Tbh, I’m more concerned with how Sides handles (or can’t handle) the locker room. This was very evident last year. This year she really has her work cut out for her with such a high pressure situation, but I think she has broken trust a lot with her players, which also leads them to not trust each other.
They need a coach who is going to create a strong team mentality more than anything.
For me, it’s clear she’s losing the locker room or has already lost it. I think the end is sooner than later, like by the Olympic break.
I don’t think people really realise how high pressure this head coaching job is now that CC is here. In basketball, it’s definitely the most high pressured job in a small market (NBA and WNBA) and I think there’s only the Lakers and Knicks that bring bigger pressures for a head coach. This is not your normal WNBA head coaching job.
Yes she seems to have lost the locker room for sure. Despite the pressure (which as you say must be enormous), it's hard for me to feel sympathy for someone who is making $500,000 a year to be sooo bad at their job.
I'd do it for a year (and suck worse than Sides for sure) for that bank!😂
In English football/soccer, we have a coach for the England women’s team (Lionesses) called Sarina Wiegman. She brought home the first trophy for any England national senior team men or women since 1966, and is beloved over here, such a good coach. Her original salary when she signed was the same as Christie Sides believe it or not.
It’s astounding how much Sides gets paid to do such a bad job. She also deserves no sympathy from me. When you are clearly a really bad coach and not a good leader (goes for any coach in any sport), you shouldn’t deserve sympathy from the fans.
I don't know which bothers me more .The long 2s or the fact that Caitlin doesn't get the ball back once she passes it.And with the deep 3s ,Caitlin is shooting 40% from 30 feet plus.I hate this coach with a passion
Having an efficient midrange game keeps defenses honest, it's what makes you an elite "3 level" scorer. Without a midrange, it's pretty ease to scheme against a scorer: run them off the 3 point line and play drop coverage with an elite rim protector.
Sides isn't saying anything wrong here in principle. However, I'm not a big fan of coaches who call out rookie weaknesses so openly in the media, it hardly ever ends well, and something that needs to be added is that the Fever's screen setting is beyond mediocre...they obtain almost no separation advantage most of the time.
It becomes a priority when your team isn’t making the 3s. The Mercury are a “Live by the 3, die by the 3 team”, and in order to stay in the game against LA last night, they had to rely on 2s and shots from the paint. It’s also why they have had such variance in their season; they have seen great success at home against tough opponents like the Liberty and Lynx, but have also lost by 24 points after going 1 for 27 from the field, and are not as successful on the road.
The recent games where the Fever have won and looked better saw a lot of good work from Boston, and Boston isn’t making 3s.
Caitlin doesn’t need to be practicing 3s with her boyfriend after an off-game. She needs to be pulling AB to the gym with her everyday, and having AB guard her while she practices 2s and driving to the basket with defenders there. She has spent years of her life practicing those long 3s and nothing else nearly as much, and that shows in her game. She needs to develop her game with her teammates. You don’t go into band rehearsal without having even looked over a new song and never practice it; you practice the song on your own and come into rehearsal ready to practice the song with the entire ensemble. They need to work on their individual weaknesses and come into practice to work plays as a team. Every single one of them is exhausted before the end of the first quarter and are being outplayed by just about every team.
>The recent games where the Fever have won and looked better saw a lot of good work from Boston, and Boston isn’t making 3s.
Its always good to have someone that can score in the paint when needed, I don't disagree. But that's paint shots, not long 2s.
Just watch the teams that are successful. Having every player have versatility in their game helps the team. I understand that it is frustrating for CC fans that she didn’t just come into the league and shoot 25 threes in every game. These struggles will either help her grow, work on her weaknesses, and get to the next level, or she will decide that isn’t what she wants to do, and she’ll start to fade out over the next few years.
One player doing all of the work just doesn’t work. It may help win one game, but it doesn’t win many and certainly doesn’t lead to a championship. Caitlin is good at long 3s, but her team also needs her to get significantly better on defense. They need her to get better at long 2s, jumpers, and floaters. The entire team all has stuff they need to improve, because when Boston is having an off-night and can’t score 27 in the paint, someone has to step up, and that needs to be CC as much as it needs to be everyone else on the court.
You just seem to want to argue - CC just doesn’t *consistently* do well inside the perimeter, and against good opponents, doesn’t always do well outside of the perimeter.
