I really wanted to see what Alvin had drawn up for that last play

I'm an unabashed Alvin Homer, I'm pretty sure everybody knows.

I'm not sure he survives the off-season. Despite this solid finish. My only concern is that they do the same thing they did when they fired Monty. I was against firing him, and thought gentry was a shitty fit with us. Wanted VanGundy, if anybody.

Minimal confidence in this front office to make intelligent personnel changes

I was as anti Monty as you could have found and I wish I could take it back.

Can we be anti Dell together???

The call for the cousins three was a great play.
Before jrue shite on himself, he had that pass for three, and a nice drive to the basket. No reason to gobaway from him.
But with the season on the line, I want the ball in ADs hands. I'd rather AD take a half court shot, than jrue take a 3 from 5 get behind the 3 point line.

That being said, I still want a new coach.

They are officially out of the playoffs, right?

What are the chances of keeping that top 3 draft pick

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I still think the timing is bad unless they go big with the hire

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I agree. Unless they have someone big in mind, then I wouldn't do anything.

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What if they trade for Dragic? Then you'd have the lead guard Gentry needs to make his system work, you have better bigs than he's ever had to work with, and Erman has made the defense work for the most part

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Gettting Dragic won't change the fact that he's been a loser of a coach everywhere he's been, except when he's had multiple hall of famers on his team.
Last night those were nicely drawn up plays at the end of the game. But for the most part this year, end of the game plays have been atrocious. I'm not going to forget all of the terrible ways he's coached over the last 2 seasons with the Pelicans, as well as the decade worth of crap this old man has had in his past. he's not going to all of a sudden become a great coach.

I think the most important attribute the head coach of this team needs to have is the respect of all of his players, to the point where he can get them to go all in on defense, play smart team basketball on offense, keep team chemistry, and keep the wild ones in check. X's and O's aren't that big of a deal when you have superstars.
AD doesn't need plays drawn up for him in the last 4 minutes of a game. It's on him, and now Cousins, to do what it takes to win games. We have been losing too many close games the last 2 years. I put that more on the superstar, and now superstars, than the coach.

The thing about Gentry is he seems brilliant at times. I don't have to reel off the list of games, you all remember them.

Then he goes and loses two in a row at home to sub-500s in which we were favored by 8.5 and 2.5 respectively.

If he'd just won the majority of games Pels were supposed to win but lost, they'd be a playoff team. His teams are wildly inconsistent.

Every NBA team has off nights, but they shouldn't be happening three times every 10-12 games, not including close losses where the team plays well against an equal or better opponent.

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The thing about Gentry is he seems brilliant at times. I don't have to reel off the list of games, you all remember them.

Then he goes and loses two in a row at home to sub-500s in which we were favored by 8.5 and 2.5 respectively.

If he'd just won the majority of games Pels were supposed to win but lost, they'd be a playoff team. His teams are wildly inconsistent.

Every NBA team has off nights, but they shouldn't be happening three times every 10-12 games, not including close losses where the team plays well against an equal or better opponent.

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For as much as he shuffles around lineups, I do question at this point his ability to permanently adjust rotations positively when the evidence seems to all be pointing in one direction. Which worries me if we get in the playoffs and have a 7 game series where smart, quick game to game lineup and tactic adjustments are where coaches earn their keep in the post season.

Last year hesitating for so long with putting Jrue back in the starting lineup when all the numbers, and all the eye tests said Davis and Jrue's minutes should be maximized.

Now for me it is the starting lineup of Frazier and Jrue.

As frustrated as I am with Jrue at times leading the charge, the numbers are pretty overwhelming at this point.

The lineup of Cousins, Davis, Hill, Moore, and Jrue has the best net rating of any lineup featuring Davis and Cousins: +16.4.

Compare that to the Frazier replacing Moore lineup that starts games(often to a very slow start) has gotten the most minutes but has only produced a +3.4 net rating. Which for context, is actually worse then when we had Hollis Thompson starting with Jrue.

And the Frazier lineup is one that has been trending downward, currently at a negative net rating the last 5 games and the Moore lineup trending way up.

The initial reason for putting Frazier in the lineup made a lot of sense with Jrue's confidence issues, same with keeping Moore off the bench temporarily because we had little guard depth(even if I was skeptical of it), but it doesn't seem to be that productive now that Jrue is a bit more comfortable, Cousins is getting comfortable facilitating and Moore and Hill have taken on more of a facilitation role when needed. Not to mention having "instant grits" putting up double digits most nights off the bench.

IDK, just my two cents and overwrought rant.

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Since March 1, The Pelicans are tied for fifth in the NBA in net rating with the Houston Rockets, at plus-5.1, with the sixth-best defense and the 11th-best offense, per NBA.com/Stats

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they are a good 10-8 in that time frame, playing only 7 of those 18 games against teams with a winning record.

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that's on the fly, with an offseason of work this team will be very good

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Hopefully so.
I still don't think he's a good head coach, nor the right coach for this team.

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they are a good 10-8 in that time frame

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okay. that's burying the lede a bit though. a +5 Net Rating is excellent- +6 is generally thought to be Finals contender level.

plenty of noise in the +5 over such a small sample during March/April ball, sure. but if they pull out a close loss, they're on a 50 win pace.

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playing only 7 of those 18 games against teams with a winning record

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there are only 13 teams in the league with a winning record. seems like a reasonable sample of teams. not to mention teams like Denver (10-8), Portland (14-5), and Miami (11-7) have all been pretty good during that time

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I still don't think he's a good head coach, nor the right coach for this team.

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completely fair.

who is a good fit for this roster? what should the team look like?