General Question: Winning an NBA championship is what part excellence in "GM-ing" vs. excellence in coaching vs. excellence in players performance?

[sturt]

Is it 33.3-33.3-33.4 ?

Is it 10-10-80?

Is it 25-50-25?

Is it 60-30-10?

 

Just interested to glean the wisdom of the board at-large. Conventionally speaking, when you think about all the champions you've seen since you first became a professional basketball fan... how do you divvy up that pie between the three major pieces... and why?

 

(I'll save my opinion for later since I don't like to tilt the conversation on a question like this.)

 

 

 

[Alf]

Tough question but I will with 25-30-45.

GM is the one that deals with the draft, free agency, etc to build a team so obviously that is important in terms of getting the right personnel in. Coaching of course then has to implement said pieces to make them work together to get the optimal results on the court.

However, no matter how great of moves at face value a GM makes or how good the coach is, the players are the ones that have to make it all work or a team will be disappointing on both ends of the floor. No matter how well drawn up the plays,how great practices are run, etc the coach can't throw on a uniform and go out there and do it for them; they must execute it.

A coach is always the first to go though when a team struggles, that's just the nature of the business.

[Gray Mule]

I believe ALF has all the answers.  No need to go further!!

[AHF]

I'm struggling a bit to differentiate the GM and player categories.  What is the difference between GMing and Player Performance Excellence?  Like the Braves had their first championship and epic string of playoff appearances behind their amazing pitching staff along with some very good hitters.  Does putting those players on the team count as GMing or does their amazing performance count as player performance?  Jordan and Pippen were the key to the Bulls' championships.  Whether you call that player excellence or give credit to the GM for drafting and trading for them respectively is tough for me to parse, especially by %.  Those players don't get on the team without the GM making the right decisions and the team never wins 6 rings without those players being the core of their championship teams.

Then I'm not entirely clear on what is mean by player performance.  Is excellence in player performance mean their raw performance or are we talking about guys who step up above their norm?  For example, Mark Lemke had some really excellent playoff runs where he was clutch and impacting the game above his head.  If the normal impact from the Lemmer was a 3, he had some series where he delivered a 6 or 7, imo.  But at his peak he still wasn't as good and impactful as Chipper Jones when Chipper was anywhere close to his normal self.  (Hmm....thinking about this I'm not sure baseball is a great comparison since player performance varies so much more in that sport but I think the point is probably coming through so I'm not going to rewrite this other than to note that maybe a so-so performance from LeBron and an over his head series from JR Smith could be a similar comparison to the point I'm trying to illustrate - see below*.)  So is Lemke's play above his head in the playoffs to raise the team "excellence in playoff performance" (i.e., playoff performance better than RS norm) or is Chipper's the better example of playoff excellence because an average performance from Chipper is still more impactful?

* 

To get to the heart of what I think it takes to win a championship, I will say that any one of these failing means you don't win a ring in the NBA.  If the GM doesn't add the right players you won't have the horses to get you there.  The most important piece is the players and especially the handful of very best players on the team.  Whether you call that GMing or player performance, that is the biggest key by a sizable amount.  Kareem, Jordan, Magic, Bird, Duncan, Shaq, LeBron, etc. win rings more than anything else.  Coaching is still essential but is very minor in comparison, imo.  Coaches can make a difference in series performance but only so much.  They can't take a historically weak roster and turn them into champions and can't take a historically powerhouse roster and turn them into the worst team in the league.  But they can take a championship contender and keep them from realizing their potential or push a team that is a second tier true contender into a champion by maximizing their performance (think Detroit's ring under Larry Brown).  

 

If this were a race:

Players are the car and driver - they are the key and give you your baseline.

Coaches are the fuel and crew - bad performance can tank a team and great performance can give a winning edge where the competition is pretty evenly matched but usually the impact is comparatively minor relative to the driver and car.

[JayBirdHawk]

Gotta add in the Luck percentage somewhere in there to. Where things fall just right for one team vs the other hitting bumps.

[AHF]

10 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Gotta add in the Luck percentage somewhere in there to. Where things fall just right for one team vs the other hitting bumps.

Like a ref standing on the court behind a player?

[sturt]

How I think about it..............................

 

GM-ing = Anything done off the court by the non-coaching staff that helps ensure talent performing on the court is superior to other teams (primarily talent acquisition and scouting)

 

Players performance = On-court performance

 

To wit...........................

 

GMs can do good-to-fantastic job drafting, trading, signing FAs, but sometimes players underperform their history/reasonable expectations.

 

GMs can do a lousy-to-meh job drafting, trading, signing FAs, but sometimes players overperform their history/reasonable expectations.

 

Granted, there's a gray area there. You can have a GM sign a no-name player, but who he's persuaded has a bright future, and both the GM and the player deserve credit for if/when that happens... and in this context, specific to winning a championship. But/and that's one player. You're not likely to ever see a championship team mostly made-up of low-expectation players.

[sturt]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Luck

For the sake of the question, removing luck from the equation... for the reason that it's not something anyone controls.

