Poll: Lon Kruger

[BlackHawkDown]

I am not commenting. I am just curious about the mood of the general public.

[BlackHawkDown]

If you feel Kruger should be fired please mention a possible replacement or two.

[kudzu23]

I chose to fire if below .500..

How about John Thompson?? Or the Mike Glenn!! Hehe, just being silly.

[gadog19]

1. He's not that bad of a coach

2. Everyone likes him, except a couple fans

3. There is noone better out there as a replacement

[Guest]

From the following quote, I don't think that Babs is currently planning on firing Kruger. Additionally, I think he's actually right on this one - regardless of sub patterns and who's on the floor, The players (the starters) have to take some responsibility for the lack of D, as they're the ones allowing the scoring to happen...

____________________

Q - "Hi Pete, my question concerns the lack of effort on the defense. Do you think it's coaching or just a lack of effort from some of the guys? Especially, JT and SAR (Shareef). I believe in the Hawks and the direction you are trying to guide them, but I have serious doubts about our head coach. Do you think it's better to have someone with NBA experience? He just doesn't seem to bring the fire that we need. GO HAWKS!" -- Jimmy Horton

A - Our players have yet to put together a really good game to date, even though we have won a few....the coaches are doing a good job preparing them...each and every player needs to accept the responsibility of maximizing his potential. Thank you for your question.

[hds428]

Well said weaseldom, Pete puts the responsibility back onto the players, where it should be. It's not Lon making bad passes or falling asleep on D. Games are decided by the players on the floor, not on the sidelines. Just ask Phil Jackson who never leaves his seat unless it's a conference final, or Jim O'Brien who's only 'system' is letting Pierce and Walker take whatever shot they want as long as it isolates the rest of the team out of the game. On the other side of the coin is the great Lenny who's nowhere close to .500, the great immortal Riley who's in his second losing campaign. Right now most of the winningest teams all have something in common, a player (at least one) who will not give up. Baron Davis, Tim Duncan, Shaq, TMac, Reggie, Francis, Garnett, these guys are tenacious and will not give up no matter what. The rest of the elite is teams that are great teams who've been together, Indie, Dallas, Sacto. I don't see any teams who are winning because of great coaching. In fact what's happening now is that teams that win are winning out on pure talent. This is the pros, and these guys are adults who don't need coachie poo to hold their wee wee while they go potty.

[Guest]

Lon and Pete fit together because they are both

losers as pros.

" Jim O'Brien who's only 'system' is letting Pierce and Walker take whatever shot they want as long as it isolates the rest of the team out of the game."

Boston didn't play defense til Jim came along.All Lon

did was get some guys to play mediocre againest a

bunch of sorry teams.

" who will not give up. Baron Davis, Tim Duncan, Shaq, TMac, Reggie, Francis, Garnett, these guys are tenacious and will not give up no matter what. "

Actually Indiana was winning before Miller came back.

"I don't see any teams who are winning because of great coaching. "

IF you don't see that Detroit is winning because of

coaching....

[hds428]

That's funny, that does'nt look like Rick Carlisle out there putting up 20ppg for Detroit, or 3 blocks or 15 boards. Maybe I need glasses. As for Boston, they play decent D, but I have yet to see them do anything as a team, except maybe leave the court. As for Indie, regular season is fine, but who carries that team in the playoffs? Jamal Tinsley? Pfffft! Come on man, Carlisle is'nt blocking shots or putting up jumpers, Jim O'Brien is'nt out there crashing the boards or making the extra pass (who on BOS is though?). The coach can talk till he's blue in the face and then talk some more, but it don't mean a d@mn if the players don't execute or are'nt capable of executing. These are players, humans, you can't just program them like robots in the locker room and they'll go out and do what they're programmed for. They make human judgements and decisions. Isiah can squawk all night about Reggie taking the last shot, but when the clock's winding down and the ball is in O'Neal's hands, O'Neal is gonna decide wether Reggie gets the shot. Players decide the game on the floor. I can't possibly say it any simpler than that, but the Lon haters can't get that through the chunks of granite residing on their shoulders. Where would the Pacers be if Walsh had acted like an emotional overreacting d@mn woman last year and canned the precious Isiah??? Here's a clue guy, the Pacers were last year exactly where we are this year, you Lon haters think about that while you're slobberin all over Thomas' unit.

[Guest]

Yeah but if the players dont believe in the coach

they probably aren't going to play for him.They can

say whatever they want to the public....But I wonder

what goes through Big Dog's head when Lon has 4

subs in the game and is using Darvin Ham in the post.