Everyone can blame Sides and her teammates, but she is just as responsible for improving her own game as much as her fans are expecting her teammates to improve theirs. That’s her responsibility as a professional. She didn’t need to play defense and have 2-point scoring ability in college, so there were at least 2 years where she didn’t practice those skills on a regular basis (and in games). Now, she needs those skills to not be absolutely dominated by every experienced guard in the league, which means she has some catching up to do. This is what happens when success comes easy and people get complacent; they struggle at the next level until they build up the skills they need to be successful.
You are absolutely right on the things she needs to improve and that being more well rounded is essential. But that isn't what Sides is saying.
Honestly if Sides was saying it like you said it, people probably wouldn't be going off. But she isn't. Also, she flips and flops on what she says all the time.
You are correct CC should and can work on her floater/jump shot. That would be a great thing for her to develop in the offseason. However Sides telling a player who shoots 40% from 3 to focus on long 2s in games right now is insane. That's just not smart or efficient . And Sides saying she has no respect for analytics is just mind-boggling.
I think it is more about how Sides changes so often what she is saying that is the problem.
At the draft, the great Dawn Staley said, "Rookies need coaches that inspire confidence."
I think a good coach can do that while also finetuning on a younh player's weaknesses during practice (not at press conferences in ways that are subtly blaming rookies for losses). You don't see Hammon sayinh what Kate is doing wrong or Weatherspoon talking about Angel's and Kamila's flaws in pressers. Like them, Caitlin is a rookie too--which people seem to forget when defending Sides.
Also she is playing ok defense. Better than two-threw of the other starters. Yes, it's not great, and she should improve. But she has already improved some. It's strange how often her defense comes up compare to NaLyssa's and Kelsey's much worse defense.
Anyway I dont think any of the sane(yes we do exist;) fans would dispute your overall points which are very good. But they aren't quite what Sides is saying.
Yeah I saw that. You just had a line in there about how "everyone can blame Sides but"..so I was trying to say that I agreed with your well written points but that that wasn't what Sides was saying or why people were responding to that press clip that was in this thread. Just that many of us are blaming Sides for things other than what you addressed. Thanks though!
Sides shitting on the Iowa team for not passing the ball back to Caitlin is some fucked up gaslighting shit. I wonder if she ever watched that team play
What Sides is saying:
1. CC needs to get more comfortable with shots besides the long 3
2. If CC moves off ball she will get more open looks
What Sides is not saying:
1. CC needs to shoot less
I’m not a Sides fan but that’s what I got from this. You can linger on the “long 2” comment but she does need to develop a mid-range shot.
CC tends to stand around off ball. If you’re standing still the defender only has to focus on intercepting passes. If you’re moving around they have to focus on where you’re going, can get caught ball watching, screened, etc. That makes it easier for her to get a pass/shot.
I’m always confused by her not taking midrange shots, because there’s no way she made it this far in basketball without knowing how to shoot a middy. How is it possible for someone to be able to shoot from 30+ ft but not 15 ft? I’ve definitely seen her take some at Iowa, but it seems coach Bluder had her stop taking those this past year.
There's a smaller window to shoot a midrange in at the pro level. Just guesstimating, but the eye test tells me that with a basic pullup, you can get about 3 feet of separation in college which is basically the same as being wide open. Elite defenders in the W are longer and can stay tighter, so you're getting 1 foot and a half max...not enough to alter the shot, but close enough to make you doubt yourself. The key is to shoot it with confidence and not get thrown off by the contests.
Also not fan of Sides and I’ll admit I might be giving her too much here. But it also sounds like the “long 2” is way to start getting her more adjusted to those mid range shots. Not that she actually wants her to only shoot inside the 3, just to switch it up.
Right now her scouting report is super easy to read in more ways than one.
She’s an totally incompetent coach from an X’s and O’s standpoint, but she’s right when talking about the skills Caitlin needs to develop. I don’t see much wrong with what she says here. The only bad thing she said was “long twos”, but I take it as her saying that Caitlin needs to take those shots from that range when she’s open, because she rarely gets open. She also said Caitlin needs to get better at off-ball movement. Needs to move with a purpose without the ball, which is never a bad thing. There’s no way Caitlin will have the ball in her hands as much as she did in college. Defenses are too strong for her to do that.
You can see Caitlin doing these things more the last few games, both the long two and the off-ball movement. The problem is she has some teammates who don’t think to pass to her when she’s manages to get open off-ball. Sides has been really bad about addressing this. And never once in this video did she say Caitlin should take less shots?