[Wretch]

Discounting luck, which really just makes or breaks the whole conversation...I'd say 60/30/20

It's hard for me to divide this up.  I honestly want to say this is 100% GM...because it's that important.  A bad GM will set a franchise back indefinitely. Look at what Isaiah Thomas did to NY.  Look at what we had to endure with Babcock - who I think is responsible for our decades of mediocrity by refusing to rebuild through the draft.  A good GM handles the draft well, handles free agency well, recognizes when a coaching change needs to be made, understands when there's a team cancer that needs to be removed...I could go on and on. For the sake of this thread though, I have to say that the GM's role is at least 50%.  Minimum...but I'll go 60%.

The next part of that is the players at 30%.  They're the ones playing the game, but again...who builds the team?  Who brings in the right coach?  Who goes out and gets the Robin after the team finds Batman?  Sometimes it's just luck that a bad GM finds a generational talent, but they have no clue as to what to do with them.  They never find the right fit or the rebuild is rushed (LeBron!).  The player portion breaks down 50/30/20...  Star combo (Jordan/Pippen)/supporting x-factors (Rodman)/Role players & bench

The coach is 20%...and yes the math is "wrong." Intentionally. Winning a championship is hard.  The right GM making the right moves, the right players complimenting each other and getting it done, and the right coach making it work...will get you as far as the runner up in the Finals maybe even win.  Sometimes, you can just face-roll your opponent.  Sometimes, it's an epic battle.  If we're saying the bar is any given championship team, I've got to throw out 110% excellence.  Barring an overwhelming favorite and/or a glaring disparity in talent...the coach is the one that will take that team to the next level.  It takes all the things you think a coach needs (XO's, defensive strategy, chemistry, etc)...but it also has to be the right fit.  IMO it's a 50/50 split between how good the coach is and how well he fits.

BTW, if you didn't read the post and just read the first sentence...read go back and read the first sentence of the last paragraph. lol Also, we have endured quite a few substandard GM's.  I think we have a very good one in Schlenk and I would get rid of everyone affiliated with this team not named "Trae Young", coaches and owner included, before I let him go.

[Watchman]

This is a hard call to make.  It is crucial for the GM to assemble the talent that fits together to form a whole team that complements each other.  He also has to hire a coach who can manage, strategize and motivate the players.  Of course, the players have to be good at what they do, and fit together to make a whole.  I would therefore suggest that the bulk of the responsibility lies with the GM.  If he does not do his job well, then there will be no great success.  Therefore the GM has to realize his errors in judgment and correct them as efficiently and effectively as possible.  I think Schlenk has messed up our salary cap with players who really don't fit together.  He also has put in charge a head coach who really is not capable of getting the team beyond a certain level. Ownership is also a key factor.  Ressler says he's willing to go into the luxury tax, but his actions don't bear that out.  To me, it looks like we need to start over again. We had high expectations last summer and they didn't pan out.  This year is looking the same, despite giving away a lot of draft picks to get Murray.  After a couple of weeks, the excitement began to fade away as it appears he is not necessarily a good fit either.  I don't think Ressler will have the patience for another rebuild, so I wouldn't be surprised to see him put the team up for sale.  It seems to me we need to begin a significant overhaul of our roster, find a new coach, and realistically get new front office people in place.  This will be very disheartening for the city and the fans, but if we don't make significant improvements, we will continue to be stuck in the middle of the pack for years to come.

[sturt]

My take, fwiw.

GM-ing = 39%

Coaching = 10%

Player Perf = 51%

[benhillboy]

In todays game we see coaches who are afraid to say anything to “star” players.  Jacque Vaughn calls a timeout and is obviously frustrated at Kyrie for flat out ignoring his play call.  Says nothing to Kyrie, doesn’t even look his way.  I’m sure when asked about it Vaughn would say “oh there’s no rift, we’re on the same page.”  Okay guy.

I thought you needed good communicators and a generally shared basketball philosophy between your GM, coaching staff, and team leaders.  But then tight-lipped, development- obsessed Bud went and won one with a dude who’s never learned to shoot and a guy who never makes a peep so hell if I know lol.

Theres no common thread other than you gotta have people who really care about defending.  Not that lame lip service shit that 80% of the league spouts to casual fans from GM down to players.

Edited November 30, 2022 by benhillboy

[macdaddy]

1 hour ago, sturt said:

My take, fwiw.

GM-ing = 39%

Coaching = 10%

Player Perf = 51%

Yep.  That certainly the right order.   It's tough because the GM has to get elite players and the right role players so that's job one.  without that the rest doesn't matter but if you have real stars then coaching takes a big back seat to the players actually dominating the game. 

[AHF]

I can't intellectually differentiate between GM and Player Perf.  The players aren't there if the GM doesn't get them.  But the players are by far the most important once the games tip off.  

I'm on board with 90% GM/Player and 10% Coaching.

[JeffS17]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

I can't intellectually differentiate between GM and Player Perf.  The players aren't there if the GM doesn't get them.  But the players are by far the most important once the games tip off.  

