Hawks Lose 1st or 2nd Round.

[Diesel]

In reply to:

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no, his record in the EAST with the talent that he has had the last 2 years has indicated that his coaching has been subpar.... I imagine he'll have one last chance this year to prove myself and his (ever-increasing) critics wrong...

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I think that he has done a good job with a team in transition. You have to remember that this is not the same team that Bird coached. They have changed (reloaded if you will). The only everyday players that remained from that championship team were Miller and Rose. Two Scorers, however the team they had before relied mainly on Chemistry, not Scoring. The reason that Davis was an allstar was because he had a defined role and he played that role better than anyone else could. Also, don't belittle the efforts of Smits and Perkins either. Lastly and most importantly, the biggest loss that franchise took was losing Mark Jackson. Best was and is a good BU, but he's no Mark Jackson. The same Mark Jackson went to Toronto and led the league in assists. Best on the otherhand was not as good a PG as Jackson was while they played together. IN 7 more minutes, Jackson averaged about 5 more assists per game than best. The Chemistry was totally different for that team. They made as many changes as we did. However, instead of making excuses about Chemistry, all zeke did was get his team into the playoffs.

I really believe that the major problem Zeke is having in Indy and with his critics (yourself included) is that he is NOT Bird. But you guys have to realize that he didn't have the experienced teams (especially at PG) that Bird had. However, he has done well so far but still NO LOVE.

[Guest]

playing devil's advocate here, but do you D, do you give Lon the same pass as you're giving Zeek? We were young, maybe more so than Indy considering that our "vets," Hendu and Email got hurt, and constantly had to bring in 10 dayers and non-starters in order to fill the bench and starting lineup (in fact, there were times when we only had 11 in the lineup)....

just curious....cause they only won what, nine more than us, with five of those coming in the last five games of the season...

[Diesel]

I will give Lon a break on Last season. The Hawks did finish strong and we have been injured the whole time....

However, there are certain things about Lon's coaching that could be changed that probably would have allowed us to make it to the playoffs. Namely:

1. His subbing pattern. He puts in weird people at the wrong times.

2. His love for CBA talent. There have been a lot of wasted development time fooling with the likes of Email, Lrob, Hanno, Cal, and even Ira. There are guys with more potential, sitting on the bench. DJ and Glover both sat the bench before DJ was allowed on due to injury. Would JT still be backing up MM if JJ, Glover, and Lrob hadn't got hurt at the same time? Actually, JJ was stupid for going to do the sonication at the time that he did.

All that said, Lon and Zeke will be under the microscope in the crucible this yr. Neither has excuses.