This is a weekend of reflection for the Nuggets’ Brian Shaw. He designed it to be that way.
Shaw is taking stock in what worked and what didn’t during his first season as an NBA head coach.
Ultimately, the team’s 36-46 record wasn’t close to what he wanted it to be. It was a 21-win slide from a season ago.
Shaw said it’s fair to hold his feet to the fire and expect more next season.
“Criticism, I can take it,” Shaw said. “That’s nothing. I’ve been subjected to that at the highest levels. My expectations are higher than anybody’s. So when I say I’m on the clock, and if I can’t get it done, it should be on to the next one to try to find somebody that can get it done.
“I believe, if we’re healthy, with the guys that we have, that I can get it done. And I’m not just saying that for lip service. I believe that. So I stand behind that 100 percent.”
Shaw remains supremely confident in his ability to coach, just as he was confident as a player.
“You have to overcome the odds,” he said. “You have to produce and perform when you’re given the opportunity to produce and perform. You have to do it. There’s no excuses. Even in college, when you played against the big teams, you had to play big. That was your chance.”
He paused.
“This,” he said, “is my chance.”
Looking back at his first season with the Nuggets, who missed the playoffs, Shaw was asked to evaluate himself in several areas.
X’s and O’s: “I think I did pretty good. It felt natural to me. I felt like after timeouts, for the most part we got the kind of looks that we wanted to get. In-game situations, we got what we wanted to get. It wasn’t that difficult, because we were really simple in what we did. Early in the season, I wanted to see if our bigs could play with their backs to the basket, be playmakers for us. And as I found out that wasn’t their strength, we put the ball more in Ty (Lawson’s) hands, went to more pick-and-roll things. So, I think we squeezed as much juice out of the fruit as we could. So, in terms of that, I feel good about it.
“Defensively, I think the biggest mistake I made was I came in here and looked at our roster and looked at the roster we had in Indiana and felt that we could play the same kind of defense that Indiana plays. I felt that we could do it with the athleticism and length at the ‘big’ positions. That was a mistake on my part because it’s just totally different personnel. The length that they had at the guard position is different here, and even just the mentality of the guys who are out there playing defense was different. So we were all over the place defensively. Other than zone, we tried every scheme that there is out there. So that’s probably going to be the biggest work-in-progress for me as a coach this offseason.”
Player management: “Middle of the pack. If you would ask the players, I think they all genuinely like me. They probably would all say he would be one of the coolest coaches we played for. But with that being said, I also feel like that was taken advantage of at times. Because I’m laid back by nature and I try to leave a lot of things up to them to decide for themselves, and I need to be more directive when it comes to that. Obviously I feel that I was always open to communicate with them — I kept it real with them. But there were instances where the players felt like … like the Andre Miller situation. He didn’t feel like he was communicated with.
“I wasn’t aware that he had a streak of never gotten a DNP (did not play) before. I should have been more aware of that. I don’t know if it would have changed anything. So there were instances where I clashed with guys. But I thought it was important that I got the way I wanted to do things established, got that foundation laid. So I stuck to my line. Some of it was good, some of it was not.”
Team culture: “It’s not totally implemented, but I think we’re on the path to it. And I think that the way we started to play and compete at the end of the season was an indication of that, that the guys continued to play hard for us and for themselves. That they were starting to understand what was expected of them.”
Administrative: “The management of my time, the people that I work with around here were great, and I leaned on them. Being a first-year head coach, having a trainer that’s experienced, that’s been around like Jim Gillen has, I leaned on him a lot and that was very helpful for me. Tim (Gelt) and my relationship with the media and managing that, which is probably the biggest part of it, which you have to get adjusted to, is great. We have a great relationship. Just all around, every entity of this company — from Steve Hess and the strength staff to Jim Gillen and the training staff, Tim Gelt and the PR department. The communication between Josh (Kroenke), Tim (Connelly), Arturas (Karnisovas) and myself, that I’m very pleased with. Amy (O’Brien) and Lisa (Johnson) in our player development department, I think that we all have it. We established a nice rhythm of doing things.”
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dempseypost
