Evaluating and How to Evaluate Coaching Candidates (split off thread)

[JayBirdHawk]

13 minutes ago, sturt said:

"hard?"

Two mentions... and I think a third if you go back far enough to look.

But you're right, it's not actually meaningful in any way.

Indeed, there are plenty of examples on this board of two people who chronically disagree with each other... so why shouldn't there be at least one example of two people who chronically agree? Adds balance. Surely it's just as okay to agree as it is to disagree.

It's just unusual. That's all.

 

you are the only one that deems it necessary to make note of it - and this is not the first time either.

[sturt]

1 minute ago, JayBirdHawk said:

you are the only one that deems it necessary to make note of it - and this is not the first time either.

Well, yeah... I did say "two mentions and a third if you go back far enough."

Bothers you for it to be made note of? Why's that? What's wrong with chronically agreeing with one person w/o fail? I think I just made that case, didn't I???

 

[shakes]

33 minutes ago, sturt said:

T, which may surprise @AHF and his sidekick @JayBirdHawk (

Hey @sturt, maybe you woke up on the wrong side of the bed and you're not thinking straight, but @JayBirdHawk ain't nobody's sidekick.  She's got leading main character energy!

[sturt]

8 minutes ago, shakes said:

Hey @sturt, maybe you woke up on the wrong side of the bed and you're not thinking straight, but @JayBirdHawk ain't nobody's sidekick.  She's got leading main character energy!

Nope. Happy as a lark. Good coffee.

I just notice things others don't, or prefer not to, or if they do, prefer not to say out loud because... well, you know.

Will allow that they're each other's sidekick. That's legit, though I'd still suggest if you count 'em up, our friend Jay has probably endorsed her sidekick's posts at a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. Like I said. I just notice things. No harm, no foul, though.

 

Let's stop talkin about it, tho. It makes her uncomfortable, and like she said, it's needless. She's right about that. Next topic.

[thecampster]

43 minutes ago, shakes said:

Hey @sturt, maybe you woke up on the wrong side of the bed and you're not thinking straight, but @JayBirdHawk ain't nobody's sidekick.  She's got leading main character energy!

I applied to be her Robin but she rejected me before I could hand in the resume.

[shakes]

1 minute ago, thecampster said:

I applied to be her Robin but she rejected me before I could hand in the resume.

you should've started at "guy in the chair" before going all in on "in the field sidekick".   Baby steps....

[JayBirdHawk]

1 hour ago, shakes said:

........ but @JayBirdHawk ain't nobody's sidekick.  She's got leading main character energy!

[Spud2nique]

20 hours ago, sturt said:

Missed again, my friend.

But keep trying, by all means.

I said what I said. I'll repeat it for you, which is a compliment b/c I wouldn't repeat it for just anyone.

What you are raising is "Yeah, but what about what's not on the resume?... Pops has said Timmy is not cut out for coaching b/c he has too many other interests and goals in life."

And to that I've said

That's not part of the resume' assessment. That's the stuff you discover in the hiring process once you start calling the references... or maybe discover in the interviews... or in Duncan's case, he probably doesn't send you a resume' to begin with.

Zooming back out, don't miss the forest for the tree, singular, as it appears you're wanting to do, but I'm not letting you.

The discussion was/is about whether Hammons is one of a pool of reasonable current assistant coach candidates for a team in the development phase (my take), or if she's the ideal candidate regardless, even if your team expects to be a contender (your take).

The conversation took a turn toward comparing resume's... and that's why we're here.

When we compare resume's, she's one of the reasonable candidates. She's not head over high heels (hehe... you like that, right?... I knew you would   ) the best candidate out there.

And/but by the way. During Duncan's one year, Pops had to be out one night. Who did he choose to take the lead chair? And, more to the point here, who did he not? You don't wanna know.

But it doesn't matter. This isn't actually about Tim (the tree), it's about the forest (the degree to which there are other reasonable candidates in the pool along side Becky).

AHF never misses.

[Sothron]

This thinly veiled personal postings are really not necessary. We just had one thing on this board that is over and we're all cool there. We really don't need more respected posters trying to start something else. 

And FWIW @JayBirdHawkis no one's sidekick, side hustle or any other side anything. She's a main eventer. You could book a card around her and draw money to use pro wrestling references (which I love btw).

[AHF]

6 hours ago, sturt said:

Ya know, I didn't actually read this last sentence. Was one of those posts where I got the gist of what was being asserted, and just didn't make it there.

