Should Nate be fired?

[Diesel]

19 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

If we can Nate, I'd want an assistant from somewhere that has learned from a good coach, like the Celtics got Udoka, or someone with that type of background.  A hungry first-time head coach that has been an assistant for a successful program for a while.

 

That's the Lloyd Pierce... Woody is no Goody route...

Nawl..

I would rather us get a coach who is an offensive Genius.. that is why D'Antoni and Gentry are at the top of my list. 

I also feel that Mike Brown is very underrated. 

But it feels like Nate is going to be given a reprieve.   Still, I would love for him to bring in Gentry as his top assistant. 

By The Way...

Many of you hate the nepotism of McMillan hiring his son.  Have you actually looked at his son's resume'?  Honestly, the younger McMillan would be the next Udoka based on his resume'. 

 

[AHF]

1 hour ago, terrell said:

He also got swept by Spoelstra while he was HC in Indy..... You would think this series was his first time coaching against him.. smh

Granted that Indy was missing its best player in Sabonis, but you can certainly say that Nate didn't show that he learned any lessons in dealing with Butler or the Heat from that series.  

2 hours ago, kg01 said:

Nate ain't goin' nowhere.  Ya'll gotta get over it.

I would bet on that too.  But this thread is entitled "should" Nate be fired and that is a more interesting topic of discussion.  For me, it is a topic that doesn't have a clear answer because he disappointed me this year in a lot of ways but I also hate churning coaches.

[Diesel]

Reading an old Pacer fans thread about the firing of Nate in Hindsight.

I have to say.. reading this is eye opening... Let me share:

"I like Nate and he's a solid coach but everyone on r/nba clowning us didn't sit through all the first round exits, all the toothless offence, all the timeouts way to late into a run, all the blown leads, head-scratching rotations, awful inbounds plays, no ideas coming off a timeout, etc. Both Nate and the Pacers needed a fresh start and he happened to end up in a better situation than we did."

And this:

As a Pacer fan that lives in Atlanta, I’ve heard it all. I’ve maintained my stance that it was the right move, but I am happy that he is succeeding in Atlanta.

A few things I firmly believe on the situation:

The Hawks are playing with house money.

If I remember right, when Nate took over there were like 5-6 teams, us included, that were all hovering around .500 in the East & the Nets, Bucks, & Sixers pretty much had the top 3 seeds locked in all year. In comes Nate, a guy that the hawks locker room loved, & the hawks started playing great ball. Im not even sure if he touched the offense but the defense has improved a bunch, something even Nate’s biggest hater would admit is a strength of his coach. The Hawks & Knicks played the best ball of all the teams in that mid season rut (obviously) & were rewarded with a first round matchup.

Despite the regular season results, the Knicks were a great matchup for the hawks.

-The biggest thing I’ve heard from Atlanta fans that I know is how he’s already won a series with them. It’s worth mentioning that Knicks is worse than any team Nate faced as a Pacer coach, by a considerable margin. The Knicks simply couldn’t score enough points to keep up with the hawks. There was no need to adjust in that series, the Knicks just couldn’t score enough points. I think it says way more about his time in Atlanta than in Indiana.

My final thought is that I hope Nate gets the job in Atlanta and I hope he does well. However, next year I have a feeling they will get in a rut where Nate shows some of the weaknesses he did with us. I hope he can work through them, but I’ll be sure to remind my Atlanta buddies this is more of who he is, opposed to the top-tier coach they think he is.

That is my rant from having to talk to hawks fans that didn’t watch us play when Nate was here

And this:

Ok first thing is this team actually has a healthy potential superstar and snipers something Nate never had here. The best team he had while in Indy was the 2018 team that took the ECF champs to 7 games in the first round. Bad luck of the draw. Secondly like many of you said he ran his course here. He had two different all-stars and several iterations of this team and couldn’t really get past the first round. Was some it on the team not being good enough? Sure. Was some of it on Nate’s lack of adjustments? Sure. Either way 4 first round exits and lack of improvement for whatever reason calls for a change no matter if the coach is good or not. Guess what if we had keep him for this season we’d probably be an 8th seed at best still fighting to get in and then if we got in we’d only be getting swept by the Nets or 76ers. What a great and memorable season. Honestly I’m glad he’s finally gotten a team where his star player isn’t always hurt and the FO built a nice core around him. Everywhere he’s gone he was dealt the star player gets injured card and obviously we know how that can affect your teams success.

And this:

I'm a huge Pacers fan, and I watch every game. I grew up in Indy, lived in Chicago, now live in NYC. I think the Pacers made the same mistake with McMillan as Chicago did with Tom Thibodeau. And this isn't revisionist, because I said it the moment fans started getting out the pitch forks in 2020. The parallels...