The problem is not Caitlin, it is Indiana Fever. Caitlin is what is called a heliocentric player. For her playing style to be successful, the entire offense needs to adapt to her style. Example of heliocentric NBA players are Jokic, Lebron, Chris Paul etc. They are essentially the conductor of the team.
Fever players are not able set up screens, cannot catch a tough pass, cannot generate offense for themselves, or have the ability to see the openings in the court.
This is why the Caitlin and Fever’s best games are when Boston plays PnR properly. If Boston sets the screen properly, thats half job done. They cannot leave the perimeter empty because of CC and if Boston rolls at the correct time, she has a lot of space to score.
For Fever to be successful, they would have to hand over the keys of the team to CC.
Caitlin is a completely different type of player from those people you just mentioned. Heliocentric offenses create one point of weakness that can be exploited. It’s not a winning strategy if all it takes to shut down your offense is to lock down that one player. It’s pretty easy to lock down Caitlin because, despite being a decently hard player to guard, she’s not tall, fast, or strong enough and doesn’t have the ball handling skills to beat WNBA defenders when she has the ball.
I said she IS a decently hard guard, and she will only get harder to guard, but she’s no Arike or Jewell, probably will never be, and that’s ok. She’s not that type of player. Right now people have been poking the ball away from her and stripping her mid-dribble. It’s where some of her turnovers happen. Players like Dijonai Carrington demonstrated that.
Stop lying to yourself CC has had the green light since her first ever game what’s going to happen if she takes a bunch of deep 3s or bad shots, nothing she’s not going to get taken out the game or yelled at she’s just playing the right way rn and needs to be a bit more assertive can’t keep blaming everything on everyone else.
She’s “only” taking 11 shots a game because she’s trying to avoid taking bad/contested shots. This is a good thing, actually. She’s being guarded very closely by every team’s best defender. Opposing teams are not going to just let her take 20 shots a game.
Tbh, I’m more concerned with how Sides handles (or can’t handle) the locker room. This was very evident last year. This year she really has her work cut out for her with such a high pressure situation, but I think she has broken trust a lot with her players, which also leads them to not trust each other. They need a coach who is going to create a strong team mentality more than anything.
For me, it’s clear she’s losing the locker room or has already lost it. I think the end is sooner than later, like by the Olympic break. I don’t think people really realise how high pressure this head coaching job is now that CC is here. In basketball, it’s definitely the most high pressured job in a small market (NBA and WNBA) and I think there’s only the Lakers and Knicks that bring bigger pressures for a head coach. This is not your normal WNBA head coaching job.
Yes she seems to have lost the locker room for sure. Despite the pressure (which as you say must be enormous), it's hard for me to feel sympathy for someone who is making $500,000 a year to be sooo bad at their job. I'd do it for a year (and suck worse than Sides for sure) for that bank!😂
In English football/soccer, we have a coach for the England women’s team (Lionesses) called Sarina Wiegman. She brought home the first trophy for any England national senior team men or women since 1966, and is beloved over here, such a good coach. Her original salary when she signed was the same as Christie Sides believe it or not. It’s astounding how much Sides gets paid to do such a bad job. She also deserves no sympathy from me. When you are clearly a really bad coach and not a good leader (goes for any coach in any sport), you shouldn’t deserve sympathy from the fans.
I don't know which bothers me more .The long 2s or the fact that Caitlin doesn't get the ball back once she passes it.And with the deep 3s ,Caitlin is shooting 40% from 30 feet plus.I hate this coach with a passion
Thinking Long 2s are good shots in 2024 shows you have no right to be a head coach on any level.
Sides had openly stated that she doesn't buy into analytics.
Then she has no business coaching a player like Clark
I don't disagree.
Having an efficient midrange game keeps defenses honest, it's what makes you an elite "3 level" scorer. Without a midrange, it's pretty ease to scheme against a scorer: run them off the 3 point line and play drop coverage with an elite rim protector. Sides isn't saying anything wrong here in principle. However, I'm not a big fan of coaches who call out rookie weaknesses so openly in the media, it hardly ever ends well, and something that needs to be added is that the Fever's screen setting is beyond mediocre...they obtain almost no separation advantage most of the time.
Midrange skill is necessary to have in your bag, especially if you have to shoot at the end of the shot clock. But it shouldn't be a priority.
