Let me state for the record that, while I like Skander's argument, I disagree with it.
Ask yourself who ran the prettiest offenses (in the half court) to watch over the last few years.
Adelman sans Webber. His scheme is pass-oriented. Saunders in Minnesota. His scheme is ball movement. Sloan in the Stockton/Malone days. Dictated, directed cuts out of the UCLA set.
We just watched the Utah game last night, Skander. If you noticed, there was a lot of standing around. It was UGLY. Lots of shots as the shot clock was expiring. Poor ball movement. It was obvious that Sloan was *NOT* dictating tons of cuts and such, as he has in the past. No UCLA set. No pick-and-roll. Wasn't even like it was Utah we were watching.
I think that it takes good coaches to get players on the teams to move, because the Michael Jordan star image has gotten players who don't have the ball accustomed to standing around. Heck, even in the triangle, consider that many of the guards were supposed to be "spot-up shooters." You know what the effect of being a spot-up shooter is? Well - from experience - I can tell you. You start to stand around...waiting for that kick out. Heck - you're open at the spot where you're expected to hit your shot. Why should you move?
This past week, at my Upward basketball practice, we talked about where I wanted my players "standing around" at if there was no defender on them. I told them I didn't want them standing around on the perimeter - I wanted them standing around right in front of the goal...stay there a couple of seconds...get out of the lane long enough to avoid a 3-second violation, and then GO RIGHT BACK.
Offense has suffered, and I lay the blame where George Karl, in his book, laid the blame - ISOLATION OFFENSE. It's awful, slow, boring basketball. It's effective - assuming you're isolating Michael Jordan, or a young, hungry Shaquille O'Neal. And it's fun - assuming you're Jordan or O'Neal. Kind of sucks to be Ron Harper or Rick Fox in such a scheme, though.
And, when you get right down to it, coaches controlled the game in the '70's and '80's, too. MacLeod and the Suns and Mavericks. Motta and Mavericks. Moe and the Nuggets. Cunningham and Riley and McKinney and Ramsey. So you've got your D'Antonis of the bunch, but you've got your Adelmans, Saunderses, and Sloans, too.
It's not the coaches trying to get noticed. It's the isolation offense that a number of them employ.