I'm on board with 90% GM/Player and 10% Coaching.

I think you could, in theory, separate out GM from players if you judge the moves at the time a GM makes them, given the knowledge and circumstances of the situation.  But this is also near impossible to do because we don't know all of the intel GMs gather on players and we don't have documented rationale for the decisions they make.  We also don't know what trades are available, how reasonable trading partners are, etc.

Grabbing Bogi in FA is a great example -- it looked like a great move based on performance and our playoff run, but now it looks like he might have a degenerative knee issue.  Were there hints of this in his medical reports?  Did we know this was a risk?  What were the conversations we had with him regarding starting or a bench role?  He clearly hasn't been a fan of coming off the bench but how transparent were we on that?  How transparent was he that he wants to be a starter?  It's honestly really difficult for me to judge Travis or any GM because we as fans get so little information on how they're making decisions and what moves are available, etc.  This is why I tend to criticize players the most and coaching.

[Diesel]

I would suggest 40/30/30

A chef has to have good ingredients and he has to cook it right. 

The chef chooses the ingredients and he decide how he's going to cook. 

In my analogy, the Chef is the GM.

The ingredients are the players.. and the cooking is the coach.

You can have the best ingredients and just cook them wrong. 

You can have a great cook on bad ingredients. 

 

That's where I'm at.

 

Just now, Diesel said:

I would suggest 40/30/30

A chef has to have good ingredients and he has to cook it right. 

The chef chooses the ingredients and he decide how he's going to cook. 

In my analogy, the Chef is the GM.

The ingredients are the players.. and the cooking is the coach.

You can have the best ingredients and just cook them wrong. 

You can have a great cook on bad ingredients. 

 

That's where I'm at.

 

For years, we have had a whole lot of stuff out of the can and some corndogs.

 

[sturt]

3 hours ago, AHF said:

I can't intellectually differentiate between GM and Player Perf.

I did. And did a reasonably good job of it, if I say so myself.  

But I'm not the boss of you, of course.

3 hours ago, macdaddy said:

 It's tough because the GM has to get elite players and the right role players so that's job one.  without that the rest doesn't matter

It's job one in terms of order. But the question as intended... permit me another mulligan in attempting to word it (?)... is, once having achieved a trophy, looking back at the whole of the "project," what is the weight of importance to that final outcome for each of those three major pieces?

 

[Watchman]

10 hours ago, Watchman said:

This is a hard call to make.  It is crucial for the GM to assemble the talent that fits together to form a whole team that complements each other.  He also has to hire a coach who can manage, strategize and motivate the players.  Of course, the players have to be good at what they do, and fit together to make a whole.  I would therefore suggest that the bulk of the responsibility lies with the GM.  If he does not do his job well, then there will be no great success.  Therefore the GM has to realize his errors in judgment and correct them as efficiently and effectively as possible.  I think Schlenk has messed up our salary cap with players who really don't fit together.  He also has put in charge a head coach who really is not capable of getting the team beyond a certain level. Ownership is also a key factor.  Ressler says he's willing to go into the luxury tax, but his actions don't bear that out.  To me, it looks like we need to start over again. We had high expectations last summer and they didn't pan out.  This year is looking the same, despite giving away a lot of draft picks to get Murray.  After a couple of weeks, the excitement began to fade away as it appears he is not necessarily a good fit either.  I don't think Ressler will have the patience for another rebuild, so I wouldn't be surprised to see him put the team up for sale.  It seems to me we need to begin a significant overhaul of our roster, find a new coach, and realistically get new front office people in place.  This will be very disheartening for the city and the fans, but if we don't make significant improvements, we will continue to be stuck in the middle of the pack for years to come.

I forgot my percentages, didn't I?  GM 50%, Coach 25%, Players 25% - everything hinges on the GM making good decisions about player personnel and picking the right coach.  I'm almost inclined to say GM 100%.

[Gray Mule]

If you don't have a very good GM, you're fighting a losing battle.  (100%)

If you don't have a very good coach, you're fighting a losing battle.  (100%)

If ownership don't get you a pretty good GM and head coach, everything else is an up hill battle.

Without very good players you have no chance to win.  (100%)

Luck has nothing to do with it but sometimes it does.  That shot that you took.  You meant for it to go in.  No doubt about that.  But, when it did go in, you were very lucky!  The entire team was lucky because that was the winning shot just as time expired!

Since everything is important, 33 1/3% to GM, coach & players....

Can't win without 'em.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Gray Mule

[macdaddy]

1 hour ago, sturt said:

is, once having achieved a trophy, looking back at the whole of the "project," what is the weight of importance to that final outcome for each of those three major pieces?

well looking at it that way then i'd have to put 60% or more on GM, players next then coach.   There hasn't been a trophy won yet without elite players on the team.    Players could perform absolutely to the best of their ability and you could have the greatest coach ever but they're going to lose to Jordan/pippen, shaq/kobe etc.