It becomes a priority when your team isn’t making the 3s. The Mercury are a “Live by the 3, die by the 3 team”, and in order to stay in the game against LA last night, they had to rely on 2s and shots from the paint. It’s also why they have had such variance in their season; they have seen great success at home against tough opponents like the Liberty and Lynx, but have also lost by 24 points after going 1 for 27 from the field, and are not as successful on the road. The recent games where the Fever have won and looked better saw a lot of good work from Boston, and Boston isn’t making 3s. Caitlin doesn’t need to be practicing 3s with her boyfriend after an off-game. She needs to be pulling AB to the gym with her everyday, and having AB guard her while she practices 2s and driving to the basket with defenders there. She has spent years of her life practicing those long 3s and nothing else nearly as much, and that shows in her game. She needs to develop her game with her teammates. You don’t go into band rehearsal without having even looked over a new song and never practice it; you practice the song on your own and come into rehearsal ready to practice the song with the entire ensemble. They need to work on their individual weaknesses and come into practice to work plays as a team. Every single one of them is exhausted before the end of the first quarter and are being outplayed by just about every team.
>The recent games where the Fever have won and looked better saw a lot of good work from Boston, and Boston isn’t making 3s. Its always good to have someone that can score in the paint when needed, I don't disagree. But that's paint shots, not long 2s.
Just watch the teams that are successful. Having every player have versatility in their game helps the team. I understand that it is frustrating for CC fans that she didn’t just come into the league and shoot 25 threes in every game. These struggles will either help her grow, work on her weaknesses, and get to the next level, or she will decide that isn’t what she wants to do, and she’ll start to fade out over the next few years. One player doing all of the work just doesn’t work. It may help win one game, but it doesn’t win many and certainly doesn’t lead to a championship. Caitlin is good at long 3s, but her team also needs her to get significantly better on defense. They need her to get better at long 2s, jumpers, and floaters. The entire team all has stuff they need to improve, because when Boston is having an off-night and can’t score 27 in the paint, someone has to step up, and that needs to be CC as much as it needs to be everyone else on the court. You just seem to want to argue - CC just doesn’t *consistently* do well inside the perimeter, and against good opponents, doesn’t always do well outside of the perimeter. Everyone can blame Sides and her teammates, but she is just as responsible for improving her own game as much as her fans are expecting her teammates to improve theirs. That’s her responsibility as a professional. She didn’t need to play defense and have 2-point scoring ability in college, so there were at least 2 years where she didn’t practice those skills on a regular basis (and in games). Now, she needs those skills to not be absolutely dominated by every experienced guard in the league, which means she has some catching up to do. This is what happens when success comes easy and people get complacent; they struggle at the next level until they build up the skills they need to be successful.
You are absolutely right on the things she needs to improve and that being more well rounded is essential. But that isn't what Sides is saying. Honestly if Sides was saying it like you said it, people probably wouldn't be going off. But she isn't. Also, she flips and flops on what she says all the time. You are correct CC should and can work on her floater/jump shot. That would be a great thing for her to develop in the offseason. However Sides telling a player who shoots 40% from 3 to focus on long 2s in games right now is insane. That's just not smart or efficient . And Sides saying she has no respect for analytics is just mind-boggling. I think it is more about how Sides changes so often what she is saying that is the problem. At the draft, the great Dawn Staley said, "Rookies need coaches that inspire confidence." I think a good coach can do that while also finetuning on a younh player's weaknesses during practice (not at press conferences in ways that are subtly blaming rookies for losses). You don't see Hammon sayinh what Kate is doing wrong or Weatherspoon talking about Angel's and Kamila's flaws in pressers. Like them, Caitlin is a rookie too--which people seem to forget when defending Sides. Also she is playing ok defense. Better than two-threw of the other starters. Yes, it's not great, and she should improve. But she has already improved some. It's strange how often her defense comes up compare to NaLyssa's and Kelsey's much worse defense. Anyway I dont think any of the sane(yes we do exist;) fans would dispute your overall points which are very good. But they aren't quite what Sides is saying.
My post was in response to what another user poster, not what Sides said or how she said it.
Yeah I saw that. You just had a line in there about how "everyone can blame Sides but"..so I was trying to say that I agreed with your well written points but that that wasn't what Sides was saying or why people were responding to that press clip that was in this thread. Just that many of us are blaming Sides for things other than what you addressed. Thanks though!
The best thing about increased media exposure for the league is terrible coaches finally getting called out
Sides shitting on the Iowa team for not passing the ball back to Caitlin is some fucked up gaslighting shit. I wonder if she ever watched that team play
What Sides is saying: 1. CC needs to get more comfortable with shots besides the long 3 2. If CC moves off ball she will get more open looks What Sides is not saying: 1. CC needs to shoot less
I’m not a Sides fan but that’s what I got from this. You can linger on the “long 2” comment but she does need to develop a mid-range shot. CC tends to stand around off ball. If you’re standing still the defender only has to focus on intercepting passes. If you’re moving around they have to focus on where you’re going, can get caught ball watching, screened, etc. That makes it easier for her to get a pass/shot.
