Raptors Weekly Wordcast – Eastern Conference Coaching Game

I screwed up the audio recording of the podcast and lost everything. All my fault, no other way to put it. Given that there’s no audio, let me just tell you what we discussed which some of you prefer anyway.

I had Will and Andrew on and Will basically ripped Greg Stiemsma for being a goon. People who don’t bring basketball value and rely solely on “toughness” to keep their place in the league have no place in Will’s heart. Somehow though, Tyler Hansbrough remains a certifiably decent human being in our books and brings enough on-court value to look past his rather unsavory on-court behaviour. Andrew mumbled though this segment and when I quizzed him about Stiemsma being a guy you hate playing against, but want on your team, he gave an example of Tony Allen who is the type of guy I was referring to. Big difference there.

I’d rather have had Andray Blatche than Stiemsma, but the point was made that Stiemsma could just be a training camp body, whereas Blatche would have to be a year-long signing, most likely.

We also discussed the Hawks race scandal and decided that the over/under of current racist NBA owners stands at 1.5, but if you include scouts and everyone else, probably a lot higher. Danny Ferry’s “more African in him” was classified as a racist statement but didn’t necessarily make him a racist, just a really odd user of stereotypes. Basically, not a fireable offense, but definitely punishable.

We discussed DeRozan’s placement in SI’s list and his reaction of being disrespected, and decided that guys like Paul Pierce, Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Gordon Hayward, and Chandler Parsons had no business being ahead of DeRozan, but at the end of the day it’s just a list put out by SI to keep the summertime #content flowing.

Part 2 started with the roundtable question of who should start: Amir Johnson and Patrick Patterson. It was unanimous that Johnson should start for reasons such as more defensive cover for Jonas Valanciunas, and Patterson needing more shots to be effective, which the bench role affords him. Will also pointed out that there’s only a two-year age difference between them and that Patterson can’t really be thought of as an eventual replacement for Johnson. I added a point that Johnson played a career-high in minutes last year despite carrying injuries, and that perhaps this year we could use Patterson more so Johnson is fresher for the playoffs.

The other roundtable question was whether Dwane Casey was a weakness, as some had suggested. I offered that if he had a PER rating it would be 15, at which point we played an adhoc game of rating Eastern Conference coaches, and deciding whether you’d want them over Casey. The results were as follows:

Atlanta Hawks, Mike Budenholzer: He showed enough quality and creativity with the Hawks offense that we termed him as an up-and-coming coach that we’d pick over Casey
Boston Celtics, Brad Stevens: No
Brooklyn Nets, Lionel Hollins: No, he’s stuck in the 80s
Charlotte Hornets, Steve Clifford: Showed a few flashes, but Casey’s ahead of him
Chicago Bulls, Tom Thibodeau: We’d take him over Casey, he kills his players but is a tremendous coach
Cleveland Cavaliers, David Blatt: No, doubt he’ll survive his first year
Detroit Pistons, Stan Van Gundy: Emotional coach that we’d all love to see on the Raptors – sorry, Dwane
Indiana Pacers, Frank Vogel: Showed a lack of creativity running the offense in the playoffs, and we all feel he’s a bit over-rated, what with the whole “came from the film room” background
Miami Heat, Erik Spoelstra: No, we’ll see how he does without LBJ
Milwaukee Bucks, Jason Kidd: Haha, no.
New York Knicks, Derek Fisher: Only if Phil Jackson comes with him
Orlando Magic, Jacque Vaughn: Not sure why he’s still an NBA coach, or why was ever given the job
Philadelphia 76ers, Brett Brown: Don’t matter if he came from the Spurs system, he’s out
Washington Wizards: Randy Wittman: Even the Wizards fans wouldn’t pick him ahead of Casey