Denver Nugget Coach Brian Shaw Has Stopped Coaching, Started Parenting

Back in the day you didn't have to coach effort.  (Listen to the interview)

What the hell is Brian Shaw doing?  What I mean to ask is, why is he doing what he is doing?  Let me get more specific. Is Brian Shaw out of his mother lovin' mind?

I fully realize that my inability to clarify my question comes across as confusion about my concern, but I am actually perfectly lucid with both my question and my concern.  Coach Shaw is behaving in a way that says he actually gives a damn about the careers of his players and not just the performance.

Dare I say that he is almost behaving as a parent.

What makes Shaw's behavior most peculiar is the excessive vulnerability that he displays in how he castrates his players for a lack of effort.  Shaw isn't only so revealing of his teams shortcomings, he is just as quick to place his own failures as a coach, displaying a twisted marriage of humility with intense clarity of what must be done to rectify the challenge before him.  Whenever you are willing to lay down on the knife yourself, it is not hard to share this pain with your team. Those who lay it down like this realize the value.

In the old days, coaches would elude to the very things Shaw is fully exposing.  Let Denver sports radio legend Sandy Clough tell it, we've never seen such a degree of honesty from a professional coach.

http://www.1043thefan.com/Channels/DrewScott/story.aspx?ID=2135986 (radio interview link)

In honor of the last days of Black History Month, I beg to differ.

The history of the black coach is full of such honest dialogue.  They may have all used their own method of personal expression, but black coaches have often been introspectively revealing of themselves and their players, probably to the detriment of their careers.  Shaw says that we don't know who is a championship caliber player on this roster because he hasn't provided them a championship environment yet.

Whether it was Herman Edwards, Dennis Green, Mike Singletary, Avery Johnson or Brian Shaw, we have seen something of this sort. Typically such revelation comes at the end of the road for a coach who figures they have nothing else to lose in being so honest.  What we can't quite decipher in this case is whether the end of the road this time is for the coach or for the uninspired players that he has called out? Shaw has shown signs of being the right guy even if not the best guy for a depleted group of young players with no floor leadership and questionable maturity.

Aaron Brooks has certainly brought something to the table including immense talent and professionalism.  Unfortunately, Brooks has also helped to bring about the return of doubt in a bunch of players who were  already fighting to believe they belong in the NBA.  Young players define themselves by their place in the pecking order and Brooks doesn't improve that for any of them.

Most young players think they need to score to get more minutes while most coaches are giving the minutes to the hardest workers.  A team that has changed so drastically since last season will see more changes by next year as well.  One might think that players are auditioning for another team if nothing else.

These Nuggets challenge your mind to make sense of their roller coaster play.  The moments of brilliance are as dominant as the ineptitude is bad.  Fan's have begun to criticize Shaw mostly because we've seen things that make it hard to stop watching.  Mostly, the Nuggets, and its fan base, do not survive to see the fourth quarter because the wheels fall off of the wagon before the end of the game arrives.

Last night the Nuggets smelled up the place for two quarters and still had a chance to beat a really good Portland team.
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