Great win Thursday night, and great winning streak. The players appear to play hard for Jones. Nevertheless, the win still basically showed his strategic limitations.
The basic problem, IMHO, is that against a man-to-man, he just doesn't give the team enough offensive options. Essentially, the offense is the point guard and the wings, assisted by the weave and the occasional big man screen from the high post, trying to turn the corner against their defender and taking it to the rim, either to score or dish if the defense collapses. This approach can work, if you have Jason Kidd, Kevin Johnson, Keith Smith or Jerome Randle at the point. Austin is none of those. Based on what I saw last night, the only player who can fairly regularly break his man down off the dribble and score through contact is Matt Bradley. This approach is also not helped by our often-lacking free throw shooting. I really can't understand how McNeill can be allowed to keep using a stroke where the ball looks like it's coming out of his hand sideways.
Last night, we played great against Stanford's zone, finding the open man, usually Vanover, who had a great shooting performance. So Stanford went to man, and we struggled throughout the second half, scoring only 27 points, and nearly giving the game away.
Jones' approach is basically similar to Martin's, in that he's basically relying on the athleticism of his players to score. It's the antithesis of Montgomery, whose approach was to run a patterned offense to get his players the shots they were most comfortable with, as often as possible. That's why his teams rarely, as I remember it, had trouble closing out games. In crunch time, he put players in comfortable spots on offense, and tried to use the system to take the pressure off them. Jones/Martin doesn't do that. So the question is, can Jones recruit players talented enough to succeed under his offensive approach? I have my doubts.
As for the defense, the zone has been getting better as the season goes along. Would I prefer them to play more man? Yes, but the conventional wisdom here was that he was trying to protect Vanover, who wasn't going to develop sitting most of the games out on the bench in foul trouble. Given the way he's playing now, I can see the wisdom of doing that. This season was always going to be another transitional one, and winning three or four or five more games probably wouldn't have made a big difference. I'd rather see the youngsters develop.
So, do I think Jones should be retained? Probably not, because I don't think he can recruit well enough to overcome his tactical deficiency on offense. Is there a risk of transfers? Yes, although of the players who played last night, the only ones I would really be concerned about losing are Anticevich, Vanover, Bradley, Kelly and Austin, and Austin only because you really can't play without a point guard. The others have the biggest upside, based on what I saw, and it's not clear to me that McNeill, Sueing and Harris-Dyson are adding enough elements to their games to improve they way they need to going forward.
Again, my .02. Feel free to comment and disagree.
The basic problem, IMHO, is that against a man-to-man, he just doesn't give the team enough offensive options. Essentially, the offense is the point guard and the wings, assisted by the weave and the occasional big man screen from the high post, trying to turn the corner against their defender and taking it to the rim, either to score or dish if the defense collapses. This approach can work, if you have Jason Kidd, Kevin Johnson, Keith Smith or Jerome Randle at the point. Austin is none of those. Based on what I saw last night, the only player who can fairly regularly break his man down off the dribble and score through contact is Matt Bradley. This approach is also not helped by our often-lacking free throw shooting. I really can't understand how McNeill can be allowed to keep using a stroke where the ball looks like it's coming out of his hand sideways.
Last night, we played great against Stanford's zone, finding the open man, usually Vanover, who had a great shooting performance. So Stanford went to man, and we struggled throughout the second half, scoring only 27 points, and nearly giving the game away.
Jones' approach is basically similar to Martin's, in that he's basically relying on the athleticism of his players to score. It's the antithesis of Montgomery, whose approach was to run a patterned offense to get his players the shots they were most comfortable with, as often as possible. That's why his teams rarely, as I remember it, had trouble closing out games. In crunch time, he put players in comfortable spots on offense, and tried to use the system to take the pressure off them. Jones/Martin doesn't do that. So the question is, can Jones recruit players talented enough to succeed under his offensive approach? I have my doubts.
As for the defense, the zone has been getting better as the season goes along. Would I prefer them to play more man? Yes, but the conventional wisdom here was that he was trying to protect Vanover, who wasn't going to develop sitting most of the games out on the bench in foul trouble. Given the way he's playing now, I can see the wisdom of doing that. This season was always going to be another transitional one, and winning three or four or five more games probably wouldn't have made a big difference. I'd rather see the youngsters develop.
So, do I think Jones should be retained? Probably not, because I don't think he can recruit well enough to overcome his tactical deficiency on offense. Is there a risk of transfers? Yes, although of the players who played last night, the only ones I would really be concerned about losing are Anticevich, Vanover, Bradley, Kelly and Austin, and Austin only because you really can't play without a point guard. The others have the biggest upside, based on what I saw, and it's not clear to me that McNeill, Sueing and Harris-Dyson are adding enough elements to their games to improve they way they need to going forward.
Again, my .02. Feel free to comment and disagree.
