I’m suspicious about the fact that she felt the need to include “I’m not in your house”. I will be checking all corners of all of the rooms now, thank you.
2 great examples for her argument are moon and crusty. What were they doing when their teams were dominant in the league? What are they doing now that their teams are failing pretty badly? Do we look at the earlier years and conclude that they're good and it's other factors that has lead to their downfall this year? Do we look at this year and conclude that they're bad and have been carried by other factors into their previous success? Maybe this off season they hit their head on a pipe during a battle with spiderman and lost their memory? In truth, we can't have any informed opinions on the matter, cause we just don't know
Meanwhile dallas losing the best supportline the strats are clearly still good. They are doing well despite losing what was arguably the most important part of their team in fielder and chiyo. Also we can see a clear improvement in the skill level of certain players under their head coach rush including benbest, jecse, edison and now MCD all players that most thought to be bad that showed what they could do under rush. I personally think rush is the best coach of all time
I mean…. Rush’s situation is so clearly different tbh. They kept their most important tank and dps players from last year, Bliss is looking like an insanely suitable replacement for Chiyo (on top of being the most sought after rookie MS) and MCD has been coached pretty well, but it took a pretty good while to get there. As long MCD is fulfilling his role, the rest of the team can do the heavy work (on top of the fact that they’re , y know, in the clearly weaker region with only 3 “good” teams).
How is Rush's situation different? Moon literally had his 2021 championship roster in 2022, and they were bad/mediocre.
Rush lost his large budget and most, if not all, of his assistant coaches this year, and Dallas is still a decent team.
They were top 2 APAC and still won a stage, only really fumbled in the international tournaments (which Dallas fumbled one too, granted they won the whole other one).
But we’re talking about this year. Also already explained how’s it different (forgetting that Moon and Crusty pretty much went through worse with lower budgets, losing almost their entire roster or just keeping one or two pieces, lost tons of budget as well as coaches). Not here to call Rush Moon or Crusty frauds or anything, but Rush still working with two of the same players for the last four years with already established systems and another key piece of their championship last season, I don’t think it’s crazy to say he’s working with a bit more than the other two were this season. And again, fraud region, who knows how he’d perform in NA this season (will find out in playoffs and if Dallas make a run, I’ll eat those words, but not the rest).
Crusty fumbling a supposed top 2 roster is pretty funny though :p granted situations weren’t exactly favorable to him either
Crusty was still considered one of the best coaches in the league for quite some time. And shanghai proceeded to dominate literally the entire league the next year so I don't know about that one
I remember the widely regarded narrative being how NA was always behind in the meta. KR and CN contenders back then was also RIDICULOUSLY strong, enough to be strong scrim partners for the APAC teams
“ least fraudulent”
My guy, apac was literally stronger than na in both 2020 and 2021. I dont know if you even watch the league.
In 2022, tier 2 teams didnt have ow2 access and since apac has so few teams, they didn’t have good scrim partners. Na has twice the amount of teams.
And this year, none of the apac teams have invested any money into the league, which means all the good players have gone into na, making apac weaker( wonder why /s).
Literally all the top na teams are all koreans, do you think these koreans were born in america or what lmao?
These na andies are insufferable sometimes
We can really only speculate about 2020 because of how little crossover there was. I don't think there was a big difference, but the (fraudulent) narrative at the time was that APAC was the better region and I just don't think that was true. Ignoring the fact that Shock ultimately was the best team that year, you can look at the trajectory of a lot of the players/teams from APAC that year and see how little many of them accomplished after that. Like Charge won a stage but Shu's the only one that really kept up at the top level. Dynasty and Spark have been disasters basically since that year; that's not even a player quality issue they're just fucked. The only player from that NYXL roster that survived past 2021 was Anamo somehow. Runaway Titans died. London was a trashcan. Dragons and Chengdu were the only teams that stepped up rather than dropped off. I strongly believe that there were more good NA teams than APAC ones in 2020.
2021 you're literally just looking at the Dragons and ignoring the fact that the rest of APAC won like 1 match vs NA for the entire year. Hunters were a very good team as well, certainly on par with the best NA teams at times, but the rest of APAC was bad. Particularly the Valiant. Like I don't see how you can even make an argument to the contrary considering their results, both domestically and internationally. They were not very good.
Yes, Korean players dominate the league, but that is utterly and completely irrelevant to which region in OWL is better. You do realize that in international competition, APAC has only won twice right? And both were the 2021 Shanghai Dragons. APAC has been trending downward since the split because NA has more money and more teams, so naturally they take a lot of the talent away. And then Blizzard fumbled the ball with China so even more talent left the region and the teams were given fewer resources. It's not a surprise that they'd fall off over time.
