What Would Eddie Jordan Do?

by thelettere on Apr 29, 2009 2:13 PM PDT Comment 12 comments

(Note: I'm from Jersey and Jordan's role in the Net's success in the early 2000's should not be overlooked. This is more of a fanshot, but the archives of the Star Ledger are N/A)

EDIT FROM TZ: Though the Star-Ledger's archives are forked, I'm not comfortable posting an entire copyright-covered article. Snips below. It's a 2003 article on Byron Scott and Eddie Jordan.

[S]omehow, there is a perception Scott can't coach. It's a school of thought that says Scott was merely a front man, Jordan was the brains behind the team's motion offense, and Scott will now be exposed.

Nets president Rod Thorn calls that a "misperception," calls the idea that Jordan really ran the team a "misconception" and says Scott hasn't gotten enough credit. Scott says the Jordan talk, "sounds like backstabbing to me" and says the Byron-can't-coach movement was started by people within the organization - people he will not name - who resented his rapid success.

"I've been pretty successful since I've been in the league. I've won some championships and done some pretty good things," Scott said. "A lot of it is envy, a lot of it is jealousy, and probably a lot of it is started by people who were close to me - people in the organization. But I don't allow that stuff to bother me." [...]

"The guys are looking at him pretty closely," forward Rodney Rogers said. "Last year when we had pregame talks it was Eddie doing all the talking. Now it's Byron doing all the talking. It's a different approach. Last year guys were sometimes wondering if he could talk. People were wondering if he could handle the team without Eddie around. Now we'll find out." [...]

Scott said the final 20 minutes, where [Lawrence] Frank does most of the talking, are not a representative sample of his practices.

"You can ask the players: Ninety percent of the practice I run," Scott said. "they hear my voice most of the time."

In single-blind poll of four players - single-blind in that the players were not told about what Scott said about his practices - Jefferson, Rogers, Collins and Harris indicated they heard Frank's voice the most in practice. [...]

"He wasn't the brains of everything we did," Scott said. "Defensively, we're the same as we were three years ago. Our players just got better. Offensively, with the Princeton offense, I was with Pete Carril (the offense's creator) in Sacramento before I came here.

(This is a FanPost from a member of the Sactown Royalty community. The views expressed come from the member, and not Sactown Royalty staff.)

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Lettere

I understand your problem. But, you could do it.

Evil Cowtown Inc: Screwin' Suckaz over since Nineteen Eighty-Five.....

No mistakes in the tango, darling. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....

by pookeyguru on Apr 29, 2009 2:24 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Thanks for passing this along lettere

It was a very interesting thing put forth. Surely appreciated. I do find it interesting that season was the year Scott A) got fired, and B) the year the Nets traded for Vince Carter.

Byron Scott is an interesting figure that is for sure.

Evil Cowtown Inc: Screwin' Suckaz over since Nineteen Eighty-Five.....

No mistakes in the tango, darling. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....

by pookeyguru on Apr 29, 2009 2:38 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

was made primarily to compensate for the loss of Kenyon Martin – to placate Kidd that the Nets were really trying to win. Recall that a few months prior to this article Kidd signed a 100 million dollar contract with the Net after being heavily courted by several higher-profile teams.

Martin was a popular figure both with the players (especially Jason Kidd) and the fans. However, in retrospect, this was probably the right move – if only because of Kenyon’s injury issues.

That Nets team is hard to figure out. Their staring 5 was:

Jason Kidd
Kerry Kittles
Richard Jefferson
Kenyon Martin
Jason Collins

Jason Collins’ is one of those no-stats all-stars. His line year-by-year is horrible, and yet both coaches and players cited him as one of the main reasons for their success. Several years he was in the bottom 10 in PER. The guy obviously has brains (went to Stanford) but a starting center who never averaged more than 6 rebounds a game?

Kidd we all know about. Kittles was a solid role player. Jefferson is a bad defender and someone who’ve I’ve never been very impressed with. He’s one of those guys that does well as a 3rd offensive option – but ask anything else from him and you end up in trouble.

Then there’s Martin. Looking at the success of this team, I can come to no other conclusion than that he was a big reason for it. He was a big hustler and worked really well with Kidd (who doesn’t?). Some of his dunks off Kidd alley-oops were earth-shaking stuff and he was always entertaining. Yet he does not have a particularly impressive reputation as a player and is known more as a “thug”. I don’t know what to think – but that Nets team was an interesting phenomena (although some of their success can likely be attributed to a weak eastern conference).

by thelettere on Apr 29, 2009 3:34 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah I think so lettere

Good points all around.

Evil Cowtown Inc: Screwin' Suckaz over since Nineteen Eighty-Five.....

No mistakes in the tango, darling. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....

by pookeyguru on Apr 29, 2009 3:42 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Interesting read...

Thanks for posting. I had never heard about this before, but it certainly makes you wonder who would be the better head coach…

by chri5 on Apr 29, 2009 8:02 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Don't know about back then, but now

NO offense has no motion. It’s CP3 running a pick & roll, or a one on one dribble drive by someone else. Their quick to double team on defense and don’t help quickly enough. Granted, CP3 doesn’t have much to work with & they did make the playoffs even with injuries, but I see no sign of any Princeton influence in NO’s game.

If Scott is released and comes here, he better bring the best assistant coaching staff in the NBA with him.

"If you don't have anything good to say, LIE" - Mom

by HighTops on Apr 30, 2009 12:23 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

CP3 makes a team of Jumpshooters a playoff team

Good jumpshooters, but that doesn’t win consistantly against playoff level, physical competition.

CP3, for all his accolades, doesn’t get enough credit.

So imitate the action of the tiger!.
- lend the eye a terrible aspect
and teach them how to war!
Henry V iii

by lietothegirls on Apr 30, 2009 9:43 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

My comment was concerning Byron Scott

So, are you saying that the NO offense is the way it is because of CP3, or because Byron Scott designed it that way to revolve around CP3?

"If you don't have anything good to say, LIE" - Mom

by HighTops on Apr 30, 2009 1:20 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I was saying they/Scott used the pieces they have

just about as well as they could. A team built around a bunch of jumpshooters needs to be working perfectly to win against tough teams.

So imitate the action of the tiger!.
- lend the eye a terrible aspect
and teach them how to war!
Henry V iii

by lietothegirls on Apr 30, 2009 7:11 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

That might be true, I'm not sure

What I do know, is that there was a lot of standing around. There wasn’t the type of motion that you would expect from a guy who is a past Princeton offense guy. So, was the lack of motion due to the personel, or was E.J. the real force behind Scott’s success with the Princeton?

"If you don't have anything good to say, LIE" - Mom

by HighTops on May 1, 2009 1:56 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs