Quote:
Originally Posted by airic000
If Martin were as great a strategist as you suggest, he would've been able to produce a winning team despite Muller's absence. And every time i saw the bench in previous yrs JM was writing in his notepad while Muller was the one talking strategy with the players....
|
You don't know who thought these strategies. Point is, it's quite clear Muller was a MUCH better communicator than JM. He could get the point across, and get players motivated to achieve what he told them.
But in my mind, it's more than likely most of the plans Muller gave the players were designed by JM. Muller might have had some ideas of his own to add to the mix, but the team players under JM's doctrine. Muller was merely the guy who could make players buy into said doctrine*.
*Which is still VERY important, as this season proved us. A piss-poor communicator is disastrous. The best strategist in the world won't win a game if you can't make your players buy into your ideas and give it all they got.
Quote:
Originally Posted by airic000
The original article says that, in his role as asst coach, Muller took up too much room according to JM and he didn't want him with the team anymore because they didn't have the same philosophies. But then as soon as Muller leaves the team, the team goes south. So I guess we're left to conclude that Muller's strategies were superior to Martin's.
|
Yhea, he took too much room; it's possible players listened to Muller and not Martin. Martin was starting to feel he was not respected enough, which is actually a common occurrence when a brilliant technocrat starts to be out-staged by a natural leader.
Muller was a natural leadership coach. Martin was a very strong technocrat. Muller probably had a more "loose" approach to coaching than Martin, and probably pushed this point while under JM.
It very likely that each coach blamed the other's style for the failure to beat Boston in the playoffs. JM thought Muller's weakening of his disciplinary doctrine made our team too wild, while Muller probably believed that you have to win the players' heart first to get them performing.
Nothing more than a conflict of core ideology as to what coaching is all about. The problem is very simple, and age old: The titular leader started to think he was threatened by the young rising star who clearly had an better connection with players, and who was ambitious.
I personally believe the optimal structure is to have cutting-edge technocrat strategist in place, but only under a Head Coach who can convey developed strategies and motivate players.
The danger, obviously, is that the technocrat grows too much of an ego, starts believing the Head Coach is surfing on his own genius, and downplay the important of natural leadership in gameplan execution. The technocrat will very often see players like pieces on a chessboard: "If you ask them to do X, they'll do X because you are the one in charge". He usually have a hard time grasping the sheer difficulty of human management, and maybe think the Head Coach is incompetent when the HC doesn't ask for the "right" strategies to be executed (very often a decision motivated by human management).
Leadership Management is a very, very hard thing to run and just pointing your finger at a single person and saying "That's the man" is simplistic at best. Jacque Martin was a brillant strategist with deep flaws. He initially overcame these flaws with a brillant selection of assistants, but then his ego got the better of him.
I don't believe Muller has anything to reproach himself in the whole thing. There is nothing wrong with being ambitious, and he probably acted very loyal to JM up until the end. I blame JM and PG for not finding a suitable replacement for Kirk, someone who could genuinely reach to the players and make them buy into JM's gameplans.