The Downbeat #1342: The Pros and Cons Edition

Apparently Locke in his Tipoff yesterday talked a tiny bit about European coaches Messina and Blatt.  Messina, an Italian, coaching in Russia and Blatt, a Jewish American, currently coaching in Israel.

Locke seemed apprehensive saying what if you hire Messina and him and his wife can't adjust to living in Salt Lake?

Compare that to Popovich's opinion:

"These guys, they travel around the world," Popovich said of international players such as Rubio, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. "They're more cultured than we are. Everyone acts like Americans are the ones … we have sort of an arrogance about us. Like we're the cultured ones? Are you serious?

"Have you watched TV lately? Have you seen what Americans do? How many languages do you speak? And you wonder how they're going to adjust to our culture? I hope they avoid it and keep their own!

I agree with Pop's opinion. I have no worries about Messina or other coaches feeling comfortable in Utah. These men have traveled all over the world, they are professionals. They are cultured. Jerry growing up in a small farm town in Illinois adjusted to live in the NBA. Karl Malone from Louisiana adjusted to Utah. Messina, Blatt, Longbardi, or whoever is the next coach of the Utah Jazz will adjust just finely, just like Tyrone Corbin, Jerry Sloan and Frank Layden did before him.

Nano Su, a great Jazz fan has a blog called Jazzdimes.com.  I like this blog a lot. After a four month break from writing Nano Su is back, his current post is a spotlight of Etorre Messina. Nano Su lists eight pros and six cons of Messina in his post.  Go read it. Here are just a few of the pros and cons.

• 2 COY in the Euroleague
• He coaches CSKA Moscow. If you pay attention to the Basketball World you'll figured out by now that that's Phrokorov's team. Yes THAT Prokhorov. That means he will probably would have to take a pay cut to join the Jazz

• His teams are taught to use spacing on offense and to move the ball to spread the defense

• His English is pretty good. That's not surprising since most European coaches speak English in the huddle cause US players shift teams and countries so often they don't have time to learn the local language

• My Spanish twitter friends don't seem to be all that enthusiastic about him. And they know him a lot better than I do. The idea is that he needs the best roster to win. Is that a valid argument? Don't all coaches need the best roster to win? Or do you believe a coach can win with a lesser roster by virtue of being that good himself? It depends on the value you think a coach can add to a basketball team

• He coaches CSKA Moscow. If you pay attention to the Basketball World you'll figured out by now that that's Phrokorov's team. Yes THAT Prokhorov. That means he will probably would have to take a pay cut to join the Jazz

Randy Rigby gave some insights into what the Jazz are looking for in a head coach (via Moni at Jazzfanatical.wordpress.com)

And so, we wanna make sure that we’re still allowing, potentially, time, for those who may be candidates who are still coaching teams or helping to coach teams, that, we’re respectful of where they're at in the NBA season.

And so, for that very reason, we're actually developing our questionnaires that we are gonna make sure that we’re going to be asking those different candidates, of what’s important for us.

Now, I will say this. I think it’s, it should be very apparent one of the questions that we’re looking at is,literally, what their style of developing and philosophy in developing of young players. We're going to be asking on their defensive philosophy, and what their philosophy would be on defensive toughness.

And by the way, even as much asking the question, we’re doing, and we will have done a lot of analytics that have been able to also, we can be able to measure, and see, and look at, that will tell us, based on teams they’ve been involved in, where they've actually, you know, if they're putting their money where their mouth is.

That makes me very happy. I think it makes all of us who have been disappointed the last few years of how the Core Four were developed, happy.

Randy Rigby also talks about:

• how the coaching decision fits in with the rest of the goals of the organization- having good dialogue as an organization want to make the right decision because they are in a good place as an organization and its a keytime for the organization too.
• the time frame of the decision- they want to have a coach before the draft but its not necessary if they haven't found the right person its more important for them to find the right person.
• draft workouts- Johnnie Bryant and Alex Jensen will conduct them if the Jazz haven't hired a head coach by then.
• what a coaching candidate would want in a coaching job- a younger coach focused on development whose goals fit with the Jazz's goals. (this was a really good section so go read it!)

I think its great that the Jazz are doing this thorough search and I hope they find their guy soon.

KSL posted this a year ago.  But hey its the offseason so we can post old stuff :)

What are your favorite Jazz dunks?

The Wizards had some fun on twitter making fun of the "experts"

http://twitter.com/WashWizards/status/461336007376642049/photo/1

"experts" #dcRising pic.twitter.com/0QuS3bsHVl

— Washington Wizards (@WashWizards) April 30, 2014

I love it!  It reminds me of the many times the experts always picked the Rockets, Nuggets, Warriors against the Jazz.

The Thunder beat the Grizzlies last night and the Pacers beat the Hawks to extend their series another game. Yay more playoffs!