The Definitive "Sydney Lowe is a Jazz Assistant Coach" post

by AllThatJazzBasketball on Oct 6, 2011 12:15 AM MDT in Utah Jazz - Trades & Transactions

If you are as crazy as some of us, you already know that he's going to be part of the team. The Tribune's Brian T. Smith already let that cat out of the bag. So how many of you actually remember this guy? I remember him as an assistant of the T-Wolves and as a head coach for the Vancouver Grizzlies. His NBA head coaching experience speaks for itself. And it says "ouch". You gotta be really good to lose over 200 games. It says that you've coached for a long time. Or it could also say that, perhaps, you didn't coach for very long -- but when you did, your teams failed to win at all. To be fair, the best players he has had a chance to work with were Christian Laettner, Isiah Rider (J.R.), Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Michael Dickerson, Mike Bibby, and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (Chris Jackson). It's not like he inherited Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant like some other "genius" NBA coach has. He was on a team with Tyrone Corbin back in 1989-1990, information I know through Basketball John's diligence. I, in my way, had to make fun of him for being a good blogger. I'm also here to make fun of Sydney Lowe -- who I am sure is a great guy, but he hasn't improved the Jazz in my mind. You don't maintain a winning culture by bringing in lifetime losers. Maybe I'm being too hard on him. He seems to have flopping mastered. (That is *literally* the only basketball highlight with him in it.) Maybe he can help us teach our bigmen how to defend the paint. No, wait, that's what hiring a Bigman assistant coach could do. It's not like we just drafted (well, drafted one, traded for the other) back to back 19 year olds who play PF/C and have no idea what they are doing.

Crap.

Clearly this is the best we could do. And clearly, the team owner is focused not only on the lock out, but on how to improve the team. In recognition of this moment, here's something to cheer you up.

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Hey at least he has got a lot of experience

also its not like he is our head coach, i don’t even think he is our head assistant. I still hope they have a developmental part time coach for our bigs.

by Evans Almighty on Oct 6, 2011 9:17 AM MDT reply actions

Also there is this from Brian T Smith

Utah might also add a player development coach in the future.
Brian T. Smith

by Evans Almighty on Oct 6, 2011 9:28 AM MDT reply actions

I don't know what that video is, but it made me LAUGH.

And I have no clue who this new assistant is. Further proof that I have little knowledge of what goes on in the league outside of the Jazz.

Do I look like someone who would waste my own time?

by SurlyMae on Oct 6, 2011 10:16 AM MDT reply actions

Well he went 86-78 over his career as HC at

North Carolina State. Certainly not a good record, but at least its not a losing one. I’m more dismayed by the fact that he’s yet another guard. Are there really that few decent coaching big men? I really hope they do add a big man coach. We need one desperately. Maybe the Jazz are holding off until Malone is avaiable…

Utah>*

by Bebop on Oct 6, 2011 10:50 AM MDT reply actions

As an assistant,

Lowe could be a good pick-up, though I’d run for cover if he ever became head coach. However, he’s not. Obviously, he hasn’t been great for the most part, but he could take some credit for (assisting in) coaching playoff teams like the 1999-2000 Timberwolves and the 2005-06 Pistons.

For some reason, his attire reminds me somewhat of that of Andy Bernard’s on The (US) Office, and, well, Andy (and his acapella buddies) sang ABBA’s “Take a Chance” in an effort woo Angela in Season 4. I’ll go with that theme for Sidney here, and I’d hope that Jazz Nation does so, too—for at least the next couple of seasons.

by Number 0 on Oct 6, 2011 1:19 PM MDT reply actions

You dropped the ball on this one, Amar

Your posts are usually characterized by a good deal of research and logic. This time, however, you didn’t even research enough to know how to spell Sidney Lowe’s name correctly. For the record, “Sydney” is a city in Australia.

It is completely unfair—and inaccurate, to boot—to label Lowe as a “lifetime loser.” He was an important player on the 1983 NC State NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship team. He led the Wolfpack to two 20-win seasons, and two NIT appearances, as head coach, and had an overall 86-78 record, as Bebop mentioned. That’s not a hall-of-fame-worthy record, but it is a winning record. As Number 0 mentioned, he was an assistant coach for the T’Wolves and Pistons when they made the conference finals. That’s hardly the resume of a loser.

I’ll grant you that his win-loss record as an NBA head coach is lousy, but if you were to go back and look at the teams he coached, you would realize that NO ONE could have succeeded with the talent-free rosters he had to work with. I would also argue that a man’s win-loss record as an NBA head coach will likely have no bearing whatsoever on his performance as an assistant coach. He likely never would have gotten the chance to be an NBA head coach in the first place had he not shown himself to be a capable assistant coach.

Anyway, them’s my 2 cents.

"Three-pointer from the parking lot...YES! The Golden Griff!"

by Dr. Dunkenstein on Oct 6, 2011 2:12 PM MDT reply actions 1 recs