I do feel I need to defend, or at least clarify.

I would not have brought it up, and there's a reason for that... when we began this, there was a discussion specifically of accolades that Harmon brings, bullet points to her resume'.

At that stage, I'm the HR guy sitting at the desk ruffling through the resume's, one pile of definite candidates, one pile of no's and one pile of maybes... and suggesting strictly on those bullet points that Harmon is in the pile of definite candidates.

I'm not deciding who should be offered the job at that point. I'm deciding who is in the pool. Why? Because who is in the pool is sufficient for the purpose of this conversation... as I take it, you're suggesting, effectively, she had no competition... it's a "pile" of one.

Funny thing. You might not know this, given that you've probably been with the same law firm for your entire career, but people don't normally put things on resume's that are not actually likely to help them get the job. They just put things on there that they think will get them in the "definite candidates" pile... so, just the positives. And the potential employer doesn't tend to expect full disclosure, either.

I didn't know that Pop said what he said about Duncan. He clearly was disappointed that Duncan doesn't have the same fire to coach as he does. Relevant to this, I also didn't know that Pop had selected Duncan to take his seat... not Harmon... when he was away for that one game. You might not know, fwiw, that one of the quotes above complimentary of Harmon is pulled from that after game presser--Duncan essentially saying that it was a group effort, and citing Harmon's contribution. I only brought up this latter factoid as an aside. The big picture issue here is not... and importantly, never was... whether Tim Duncan is a better candidate than Harmon would be. The big picture issue is what it was when we began the conversation. So, no, matter of fact, I wouldn't sure as heck bring it up if it was part of Harmon's history that there was something affirming she was not considered superior to Duncan... that there is a "something," in that, she was not selected to take the lead chair. But I only mentioned it very briefly and in passing, only after you'd suggested something like an open-and-shut case. Because it's not all that relevant to the big picture issue that began this discussion.

 

If you would never bring up real life experience in the context of discussing who is best qualified to be hired as a head coach that means we were never having a real discussion about qualifications if we are ignoring things like someone's demonstrated failure as a coach.  Not sure why you were arguing the point in the first place if you were talking about hypothetical and narrowly limited information that ignores the most important factors in deciding to make an offer to a head coach.  I don't find the decision of a low level HR admin sorting through resumes to be nearly as useful a comparison as HR and other Execs actually weighing qualifications in the context of a hiring decision.  No NBA team decides to hire a coach just by looking at resumes that don't list lots of important and easily attainable information.  They make it on the basis of the person's full resume / qualifications as best they can know it.

I would hope to heck that you would bring it up if we were partners and discussing who to hire if you knew someone had been highly successful in a prior role and someone had been a failure in a prior role if you were considering both for promotions or hiring.  HR with substantive (as opposed to purely administrative) responsibilities for hiring would not last long at my company if they ignored things like Duncan having failed as an assistant coach and Becky having been successful.

On the plus side, I'm glad we have resolved the issue and agree that Becky is way more qualified as of today than Timmy, though, based on their actual performance as coaches overcoming the edge in playing experience.  

Back to my original post to which you were responding, I'll reiterate that I think it is very rare to have someone who has:

1. A HOF playing career.
2. Demonstrated success as an NBA assistant coach.
3. Demonstrated success as a sub-NBA head coach.

For me that means:

1. I acknowledge that Hammon's playing career will generally not get the same respect and probably doesn't deserve the same respect for purposes of head coaching qualifications as an NBA HOFer but I maintain that it is better than most coaches.  She is way ahead in this category of people like Jeff and Stan Van Gundy, Brad Stevens, Nick Nurse, etc.  For me, I put a career like she has had ahead of non-NBA (like foreign, high school and NCAA experience) in the men's game.
2. Then she is demonstrably a success as an NBA assistant coach.  Check all the quotes from Pops, players, etc.  That puts her way ahead of people like Chauncey Billups, etc. in this category.  It puts her behind people like Bud at the time he was hired.  In this category, I also bump her up for being a Pop acolyte as I think the hiring of former Pop assistants demonstrably gets you much farther than working for most other head coaches.
3. She won an WNBA championship as a head coach.  I weigh that as the equivalent of an NCAA championship (where, imo, the most important element of being an NCAA champion coach is the ability to recruit which is near worthless in the NBA).  Here, I would put her above people who haven't been a head coach elsewhere, above people who haven't been a very successful head coach elsewhere, but behind people who had longer tenures or more sustained success in this category like John Calipari and ahead of people like Lon Kruger, Mike Montgomery, Reggie Theus, etc.

