re: Where do you stand on Monty right now?

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We have talent and we don't need time to learn to play together.

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My biggest excuse with Monty was always that his teams were rebuilding or injured or not where they needed to be for him to succeed. What this squad is showing in the first half of games is not luck. What the opposing teams are doing in the second halves is not luck. He has a team fully capable of winning all of these first four games.

From The Pelican Blog:
Postgame report: From the Pelicans locker room
Pelicans Head Coach Monty Williams:
"For whatever reason, I don’t think it has anything to do with the other team. I think it’s just us learning how to play together, learning how to do something with guys you never played with before.(Oh, but Phoenix's group is much more tenured ) But to me, that’s a bit of an excuse. It’s still basketball. You’re playing to win. We played to win in the first quarter. We didn’t have a great second quarter, but I still thought we played hard in the third quarter. To a degree, in the fourth quarter, we were just playing desperation basketball. The second half was just totally not the way we play in practice. We’re just having a bit of a time with carry-over from practice.(Please stop explaining to us how poorly your practice is transitioning to games and how little you are adjusting in those games. This is where the Les Miles comparison is coming from, IMO. "Let me explain to you in layman's terms exactly what bad coaching is." It just seems eerily similar. )"


Phoenix is in rebuilding mode. They lost 10 players and brought in 5 that are in their rookie or second season... You're telling me they're gelling enough to be 3-1 with their only loss being a close one to the Thunder AND coming back (coached by a first year head coach, no less!) from being stomped early on in an away game against a talented team?



In previous seasons I have been all for Monty, because he really never under-performed IMO with the situations he'd been given with this team. It's quite clear that this squad is (finally) lightning in a bottle, and Monty Williams seems to be capping that energy by not making proper adjustments. It's one of those things where we gave him benefit of the doubt, but now that it is more apparent, looking back it seems the writing may have been on the wall.

I still think the Fire Monty stuff, up until now, has been laughable really. We were trying to establish some sort of consistency within this organization's direction. Monty DID NOT have anything that was really permanent from the onset and his coaching career prior to NO has been under quite the company of coaching legends. Dude deserved a CHANCE. I do agree, though, that chance seems to be running out of time. Under Monty, I just don't know if I can see anything but a squad that could run itself achieving the level of success that this franchise has potential for. What I mean is, his coaching (or lack thereof) will handicap our team should they even BE ABLE to coalesce under his management.