11-09-2021, 10:37 AM
(11-09-2021, 08:53 AM)Kammrath Wrote: That's EXACTLY how a good coach should handle it. Don't talk about those realities publicly, deal with them behind closed doors. Kidd should especially defend Luka and KP publicly as we know they can be sensitive. Great job Kidd on handling this IMO.Yeah, he wasn't defending or criticizing anyone, or saying anyone did or didn't play the right way. What he said was that he evaluates the players' performance by watching how they are playing, and that he does not consider +/- in the assessment, because he considers it a misleading statistic.
But I can almost guarantee Kidd sees that Luka is not playing the "right way" in a lot of his minutes these days. But that should not be dealt with publicly. And if the coaches are asking Luka to play differently than he has for most of his career (as many have speculated), then they have to deal with all of it more patiently.
If Luka is not playing the right way, then the coach should and presumably does notice it. But, according to him, he judges by watching, rather than by consulting a +/- statistic. We don't have to agree on whether that evaluation method is right or wrong, by I think it's good to know how the coach makes decisions, especially to the degree that it might be moving on from Carlisle's judgment of what was important. Or if we need to find a way to let Kidd know how much he might be screwing up in this regard.
On a separate note, I thought it was of passing interest that when Kidd emptied the bench in the last minute, everyone who hadn't played was sent in except Burke. It wasn't important to the game, and may not mean anything at all, but there didn't appear to be an obvious reason for his exclusion.