Coaching Carousel (Basketball)

OrangeBlue98 said:

I get you won't be playoff-ready with a ton of rest days, but you also can't be flat out all the time and expect to be anywhere close to peak for when it matters most.

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I think anyone who has lifted or worked out understands that maintaining level is far easier than building up.

I'm not going to pretend to have watched the Knicks enough to know what Thibs did but I just see all this criticism of him playing too many guys but on the other hand I also see a bunch of teams that aren't physically prepared for the playoffs and to play every other day(I've seen a couple guys complain that every other day is too much) because guys are constantly getting off days and load managed.

Maybe some teams are already doing this but I really think they should start building that fitness in the regular season. For example, first 20ish games you slowly get guys back in the flow and start building up minutes. Second 20ish games have some off days to keep guys healthy but still playing starter type minutes and continue building the workload. Third group of 20 games you go all out and play your guys playoff style minutes in before tapering off the in the final 20 and just maintain that level(get your guys some rest days before the play offs and mix in the occasional 35-40 minute game).

Obviously, injuries happen and you would likely need to tailor this to individual players that get banged up and miss time but the general idea is just to utilize the regular season to prepare for long grueling playoff series.

Now a lot of teams are fighting for a spot and don't have the luxury of pulling their foot off the gas towards the end of the season but most of the top teams and true contenders should be able to.

OrangeBlue98 said:

But there is a happy medium somewhere in between those ends of the spectrum. You can't just run your starters out there every single night for 40+ minutes and expect them to be fresh and fit for the playoffs.

Two somewhat related examples.
1) When I trained for a half-marathon several years ago, my training peaked about four weeks prior to the event. My last long run was about 12 miles, then I tapered to where my last long run was in the 5-6 mile range. I wasn't running 45 miles a week the week or two prior to the event.

2) My son's soccer team has a coach who has a lot of similar ideas as Thibodeau regarding running players into the ground. At the end of the season, he was still having his players engage in heavy physical training the last month of the season, sometimes training every night for up to two hours a night. The team lost its last four games because everyone was fatigued and nursing some type of injury. The players and parents were pleading to reduce training, but the coach thought he knew better and kept grinding them. The results at the end of the season spoke for themselves.

I get you won't be playoff-ready with a ton of rest days, but you also can't be flat out all the time and expect to be anywhere close to peak for when it matters most.

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Similar situation with my son and baseball. Coach refused to pitch other kids he didn't trust, and that circle of trust kept shrinking until we'd pitch 4-5 pitchers a weekend of 4-5 games.

Of course these are all-world athletes, not kids. But Thibs, like Dusty Baker, runs his starters too much and it eventually wears you down. Rose injured his knee with 1:20 left and up 12. Who knows if he just blows it out next game or if it was a buildup of time and stress exacerbated by a specific movement. Either way, there's most certainly a balance and the scout on Thibs is that he seeks short-term wins at the possible expense of later losses. He's still a great coach.

BalloonsTheElephant said:

Similar situation with my son and baseball. Coach refused to pitch other kids he didn't trust, and that circle of trust kept shrinking until we'd pitch 4-5 pitchers a weekend of 4-5 games.

Of course these are all-world athletes, not kids. But Thibs, like Dusty Baker, runs his starters too much and it eventually wears you down. Rose injured his knee with 1:20 left and up 12. Who knows if he just blows it out next game or if it was a buildup of time and stress exacerbated by a specific movement. Either way, there's most certainly a balance and the scout on Thibs is that he seeks short-term wins at the possible expense of later losses. He's still a great coach.

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There's also the idea of building your bench. If you dont take the time early on to develop the depth pieces then when the inevitable injury happens (or foul trouble) you are left throwing out players that haven't gotten game action.

drsmitty74 said:

Would Jay Wright come to the Knicks and coach his former players?

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Guess not.

Charles Barkley says he would support Auburn's Bruce Pearl if he ran for US Senate

BalloonsTheElephant said:

Similar situation with my son and baseball. Coach refused to pitch other kids he didn't trust, and that circle of trust kept shrinking until we'd pitch 4-5 pitchers a weekend of 4-5 games.

Of course these are all-world athletes, not kids. But Thibs, like Dusty Baker, runs his starters too much and it eventually wears you down. Rose injured his knee with 1:20 left and up 12. Who knows if he just blows it out next game or if it was a buildup of time and stress exacerbated by a specific movement. Either way, there's most certainly a balance and the scout on Thibs is that he seeks short-term wins at the possible expense of later losses. He's still a great coach.

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I think there is a fine line and you can definitely take it to an extreme but also part of me thinks the only way to condition yourself to play 35-40 minutes in the postseason is to work your way up in the regular season. I actually think a lot of NBA postseason injuries are a result of guys not being in shape to play 40+ minutes of high intensity basketball with only a day of rest in the postseason after playing with minutes restrictions and all kinds of off days. It's a shock to your body to just all of sudden throw yourself into doing that.

DRose probably always would have injured himself because he was incredibly explosive and awful biomechanics where he was landing straight legged on one leg all the time(the ACL injury was just a jump stop but it was a matter of time).

As for baseball and arms that's completely different(you do have to build up arm strength to throw whatever your pitch count is) and basically every youth baseball team should be training everyone on the team to pitch.

OrangeBlue98 said:

But there is a happy medium somewhere in between those ends of the spectrum. You can't just run your starters out there every single night for 40+ minutes and expect them to be fresh and fit for the playoffs.

Two somewhat related examples.
1) When I trained for a half-marathon several years ago, my training peaked about four weeks prior to the event. My last long run was about 12 miles, then I tapered to where my last long run was in the 5-6 mile range. I wasn't running 45 miles a week the week or two prior to the event.

2) My son's soccer team has a coach who has a lot of similar ideas as Thibodeau regarding running players into the ground. At the end of the season, he was still having his players engage in heavy physical training the last month of the season, sometimes training every night for up to two hours a night. The team lost its last four games because everyone was fatigued and nursing some type of injury. The players and parents were pleading to reduce training, but the coach thought he knew better and kept grinding them. The results at the end of the season spoke for themselves.

I get you won't be playoff-ready with a ton of rest days, but you also can't be flat out all the time and expect to be anywhere close to peak for when it matters most.

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Not disagreeing with the overall message but I think world class athletes are completely different.

As an example to your running example, I’m a 2:31 marathoner and ran in college. My taper for a full marathon is only 7-10 days and that’s pretty standard at my class and faster. A 4 week taper for me would lose solid fitness.

Same with your kids - yes their bodies are not ready for that type of grind and probably they are mentally fatigued by all the work.

For me in my sub-elite running, the bigger key isn’t the actual work load, that’s easy, it’s the recovery on the other 22 hours a day that end up playing the bigger role.