Is Dwayne Casey missed?

by snley on May 13, 2008 11:48 AM CDT

I'm a Bulls fan looking for some perspective on Dwayne Casey. I seem to remember John Hollinger writing last year that Casey did not deserve to be fired as he was getting more out of the team than could have been expected. Casey's name is now being included on the list of candidates for the still open Bulls job. Is he someone we should want coaching the youngest team in the NBA? Would he be able to work with a team made of mostly players who need an up tempo system? Can he actually coach offense?

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Casey...

You’ll get a mixed response from Wolves fans about Casey. There are basically 2 1/2 camps of thought about the guy:

1- He was an overmatched coach who did very well in practice and game preparation but who was absolutely destroyed by opposing coaches thanks to poor in game management, play calling, and questionable rotations.

2- He was a young and inexperienced coach who showed a lot of promise and deft personnel touch by taking a garbage team to a .500 record before he was fired, Wittman took over, and the bottom fell out.

2a- He was a good and promising coach who was screwed over by McHale and the country club.

I myself subscribe to more of a 2a position. I’d even go so far to say that there may have been some racial elements involved in his being let go. I’m not saying that McHale is a racist, but merely that Casey wasn’t a part of the country club of 600 First Avenue (Wolves front office) and he was fired for an affirmative action country club boy: Wittman.

Coaching wise, he had his flaws. He was a disciplinarian but not an authoritarian. Some believe that he lost control of the locker room towards the end but that may have had a lot to do with KG winding down and with Ricky Davis and Marc Blount. Who knows? I certainly don’t as I wasn’t there. He focused more on defense than he did on offense and he was very good about bringing along young and developing players like McCants and Foye. He did have some questionable rotations but I don’t know whether or not this was due to not being comfortable in in-game situations or for something behind the scenes.

Casey got a lot out of nothing as a 2nd year (relatively) inexperienced head coach. He was fired because McHale and Glen Taylor (the owner) are completely unaccountable for their extremely poor personnel decisions. I think he is a very promising head coach who will have a long career in this league. However, there are other Wolves fans who think he’s every bit as bad as Witt and that the only reason why he got the team to .500 was because KG was still playing for a playoff spot.

I will tell you this: I think he’s miles better than Avery Johnson. He didn’t overcoach and he’s much more laid back (but still intense…if that makes any sense).

by Stop-n-Pop on May 13, 2008 1:04 PM CDT 0 recs

Casey is a solid option. My biggest pet peeves with him were 1) strange rotations/substitution patterns and 2) not calling timeouts quickly enough. Basically like snp said, he was a great preparer but a lousy game coach. The good news is that these things seem to be correctable, and Casey always acknowledged the fact that he needed to learn more about coaching. So he seemed to be open to working on his problems.

He was a frustrating coach, but he cobbled together a .500 record with a terrible roster. Yes there was KG, but there was also just a collection of trash: Ricky Davis, Mark Blount, Mike James, Marko Jaric, Trenton Hassell, Troy Hudson…. ugh

There was also grumblings about how he handled the young players. He seemed to have McCants on a short leash and gave him very limited minutes early on, but the strategy more or less paid off, with McCants playing solid during the second half of Casey’s first season. I’m not sure if this policy was Casey’s, the FO’s, or because of the cancerous veteran locker room, but it’s something to consider when you think about Casey leading a young team.

by Matty_P on May 16, 2008 1:30 PM CDT 0 recs

Ditto for Foye...

...Casey was bringing him along slowly. However, unlike Brewer this year with Witt, you could tell there was at least some method behind the madness.

by Stop-n-Pop on May 16, 2008 1:55 PM CDT up 0 recs

That's discouraging to hear

as the greatest frustration from this terrible season for the Bulls was a lack of consistent minutes and extremely short leashes for Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah. Most of us at Blog a Bull are hoping for a head coach who brings in assistants, or he himself is, good at developing the talent on the youngest team in the NBA.

We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look.
Ronald Reagan

by snley on May 16, 2008 5:01 PM CDT up 0 recs

It was tough to tell with Casey...

...if most of the development problem had to do with babysitting idiots like Ricky Davis or Blount or if it was an inability to work with young talent. I think he did a good job developing the talent and it’s kind of funny to hear folks complain about Casey’s lack of in-game rotations, etc with Witt at the head of the bench. That being said, I’ve heard good things about former Wolf Ty Corbin…who is an assistant with the jazz. It sounds like the Bulls are looking at him. He was a solid player with the Wolves.

by Stop-n-Pop on May 16, 2008 6:13 PM CDT 0 recs

Thanks from another BlogaBuller!

Very interesting information. I do not know how McHale is still around. You should get a good player at #3. I have a feeling that Riley will take Mayo over Beasley. Either way you should do good at three unless McHale finds a way to screw it up. Again, thanks for the Casey info!

by chgobr on Jun 5, 2008 6:03 PM CDT 0 recs