Because I don't want to be accused of being hypothetical in my comments, I'll compare her to recent coaching hires without NBA head coaching experience under those 3 criteria (and I'll say that in the abstract I prioritize category 2, then 1, then 3):

Darvin Ham 

1. Either push or edge Hammon (IMO) depending how you weight NBA role player versus HOF WBNA career.
2. Small edge Ham.  Ham has more years in the NBA as an assistant and most were under Bud who is a demonstrated success of the Pops coaching tree.  
3. Edge Becky.

Will Hardy 

1. Big edge Becky.  WNBA HOF >> Division 3 player
2. Small edge Becky.  8 years under Pops vs 6.
3. Edge Becky.  WNBA championship versus no head coaching experience.

Joe Mazzula

1. Edge Becky.  WNBA HOF >> 4 years in the NCAAs
2. Big edge Becky.  8 years under Pops vs 3 under Brad Stevens and Ime Udoka.
3. Edge Becky.  WNBA championship versus Division 2 College.

Ime Udoka

1. Either push or edge Hammon (IMO) depending how you weight NBA role player versus HOF WBNA career.
2. Push.  8 vs 9 years with Hammon having more time with Pops.
3. Edge Becky.  WNBA championship versus no head coaching experience.

Willie Green

1. Either push or edge Hammon (IMO) depending how you weight NBA role player versus HOF WBNA career.
2. Edge Becky.  8 years under Pops vs 3 years under Kerr and Monty Williams.
3. Edge Becky.  WNBA championship versus no head coaching experience.

Jamahl Mosley

1. Edge Becky.  WNBA HOF > Insignificant foreign league experience in Mexico, Australia and Korea.
2. Push or small edge Mosley.  Mosley has more years as an NBA assistant but not under anyone as good as Pops and including some time on some dysfunctional teams.
3. Edge Becky.  WNBA championship versus no head coaching experience.

Wes Unseld Jr.

1. Big edge Becky.  WNBA HOF >> Division 3 player
2. Eye of the Beholder Push.  16 years is a big edge but the coaches he served under are an uninspired lot (Eddie Jordan, Jacque Vaughn, etc.) with the best being Michael Malone.  
3. Edge Becky.  WNBA championship versus no head coaching experience.

Steve Nash

1. Significant edge Nash.  NBA HOF > WNBA HOF.
2. Huge edge Becky.  No NBA coaching experience.
3. Edge Becky.  WNBA championship versus no head coaching experience.

Stephen Silas

1. Big edge Becky.  WNBA HOF >> Ivy League player
2. Eye of the Beholder Push.  Silas has a significant edge in years as an assistant but the significant majority of that time was for losing teams and uninspiring coaches.  Don Nelson may be the best of the lot.
3. Edge Becky.  WNBA championship versus no head coaching experience.

Nate Bjorkgren

1. Big edge Becky.  WNBA HOF >> Division 3 player
2. Edge Becky.  8 years under Pops > 5 years mostly under Earl Watson and on losing teams
3. Push.  WNBA championship versus longer and successful run in GLeague.

I don't think I'm allowed to say "in short" at this point, but I view Becky as being objectively more qualified today than all but a few of the people on that list were at the time they were hired.

[cam1218]

Any chance we can move this coaching debate to a new thread? I come in here looking for updates and see this lol. It’s a good debate, it’s just kind of taking away what the thread is about.

[sturt]

18 minutes ago, AHF said:

No NBA team decides to hire a coach just by looking at resumes that don't list lots of important and easily attainable information.  They make it on the basis of the person's full resume / qualifications as best they can know it.

Right. But now you're pretending that any of us are NBA execs actually hiring a coach.

No, all of us are, rather, just fans, and we make judgments here and talk about them here... that's all that's happening. Ever. And our first judgments are generally framed according to whatever accolades we're able to discern about candidate A, B or C. Or XX or XY.

You've written quite a bit... I'll post and press pause until sometime after I get tonight's dinner cooked.

 

 

[Diesel]

On 2/1/2023 at 12:18 PM, shakes said:

here come the excuses!     Diesel's world where only guys on his team get injured!  

