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Originally Posted by gatorpops
Last year Seattle did push the ball up the court and took what the D offered, often a quick three. If the play was not there they ran screens etc. to get the shooters open. Manageing to get to the 6th game of the second level was a great feat for that team.
Nate probably will adapt to the players given him here when he is out of the player "evaluating" faze of his process (i.e. this season). Surely Nate has learned what certain of our players can and cannot do against various competetion and types of players and with different types of players beside them. Who can they guard and who can they score against and with whom.
In my mind Nate made his players learn to play better D by only allowing them to play at all if they did play D. Travis and Martell and Telfair have improved in my opinion.
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I hope you're right about Nate eventually adapting. I don't say that because I think he's been particularly bad this year (this team just doesn't have enough good players to succeed under any coach) but because I saw him try to force a square Sonics team into a round Nate philosophy for too long.
I'm far from sure about this, but I think that the Sonics' success last year came because he had decided he was leaving... that he wasn't going to get the players he wanted and that he'd just ride out the year and go somewhere else.
It would be great if he initiated the changes last year and/or that he sees that playing to the strengths of his players is the key to success as an NBA coach. I'm not sure that's the case, though.
Ed O.