O'Brien

[Michael Byrnes <mbyrnes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

O'Brien is kind of an odd coach because there are two major things that
stand out about him:

1) The players like him, he motivates them, and they work hard for him.
>From an effort standpoint, he gets the most out of his players.

2) On the technical side, he really has no idea what the hell he is doing,
or how to get the most out of his players.

It's a paradox.

Trading Walker kind of forced Obie to go with the flow for a while.  But,
the decline of Baker (low post scorer) the trade of Williams (low post
scorer), and the injury to LaFrentz allowed Walter McCarty to re-emerge as
"Antoine lite" and bring back the threefest.  At the same time, bringing in
Ricky Davis has cut into Jiri Welsch's role a bit.

If Ainge fires O'Brien, it won't be very hard for him to bring in a
technically better coach.  But it WILL be very hard to bring in a coach who
the players respect and play for the way they do for O'Brien.

Solution?  If I'm Ainge, I pressure O'Brien to make some coaching staff
changes.  It's a dangerous approach, but do it right and you get the best of
both worlds.

Michael