle is a heck of a coach with no people skills. What he did with the Pacers last year was amazing under the circumstances. He also started the turnaround with the Pistons a few years back. I don't think he gets enough credit for that (despite winning coach of the year as a rookie).

Van Jeremy is a no talent greaseball. Talk about one family getting all the looks. The Van Gundy boys are quite a catch.

My opinion

I'm exactly where Jay is on this one. This one is easy for me.

I think Pop showed me he is the best coach in the league when he beat his mentor. He seems like he has a great understanding of the game and he is a mensch.

Rick has coached a couple of good teams, but I think he gets the most out of them. I'd take him over Larry in a hot second because of all the baggage Larry brings with him and I just like Rick better.

Then I'd take Flip or Mcmillan.

Larry is good for a year. Let him teach, earn his 5 million, and go along on his merry little way eastward.

Van Jeremy makes me nauseas. I don't know what his players think of him, but he is a horses... :deadhorse<------------ (that end).

1. There's no way you're going to get me to say Flip is better than LB, not in a million years and that's basically what you're saying if Flip is going to make the changes you suggested for last year.

2. Yes I understand perfectly that we did NOT win the title last year. But, in my opinion we were damn close and much closer that we would have been if Flip had been coaching last season.l

3. I think San An won because they had a slightly better game 7, not because Pop handed LB the L. You don't go 7 games in the Finals if someone is torching you with coaching moves.

4. I think when you want out it's called "quiting" and when someone else wants you out it's called "firing". Considering there was a buy out mixed in with the firing, I seriously doubt that qualifies as not wanting to be here. If you don't want to be somewhere you quit, you don't get paid for leaving and your boss doesn't insult you for good measure and convince all the sports hacks in town to kick dirt on you, not before, but after you're gone.

Larry didn't want to be here believe that he has proved that over and over during his career.Well if he comes back health wise he might not make it through the season thus sticking us with a crap assistant.

He drug it on to get bought out so he looked like the poor guy that wanted to stay and there were millions involved.He basically pushed them to buy him out.How do you think this year would have went with Heard for the last half of the season coaching?

I will never take anything away from him as coach or teacher and the title appearances with the title he gave us but otherwise the way he ran things through the media he's a shmuck.

Who is better is not the issue

Is flip or larry better? At what and when? Larry was the best two years ago. Not last year. Flip may be the guy now. We got beat last year. We lost. We shouldn't have--not to SA. We spotted SA two games and almost won four straight. Pop a great coach? What did he do last year? He made one great move with Bowen in game five. We never adjusted. He played Horry because his other great move, Mohammed, was not effective. We never made him pay for playing Horry big minutes. Duncan was the bulk of their down low play. We never got him in foul trouble or made him work. Pop was steady but not great. Our offense was not at championship caliber. Our defense carried us for the most part. Even in game 7 SA, our defense shut them down but we just weren't going to score. We could not win with the same team this year. If Flip didn't make the changes, Larry would have had to. Who would be better at making the changes necessary to stay at the elite level: Flip or Larry?

There was only one team last season capable of beating us in 7 and that WAS SA. I can't say I was trilled about it, but that's the only team in the L that I could take a loss to and still be proud of this team.

I can appreciate you guys and your optimism, but at some point reality has to set in and someone will HAVE to admit that Flip is not as good a coach as LB. All the well wishing and positive thoughts in the world won't replace a great basketball mind. At the end of the day the Pistons WILL be competitive, but they will NOT be in the Finals with Flip as coach and that bothers me.

...and like I said before, if Flip can coach this team to the Finals, I will admit my misjudgement and lay off. But, I just can't see this guy turning this team into an uptempo team and thinking their defense will even be 75% of what it was last year.

the finals went 7 games because pop was torching lb and van jeremy was also doing better than lb. the finals should have went 5 games at most.

elden should have played semi major minutes on shaq because he was very effective this would have saved ben for games 1 and 2 of san antonio.

pop knew our 1 play on offense and defended it very well. lb never made any adjustments to get rip open. lb also never went at parker at the start of the game to absolutely make bowen switch off of rip.

pop put bowen on chauncey in the 4th because by lb's design chauncey really only goes after his offense in the 4th.

lb went to small ball in game 7.

the dumbest mistake of all lb started doubling duncan.

we were the better team than san antonio. we had mismatches that they had no answer for. chauncey, mcdyess and sheed. if lb was a great coach he would have rode them until they had no more. chuck daly knew how to ride the hot hand. lb takes them out of the game because they have 4 fouls in game 7 of the finals and puts in a guard.

flip is not better than lb. but he may be a better fit for this club. he will use the teams strengths not just follow the same formula for every team he coaches. lb had a big part of our success the last 2 years. but this team is that good enough that they will have success with any coach worth anything.

I don't want to get into an LB debate but I think LB basically quit on us during the Pacer series and was not mentally available when we needed him in game 7 with the Spurs. The players couldn't make the subsititions for him. I think if they had we would have won game 7.

I do agree that Flip is a better coach than Vandy Pants.

Long Sigh

Ok I think there are thre tier 1 coaches
-LB
-Pop
-Punk "A" Phil
I can't rank them because they all get their chance to out do one another. Each one has some W's and L's in the column against one another. It's like playing your boy 1 on 1, sometimes he gets you and y'all run it back and you get him and on and on.

2nd tier
-Sloan
-Cola
-Flip

Sloan is better than both and I think that Flip is tied with Cola. Contrary to poular belief by alot of my Forum homies, those Minny teams often overachieved, much like or Carlisle era Pistons and last years Indy team, which is why I think that Flip and Cola are right there.

Next I think the VanGundy's are solid coaches that are OK, along with George Karl, and Nate is an up and comer.

I like Jeff Van Gundy....I might put him into that second tier. He's a hands on coach.