 

Think about...   Thibs took the Minnesota Timberwolves to the playoffs.  

 

Thibs took teh Bulls to the ECF with 1 ALL STAR.   Nate had a guy named Paul George as well.  Brandon Roy in Portland. and had 3 all stars in Seattle in Payton, Allen and Lewis.

 

Shakes... It sounds like you can't handle the truth.   We know Terrell Can't handle the truth... but You... I thought you were better than that... Bucket Hat wearers are usually able to handle truth.

 

[cam1218]

Thank you @AHF! Always on top of things around here.

[sturt]

1 hour ago, Sothron said:

no one's sidekick

I'll only say this publicly, but you'll see my PM if you haven't already.

One can argue about what word to apply to it. But it's just an objective truth that the proof is in the pudd.... er.... postings.

I'm echoing Forrest Gump a lot lately, it seems... but one more time...

[sturt]

5 hours ago, AHF said:

I view Becky as being objectively more qualified today than all but a few of the people on that list were at the time they were hired.

I hear ya on the three dimensions of judgment. That's fair.

And I think you do a credible job of fleshing out some conventionally-perceived differences between assistant coaching gigs... not all gigs are equal.

Think one also has to grant that not all three dimensions should carry equivalent weight.

 

Still waiting to see if we have someone with ESPN Insider who can distill who was on their list of most eligible options last season, but until then, I've found a few names appearing in some articles from the last 2-3 years. Here's the resume' intel on these seven. (Might have to click on the image to make it large enough to read.)

 

 

 

[sturt]

10 hours ago, sturt said:

I hear ya on the three dimensions of judgment. That's fair.

And I think you do a credible job of fleshing out some conventionally-perceived differences between assistant coaching gigs... not all gigs are equal.

Think one also has to grant that not all three dimensions should carry equivalent weight.

 

Still waiting to see if we have someone with ESPN Insider who can distill who was on their list of most eligible options last season, but until then, I've found a few names appearing in some articles from the last 2-3 years. Here's the resume' intel on these seven. (Might have to click on the image to make it large enough to read.)

 

 

 

So, circling back to the actual question... and granted, there might be one or two or three that would show up in that ESPN article I'm shielded from, but I'm okay with just going with this anyhow...

Does one of these resume's stand out as clearly more attractive than the others?

 

[AHF]

15 hours ago, sturt said:

I'll only say this publicly, but you'll see my PM if you haven't already.

One can argue about what word to apply to it. But it's just an objective truth that the proof is in the pudd.... er.... postings.

I'm echoing Forrest Gump a lot lately, it seems... but one more time...

I'm going to go on record and say what you are saying is BS, sturt.  Neither Jay or I have coordinated posts on this or any other topic.  You'll see me agree with her when I agree with her which happens much more often than with some posters but that is the nature of things.  I tend to agree more on Trae with certain posters, on Nate with certain posters, etc.  But I don't think I've ever plotted out how I was going to respond to someone on any topic in the history of posting on this site.  

I've brought up examples in the past where we disagreed and you've ignored those when you've raised this topic before.  It really isn't relevant because even if there was a poster who had the exact same perspective as me I still wouldn't be doing anything other than just giving my $.02.  

You can either take my word or call me a liar but it is not fair to either of us to make this kind of baseless claim.

[AHF]

25 minutes ago, sturt said:

So, circling back to the actual question... and granted, there might be one or two or three that would show up in that ESPN article I'm shielded from, but I'm okay with just going with this anyhow...

Does one of these resume's stand out as clearly more attractive than the others?

 

I think I laid it out already.   While what you posted is welcome of course,  it was already reviewed and processed in my prior comment where I assessed it by category and laid out where I thought someone's strengths were at least relative to Becky.  (I did not try to compare them against one another).  I think her resume (including the things that don't show up on wikipedia's summary) stands out as being clearly more attractive than all but a few of them.  And I will say that part of that is information that what you posted doesn't reflect - who was the head coach when they were an assistant, how successful was the team, how successful were they as a non-NBA head coach, how illustrious was their playing career, etc.  

But just using your data, I'll ask you if one of these stands out as clearly more attractive:

or

Like is this even a conversation in any way?

 

[sturt]

7 minutes ago, AHF said:

Neither Jay or I have coordinated posts on this or any other topic. 

Agreed. I believe that. To say that would be BS.

 

I've said as much as I care to say on this. My purpose in bringing it up has been sufficiently served.