Is Portland's Stotts the best teacher in the NBA?
The Portland Trail Blazers are not contending for a championship this season, but their head coach, Terry Stotts, won't let his players believe anything different. Every day he preaches the playoffs, and once you're in the playoffs, absolutely everything stays on the table.
Here's more on the job Stotts is doing with this young Trail Blazers roster, per The Columbian:
“You want to get things done and obviously people count us out this year and they still don’t think we’re for real,” Gerald Henderson said. “(Stotts) coming in every day and implementing to us that we can make the playoffs, we can be this kind of team. Staying on us to continue doing things that are going to make us a good team. He stays with that.” The son of teachers, this year Stotts has had to use more of his teaching skills with the Blazers in a developmental year while also trying to make the playoffs. “Early in the season, even now he’s pulling me in to teach me things I can work on the court,” Noah Vonleh said. “Things I missed on the defensive end. Things to work on offensively. He’s a player’s coach, he’s really helping me out.”
Portland's offense is one of this season's biggest surprise stories. They're fantastic scoring the ball, and have two diabolical bucket-getters in the backcourt.
Defense is a problem, but that was to be expected given their personnel. Everyone's young, everyone's inexperienced. But Stotts is squeezing all he can from what he has, and for that the team would be foolish not to give him a contract extension this summer.