Thibs was a great coach for Chicago and got them to the playoffs every year, despite D Rose injuries. But Chicago decided they needed to move on. So they got a guy in Fred Hoiberg who has zero NBA head coaching experience. Now the Bulls haven't been relevant in a decade, despite having decent players. Meanwhile Thibs is having success in NYC with a sub par Knicks roster.

Like Thibs, McMillan consistently got us into the playoffs. A small market team is a hinderance in itself. But we also dealt with a lot of injuries. No Oladipo in 2019 playoffs. We didn't have Sabonis in the 2020 playoffs and Oladipo was not the same player. And it was a weird Covid year, with no home games in the playoffs. We had a knee jerk reaction to fire him after we were swept by the Heat, especially since you saw the Heat made it to the Finals. Sure McMillan runs an old school offense, but old school fits Indiana. We've always been a hard-nosed blue collar team that keeps games close. McMillan fit our style, and he just needed one better scorer/jump shooter. Looks like we might have found it in TJ Warren. But instead of seeing it through, at least til the end of the 2020 playoffs, we fired him immediately (oddly, right after announcing his extension) and quickly hired opposite Nate with zero head coaching experience. Similar to what Chicago did with Hoiberg.

The Hawks weren't a great team last year. Basically, they added McMillan and are suddenly contenders. I'll get downvoted to hell for this post, but I think team subs like ours get a very hive mind attitude to never admit they were wrong when they got the pitch forks out. I think this sub was wrong on McMillan, as was the Pacers organization. And they did McMillan dirty announcing his extension only to fire him 2 weeks later to replace him with joke Nate. I don't see how fans weren't more upset about this not-so-ethical move. It was shameful. We should be pissed our leadership treated McMillan that way. I just hope it doesn't result in the Pacers being irrelevant for a decade. I love Pacers basketball. But after one year post McMillan - it's not lookin good.

My thing is that I don't want to see us become a middling team losing in the first round.   It's sad because we share some of the same traits that those Indy teams had.   Less talent.  small market.   and Injury riddled... but the complaints about Nate are still the same...

Just more fuel for the discussion. 

[JayBirdHawk]

33 minutes ago, Diesel said:

 

"I like Nate and he's a solid coach but everyone on r/nba clowning us didn't sit through all the first round exits, all the toothless offence, all the timeouts way to late into a run, all the blown leads, head-scratching rotations, awful inbounds plays, no ideas coming off a timeout, etc.

The blue print....we've seen every instance unfold.

[GameTime]

8 hours ago, kg01 said:

Nate ain't goin' nowhere.  Ya'll gotta get over it.

Realistically you are right. I hope they can hire Nate a OC, DC, QB and a WRs coach. He needs a lot of help.

[sturt]

Interesting fact, maybe only to meeeeee....

Were the Miami Heat to go on to the NBA Finals, that would mean that in 11 postseasons in which McM was the head coach, whatever team put his out of the playoffs went to the NBA Finals... get this... 7 times. Don't know how that compares to others, but dang that seems like a lot.

[sturt]

On 5/22/2022 at 12:10 AM, sturt said:

Interesting fact, maybe only to meeeeee....

Were the Miami Heat to go on to the NBA Finals, that would mean that in 11 postseasons in which McM was the head coach, whatever team put his out of the playoffs went to the NBA Finals... get this... 7 times. Don't know how that compares to others, but dang that seems like a lot.

Not sure about anyone else, but since I despise both BOS and MIA, letting this be the determining factor. Go Heat.

[sturt]

Remember Bud being celebrated for how often he'd have the perfect play drawn up out of a timeout.

Don't hear that much about McM's play engineering.

But maybe that's neither here nor there (see tweet below).

Remember Magic talking about how none of his wizardry was original with him, but instead borrowing from others and building on theirs (Pistol in particular).

 

 

 

[SalvorMallow]

10 hours ago, sturt said:

Remember Bud being celebrated for how often he'd have the perfect play drawn up out of a timeout.

Don't hear that much about McM's play engineering.

But maybe that's neither here nor there (see tweet below).

Remember Magic talking about how none of his wizardry was original with him, but instead borrowing from others and building on theirs (Pistol in particular).

 

 

 

Nate has one of the lowest ATO PPP in the league.

[AHF]

17 hours ago, sturt said:

Remember Bud being celebrated for how often he'd have the perfect play drawn up out of a timeout.

Don't hear that much about McM's play engineering.

But maybe that's neither here nor there (see tweet below).

Remember Magic talking about how none of his wizardry was original with him, but instead borrowing from others and building on theirs (Pistol in particular).

 

 

 

Said for years that it is inexcusable not to be prepared on these plays for precisely this reason:  you don't have to come up with this stuff on your own.  You can rip from thousands of coaches over decades of time.  The only thing that makes OOT plays ineffective is inadequate preparation.

