2021-2022 MAVS NEWS: 4th in West | WCF loss [ARCHIVED]

[omahen]

We don't know what Billups will do as a head coach. He is a total unknown. An author can't praise an unknown while simultaneously degrading another because he feels like it (of course he can but it's not good reporting). Kidd has been talked to death at this point, but the narrative surrounding him has gotten out of control. He went to the playoffs with the Nets and was dismissed because he angled for more control in the front office (This isn't a knock at his performance as a coach which is what we're judging the Kidd acquisition by). 

He then went to MIL and single handedly turned MIL from a lottery team to a playoff team in his first year there. That's a major accomplishment. He was dismissed because the team stagnated under his tenure which was a valid critique. But what Kidd has been repeating all summer long is that he's not the same guy that he was in MIL. He went and learned what it takes to be a championship head coach under Vogel. Does that not account for anything? Billups hasn't been anywhere near the finals as an assistant coach. Why does he get all the praise while Kidd gets dogged? I understand it's easy to hate on Kidd because he comes across as an odd ass but Billups isn't automatically a better prospect than Kidd. In fact Portland's own superstar would agree to that.

To cut the story short - Kidd has two stories with bad ending behind him, Billups has zero. We have a hope Kidd learned something with Lakers and changed as a person. Portland has hope that hype surrounding Billups as one of more seek after assistants turning head coach is justified. The grade might be subjective, but I can see why the difference. Besides, the difference between B and C+ is minimal. Its not like Portland got an A+ and Dallas got a D- as one might think after reading your description. So I don't agree the author was inconsistent.

but I know for certain the grades the author assigned are false and lazy reporting.

I don't think that is fair. Of course there is a certain level of subjectivity when assigning grades and one can agree or not with them. But I think author provided reasonable argumentation for them.