LA Clippers: 5 Things the New Coach Can Do Differently

2) Listen to the numbers

Here’s one that’ll be a big breath of fresh air if the new coach acts differently from Doc. Remember, after Game 6 against the Nuggets, when Doc Rivers dropped one of our favorite gems?

"If you go by plus-minus, I don’t think either of our 5s were effective tonight."

This was despite Ivica Zubac having a +11 in the game and Trezz having a -19. When pressed on that, he pointed to the eye test telling him Zu wasn’t much more effective than Trezz.

That was hardly the only instance of Doc trusting his gut over the numbers. In the playoffs, the trio of Reggie Jackson, Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell were a -18.3 and yet saw 78 minutes of court time.

Fans spent all season pointing out how the numbers showed that Zubac should be seeing more minutes, or that our reserves kept giving up big leads when Doc played none of the starters. And yet it kept on happening anyway.

Steve Ballmer spent a ton of money putting an analytics department together to figure out how to get the best out of the roster. By some accounts, part of the reason for Doc’s dismissal was the fact that those analytics folks were ignored when push came to shove.

When the next coach is hired, we can expect that the hiring will come with an understanding that analytics will play a role in their coaching. A coach who listens to the numbers and uses them to put the team in a position to succeed will be a sight for sore eyes next year.