[sturt]

7 hours ago, SalvorMallow said:

ATO PPP

Can't say I've ever seen where that stat was kept. Probably just looked right over top of it.

[Atlantaholic]

On 6/1/2022 at 7:29 AM, AHF said:

Said for years that it is inexcusable not to be prepared on these plays for precisely this reason:  you don't have to come up with this stuff on your own.  You can rip from thousands of coaches over decades of time.  The only thing that makes OOT plays ineffective is inadequate preparation.

We struggled with so many things, the situational play calls were just the tip of the iceberg.

Still coach Nate earned one more season. If we see the same shit this upcoming season though I would get rid of him in a heartbeat.

[StonedDogs]

Watching these Finals, Trae, Nate and the Hawks have a lot of work to do. Nate offense just isn't gonna cut it with ball dominant 5"11 pg who looks for three 1st. 

[Atlantaholic]

6 minutes ago, StonedDogs said:

Watching these Finals, Trae, Nate and the Hawks have a lot of work to do. Nate offense just isn't gonna cut it with ball dominant 5"11 pg who looks for three 1st. 

The pick and roll is deadly but we need to have a plan B, it can't be our only offense.

[Diesel]

On 6/1/2022 at 8:49 AM, sturt said:

Can't say I've ever seen where that stat was kept. Probably just looked right over top of it.

Don't think it is...

26 minutes ago, Atlantaholic said:

The pick and roll is deadly but we need to have a plan B, it can't be our only offense.

Your offense is built around your personnel.

[StonedDogs]

35 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Don't think it is...

Your offense is built around your personnel.

Ah cmon Diesel, good coaches know how to bring the best out of their players. Draymond Green is a dog who speeds the ball up the court. Al Horford is looking like a rookie fresh off a college championship. Jordan Poole was just in the g league. J Brown is a stud. White is balling. There is a reason Nate was an assistant to an assistant coach. One too many player not happy with their roles and I would bet lot has to do with greenlight logo Trae and Nate lack of creativity. Just too old school, predictable and slow 

[StonedDogs]

1 hour ago, Atlantaholic said:

The pick and roll is deadly but we need to have a plan B, it can't be our only offense.

Agreed but watching the finals Hawks pick and roll would get shut down quickly imo. Good teams, good coaches adapt. 

[Atlantaholic]

31 minutes ago, StonedDogs said:

Agreed but watching the finals Hawks pick and roll would get shut down quickly imo. Good teams, good coaches adapt. 

I mean the Miami series proved that pretty emphatically, they pretty much dominated us. 

[Diesel]

8 hours ago, StonedDogs said:

Ah cmon Diesel, good coaches know how to bring the best out of their players. Draymond Green is a dog who speeds the ball up the court. Al Horford is looking like a rookie fresh off a college championship. Jordan Poole was just in the g league. J Brown is a stud. White is balling. There is a reason Nate was an assistant to an assistant coach. One too many player not happy with their roles and I would bet lot has to do with greenlight logo Trae and Nate lack of creativity. Just too old school, predictable and slow 

My statement your offensive is built around your personnel was just proven by you....

Draymond Green. 

Leads the warriors in Assist per game.   The offense runs through him.  But he's 6'6" 230 lbs.  He's no PG... He's not even the SG.. he's the PF.   However, he has ball handling and BBIQ.   So Kerr Said... instead of making you play out of position at PF and make you do things that you don't do so well, I'm going to put the offense in your hands because that will improve our offense and play to your strengths.  If they traded Draymond for JC... then the offense would have to change. 

We use the pick and roll.. not because it's Nate's favorite offense and he makes players conform to it.  We play the PNR because it plays to Trae's strengths.  But I still believe that Nate should have a very short leash.   The things that he's doing is the things that he has always done.  Him shortening the rotation from 10 to 8 players is a sign that he wanted to continue to walk it up.  I'm not for the slowness of offense.  If our offensive is predictable and unimaginative and ineffective then we should be letting Nate go by Jan.   However, if the wins are coming and even if we're slow... and the wins are coming, we should keep Nate on through the playoffs. 

 

 

 

[Diesel]

8 hours ago, Atlantaholic said:

I mean the Miami series proved that pretty emphatically, they pretty much dominated us. 

I don't think the Miami series proved anything.   When you have a an injured team missing starters, you can't make any judgement about how the games went.   I mean should Miami be talking about we need to make changes because we will never beat Boston as is???

No.  If Herro were healthy, then it's a different series.   
Only Hawks fans can take the results of a series where we limped in and say.. these results suggest...

If I'm fighting a 1 legged man.. then I'm going to trip him and kick him and stomp him while he's on the ground.   That doesn't mean that the 1-legged man isn't a good fighter when he has 2 legs... it means that I saw a weakness and exploited it.  Availability is not a constant weakness.