Sixers Coach Eddie Jordan's Recent Comments Prove He's Lost As Coach

coach (n):  one who instructs players in the fundamentals of a competitive sport and directs team strategy.  (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

That last part is what I'm most concerned with today.

After reading a fantastic blog entry by the Philadelphia Inquirer' s Kate Fagan, I'm officially changing my tune on Eddie Jordan.  

Before the season started, I found myself excited at the new coaching hire, pointing at how he could manage the egos of Gilbert Arenas, Antawn Jamison, and Caron Butler to make them a playoff squad annually.

Even when the Sixers started out slowly...and kept the slow start up through December, then January...even when Jordan's roster rotations looked like he hired a drunk baby to select them...I hadn't lost hope in the coach.

But as of today, I believe Jordan is over his head as the Sixers coach, and he's more-or-less completely lost nearly 50 games into the season.  

Fagan caught the coach at practice on Tuesday, a day before the Sixers beat the Chicago Bulls in overtime to start their fifth two-game winning streak of the season.  At this point, the Sixers were coming off an ugly four-point win over the four-win New Jersey Nets which didn't exactly inspire confidence in the team moving forward.

She wrote:

Here's what came out of today's practice at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. First, Jordan's response when asked if he feels no obligated to play a guy in the second half, even if he's played well in the first ... " No, no I don’t." And then Jordan paused and asked if the question was in regards to Jrue Holiday not playing at all in the second half. Then Jordan continued, "There are different circumstances for the situation. I was relying on those guys to make plays, for some reason I just didn’t want Jrue in the game at that time." 

Jordan: "I like what Jrue has done at some points when he starts, but as the game goes along it just depends on how I feel about who I want to put in."

Much like many other bloggers following the Sixers, I've hammered Jordan for his rotations in the past , so I'm not going to slam him too much more here.  But note, included in the definition of coach: "directing team strategy."  

When a guy plays well in a half, usually that's a sign that he deserves at least a shot in the second half.  Maybe that's just me.

But then Jordan started digging his own grave.

"They have to find a way to do it. It’s their job to rotate in, nothing is really set in stone. It’s part of their job. It’s not really easy to come off the bench, no matter how good you are, but our group in the second quarter in New Jersey was phenomenal … they have to get used to doing it."

Okay, on the surface, this statement isn't completely ludicrous.  Clearly, all 29 other teams in the NBA throw out different styles of lineups, and a good coach should be making matchup-based substitutions when necessary.  

But then again...how many other coaches in the NBA routinely change their starting lineup (besides Mike D'Antoni) this late into the season?  Two weeks ago, Jordan benched Lou Williams and Thaddeus Young, who had both been starters at the beginning of the season, and received mixed results in return.

Now, third-year Thaddeus has gone from averaging 37.2 minutes per game in November to 27.5 minutes per game in January (and only 22 in an overtime game against the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday).  His production has likewise dropped—after scoring 22 points in each of the first two games after his benching, he's gone 3-12, 6-6, 4-11, and 1-9 from the field in the past four games.

As Fagan pointed out in an article on the slumping Young on Wednesday, "Last season, Young was considered an all-star in progress."  

This season, Young has gone from starter to bench warmer in half a season, flat.

And comments like these, from reserve Rodney Carney, make me think that the players have no faith that their good play will be rewarded by the coach:

"[Against the Nets] Second quarter I played pretty good, but in the second half I kind of figured he was going to play the starters a little more because we were back in the game and he trusts the starters and that’s what he went with. We have to trust what he says and what he does," Carney said.

What about Thad?

"It's very hard sitting there watching entire first quarters, second quarters, third quarters, or however many minutes I sit in a row," Young said. "But like I said, I can only control what I can."

"It's harder that way, to start off the game sitting there watching and then have to come in and try to get warmed up," he said. "Every time I come in the game, the first two or three plays, somebody scores on me because I'm not warmed up."

Let's review.

Coach: someone who sets team strategy.  

Coach Jordan: someone who has no set lineup or strategy.

His players: voicing their frustrations in progressively less-veiled barbs to the media.

Oh, to be a Sixers fan this season.

It's time for Eddie Jordan to set a rotation and stick with it.  No more 11-player rotations.  Go with eight or nine key guys each night.  Get your young players some burn.  Willie Green does not need to be playing 35 minutes a game.  

Let's start looking towards the future, because the Sixers' present is awfully bleak.