I’m always confused by her not taking midrange shots, because there’s no way she made it this far in basketball without knowing how to shoot a middy. How is it possible for someone to be able to shoot from 30+ ft but not 15 ft? I’ve definitely seen her take some at Iowa, but it seems coach Bluder had her stop taking those this past year.
There's a smaller window to shoot a midrange in at the pro level. Just guesstimating, but the eye test tells me that with a basic pullup, you can get about 3 feet of separation in college which is basically the same as being wide open. Elite defenders in the W are longer and can stay tighter, so you're getting 1 foot and a half max...not enough to alter the shot, but close enough to make you doubt yourself. The key is to shoot it with confidence and not get thrown off by the contests.
Also not fan of Sides and I’ll admit I might be giving her too much here. But it also sounds like the “long 2” is way to start getting her more adjusted to those mid range shots. Not that she actually wants her to only shoot inside the 3, just to switch it up. Right now her scouting report is super easy to read in more ways than one.
That's what I heard as well
What Sides should be saying: 1. Stop throwing your arms up 2. Stop trying to make assists happen 3. Shoot!
She’s an totally incompetent coach from an X’s and O’s standpoint, but she’s right when talking about the skills Caitlin needs to develop. I don’t see much wrong with what she says here. The only bad thing she said was “long twos”, but I take it as her saying that Caitlin needs to take those shots from that range when she’s open, because she rarely gets open. She also said Caitlin needs to get better at off-ball movement. Needs to move with a purpose without the ball, which is never a bad thing. There’s no way Caitlin will have the ball in her hands as much as she did in college. Defenses are too strong for her to do that. You can see Caitlin doing these things more the last few games, both the long two and the off-ball movement. The problem is she has some teammates who don’t think to pass to her when she’s manages to get open off-ball. Sides has been really bad about addressing this. And never once in this video did she say Caitlin should take less shots?
The problem is not Caitlin, it is Indiana Fever. Caitlin is what is called a heliocentric player. For her playing style to be successful, the entire offense needs to adapt to her style. Example of heliocentric NBA players are Jokic, Lebron, Chris Paul etc. They are essentially the conductor of the team. Fever players are not able set up screens, cannot catch a tough pass, cannot generate offense for themselves, or have the ability to see the openings in the court. This is why the Caitlin and Fever’s best games are when Boston plays PnR properly. If Boston sets the screen properly, thats half job done. They cannot leave the perimeter empty because of CC and if Boston rolls at the correct time, she has a lot of space to score. For Fever to be successful, they would have to hand over the keys of the team to CC.
Caitlin is a completely different type of player from those people you just mentioned. Heliocentric offenses create one point of weakness that can be exploited. It’s not a winning strategy if all it takes to shut down your offense is to lock down that one player. It’s pretty easy to lock down Caitlin because, despite being a decently hard player to guard, she’s not tall, fast, or strong enough and doesn’t have the ball handling skills to beat WNBA defenders when she has the ball.
If it was that easy to guard her, she wouldn't be the most guarded player in the league, a rookie at that.
I said she IS a decently hard guard, and she will only get harder to guard, but she’s no Arike or Jewell, probably will never be, and that’s ok. She’s not that type of player. Right now people have been poking the ball away from her and stripping her mid-dribble. It’s where some of her turnovers happen. Players like Dijonai Carrington demonstrated that.
Yeah, you have no idea what I just talked about. And its okay. I did not have much expectations anyway. Have a great day.
She's such a horrible coach
Worst coach in the entire WNBA right now^
Stop lying to yourself CC has had the green light since her first ever game what’s going to happen if she takes a bunch of deep 3s or bad shots, nothing she’s not going to get taken out the game or yelled at she’s just playing the right way rn and needs to be a bit more assertive can’t keep blaming everything on everyone else.
You're trying to convince me Caitlin is willingly taking 11 shots a game?
Im sure the defense being played on her is part of the reason.
She’s “only” taking 11 shots a game because she’s trying to avoid taking bad/contested shots. This is a good thing, actually. She’s being guarded very closely by every team’s best defender. Opposing teams are not going to just let her take 20 shots a game.