Detroit was a loser til Rick came aboard and so was

Boston....Lon is as good of a pro coach as Rick Patino

at best.

You haven't seen Boston do anything as a team?It

usally takes a team to play defense.Too many people

think offense offense offense.....what about defense?

Lon can't coach on this level.Most everyone else sees

it but the few fans on this board REFUSE to see anything

bad in Lon or the players....It's called biased.

[pathway23]

its called you're a bandwagon fan and a spammer

[hds428]

"It usally takes a team to play defense.Too many people

think offense offense offense.....what about defense?"

Theo plays good defense, third in the league in block/game, yet ATL is seen as a mediocre defensive team at best. So you can play D without playing team D. There's an immense difference, and no, I have'nt seen the Celtics do anything as a team, including defense. I see the bad in Lon, but it does'nt outweigh the good, funny that's similar to what Donnie Walsh was saying about a certian Isiah Thomas last year. Remember Indie 500?

[Guest]

I'm telling the truth and you can't handle it.....biased

and blind fan....

[Guest]

Theo plays good defense, third in the league in block/game, yet ATL is seen as a mediocre defensive team at best. So you can play D without playing team D."

Shot blocks don't make you a good defender.In fact,off

alot of blocks the offense retains possession of the ball.

Theo can get post up and other centers can and do over

power him.Pau Gasol blocks shots just like JT's steals

don't make him a good defensive player.

:but it does'nt outweigh the good,"

What good?He's done nothing for this franchise but

coach bad games and drive more fans away.Remember

how Mutombo laughed when he found out Lon was the

coach?

"at's similar to what Donnie Walsh was saying about a certian Isiah Thomas last year. Remember Indie 500?"

Thomas was a hall of fame player that now has his team

playing in the manner Detroit played.....What was Lon

in the NBA?That is right he never made it and he clearly

isn't a smart coach or he wouldn't have 4 bench players

in the same time knowing they are going to struggle.He

knows it before he even puts their asses out there.

[Guest]

This game the Hawk fans play is a complete joke....

None of these guys know anything about the Hawks..

none of these media guys know...blah blah...I used

to play that game too but not anymore.

[Diesel]

Isn't it the coaches job to Motivate?

Isn't it the coaches job to dispense discipline?

Isn't it the coaches job to design defenses around his personnell?

i.e. if you know you have some horrid defensive players, you play a zone and not worry about the man to man as much?

Lon isn't doing his job. You mentioned Phil. Well, Phill has been known to chew a player out in practice. (Horace Grant, Bob Horry). What about Lon? Lon is not even in a position to pull rank because he's just a college coach.

[Guest]

The zone should be used with caution...better shooting teams should tear it apart on any given night. Additionally, and I hate to say this, but the teams you talk about playing the zone effectively all played together for quite some time/ got to know each others as players and the zone as a system before it worked with any sort of effectiveness (really only Minny, last year, Dallas, and sometimes Indiana, aka the Dallas game).

[Diesel]

The advantage of the zone.

Good shooting teams will tear apart a zone... BUT, I would rather a team shoot from outside than to have them waltz inside.

Right now, I believe that the Hawks suffer from not knowing. They just don't know. The way that Tmac and Miller had their way with the Hawks defense was down right embarrassing. It was like we didn't know where we were supposed to be. We don't communicate on defensive switches. We don't rotate when we're supposed to rotate. A zone simplifies all that. It makes the team either attack us or shoot from outside. Either way, the High percentage shot goes away. Plus, we don't need to totally shut down anyone. We just need enough defense to be good. OUr team was built to OUTSCORE.

Now, let's remember some of the Diesel Points of the summer that I gave you and many of you denied...

1. We were built to Outscore.

2. Theo would not make a huge difference for our defense.

[d2v16DKG]

Isn't this poll a little bias when you have 3 fire him options and only 1 keep him, he's great? Some of us may not think he's necessarily great but we think he deserves a chance to show what he can do with all the new players before we decide to fire him. Personally I like him and more importantly I think the players believe in him. Last game was a stinker, no question about it but it was the 5th game in six nights! Didn't the Hawks have special practices during the summer? I don't think they would do that for a coach who sucks.

[BlackHawkDown]

The second option fire him if we finish .500 or below is more of a keep him if we have a winning season. I am not saying anything one way or the other. I guess there should be a give him until 04 option.

[Guest Walter]