[Dazzling Dunks and Basketball BloopersParticipant]

 Clifford is well-respected in nba circles and had a certain degree of success turning around a small market franchise in Charlotte. He has ties to the franchise from his stint as an assistant under Van Gundy. In a lot of ways, this hire makes a ton of sense.

However, Clifford seemed burned out his last few seasons in charlotte to the point that he actually had to miss a significant portion of last season due to health concerns. After a promising first few seasons, his teams stagnated and you could argue also underachieved the past 2 years. You have to wonder how much energy he will have for what should be a lengthy rebuild in Orlando.

So what do you think of this hire? Was it the right decision or should they have looked in a different direction?

 

 

[kerrstParticipant]

 Not a big fan of recycling coaches with NBA experience.  With a young team like Orlando they would have been better served going after a hungry assisstant coach or a college coach looking to make the leap to the NBA.  

[RUDEBOY-Participant]

 He was an assistant for Van Gundy during the Dwight Heydays .Folks here in South Florida were expecting a bigger name coach. 

[TRC1991Participant]

I personally don’t like the hire. It’s a bit underwhelming and I can’t imagine he’s that much better for the job than Frank Vogel was…Clifford had talent in Charlotte and didn’t do much with it besides have a mental breakdown

[The GoatParticipant]

 He did well with what he had and built a playoff squad that ranked highly in defensive rating. Unfortunately it was built  in mind of playing MKG a ton of minutes  across positions and he was injured for a long stretch. After this, they tried to recover through roster changes but they didnt ship guys out at max value when they should have (eg Jefferson), they didnt draft really well and/or made poor roster decisions  at the draft (they couldve done with those 4 first rounders). Subseqyently there were health issues for Clifford and the inevitable drop to the lottery. 

To me, looks like he was an excellent coach that had the locker room but he was not supported well by draft, roster and front office moves. I dont know how much of that will change in Orlando… They really need to fix the roster. With Clifford, i think he’ll get the most from Biyombo defensively. Vooch has to move now. 

[Andv1 WaitingParticipant]

 Magic doing another retread job sigh…They should have hit reset on this team and go with a young coach/one that has potential in college and do a full rebuild.. As it will just be the same as last season otherwise(losing and alot of it).

[HitsterParticipant]

Steve Clifford did a decent job in Charlotte but he had stagnated a bit there so see him back in a top job so soon is a bit surprising. He has John Hammond running the draft so there will be a solid person in place there.

But if the team is going into rebuild again then surely hiring a younger upcoming coach would have made more sense.

  

[cominup7Participant]

 He’ll get them that 8th seed but thats about it, unless J. Isaac or whoever they draft develops into a stud in the next 2 seasons…Clifford is basically Skiles in Orlando all over again. The problem now is that the league is so offensively oriented, the old school defensive-minded head coaches are becoming extinct.

Skiles, Thibs, Clifford, Casey, Vogel…all coaches that started out strong but as the league changed they couldn’t adapt

 

[Author]

Posts