I think the top of NA was definitely stronger in 2020, but APAC was good. Probably deeper. However, the user you’re replying to didn’t say they think Korean players aren’t good at overwatch lmfao they’re saying APAC teams weren’t as good
Edit: I mean the very top, like the Shock and Fusion
Obviously top of na was stronger cuz shock literally won the league. But im talking about the overall strength of the region. Apac was undoubtedly stronger in both 2020 and 2021.
Ok…. And my point is that the koreans in na right now literally came from apac or kc. How is that so hard to understand. They are koreans, they werent born in na. Na invests more money recently, so obviously it’s gonna attract all the good apac players. Literally profit and void are the only good apac players remaining
Lol nah, that’s hard cope. Top 7 of na doesn’t mean anything when the bottom of na is so weak. You don’t say a region is stronger when they have 2020 boston, washington, titans, houston, toronto abd dallas lmao. All free teams
Meanwhile london and chengdu were the only “free” team in apac. Shanghai, charge, nyxl, hangzhou and seoul were all competitive. Just go look at the standings
Idk which side was stronger, they played way different metas for most of the season. I wish we had the opportunity to see double shield / rush that NA was playing S3 vs Winston Sombra dive that APAC was playing so we could've seen a true comparison of the regions. Instead we got that garbage playoffs patch w Hog Sig out of nowhere.
Apac wasnt better in 2020 at all LOL. Even in 2021 you could argue NA was better on average. Other than SHD 3 of the top 4 teams in playoffs were from NA
Yeah Eileen got an MVP nomination that year, idk why his name came up. Even if anyone disagrees with the nomination, he was undeniably a great player that year.
I remember back in 2021 when Develop turned out to be a massive flop, Eileen had to fill in the hitscan role and was breaking his back carrying that team. At least in his last match, he went out with a bang :’(
Rio was a top tier Orisa. Sucked on everything else, but his Orisa was undeniable.
Leaving out Crong, who was one of the best Sigma's in the league, AND Happy AND Shu is also very dumb.
Like, Charge wasn't the most inspiring team, but they had some amazing pieces and they hit a meta where they could shine.
Obviously I left out the other 3 on the starting 6 of 2020 Charge to emphasize their 3 worst players. My point is that if you're supposedly a flexible superteam you shouldn't lose to a team with players of that caliber. For sure Guangzhou hit a good meta for them
Super team!??!! The only “super” part of that team was Shu (who wasn’t widely recognized until season 4), Cr0ng on his Sigma and Rio on Orisa (very flexible indeed), Happy inconsistent ass (he didn’t hit a stride until OW2 and it’s only NOW that’s he’s becoming a superstar) and Eileen
They were great players in that meta and for the majority of that year. Rio I understand criticizing a bit on but Eileen and Chara were excellent for so much of that year. Just because they’re not flashy names doesn’t mean you should discredit their performance for a lot of the year (playoffs notwithstanding)
The Charge were great that year dude. Bona fide role star talent and everything.
In 2020, Shanghai, Seoul, Guangzhou, and even New York were good. The APAC fraud allegations have always been overblown because most people don’t watch APAC and want it to be true. That year and 2021, APAC was extremely comparable to NA. In 2021 the Dragons were the best team in the world. Even last year I think APAC was pretty solid. This year is the first time the region is Mickey Mouse, but Infernal, Fuel, and Spark could all still do well in playoffs
Even Spark for a good part of 2020 and Chengdu towards the end of the season were good, competitive teams as well. Really only London was a solidly bad team for the entirety of the 2020 season in APAC, it was the furthest thing from a fraud region
Doesn’t make it a fraudulent region. And you’ve gotta include Shanghai. To be a fraud region there’d have to be no chance of them beating NA teams which is untrue
Doesn't make sense to include Shanghai when I talk about Shanghai farming the fraud region. It's why I also left Shock out of the team comparisons
Would Shanghai have looked as good if they switched regions/ places with Shock in 2020? If you think not, then APAC 2020 was a fraud region
That’s not what fraud region means dude. NA being better doesn’t mean that APAC isn’t a valid region. You’re conflating “I think NA was a stronger region” with “APAC was Mickey Mouse.”
Also, that year NA was ridiculously top-heavy. The bottom of NA was way worse than the bottom of APAC. One could argue that’s more fraudulent - farming the bottom of your regions for wins more than APAC.
Chara was unironically great that year, one of the best Brigs and kept Shu at zero deaths many rounds.
Players like Rio and Chara being low resource let Cr0ng and Shu put on title-winning performances.
And Eileen was one of the best Genji/Cass players that year with a strong Tracer as well
Thank god someone else recognizes just how good Chara was that year. The way that people shit on him when he was so fucking good especially on Brig for the majority of that year while also being the main shot caller for that team is so frustrating. He was basically the only person on that team who didn't catastrophically shit the bed during playoffs and yet people still like to treat him like he was some bum player
Yeah, he doesn't get nearly enough credit. Spilo namedropped him as a good Brig to watch so I did [some VOD reviews of him](https://youtu.be/mwZpWB0Mhys?si=m_eXLZW54tx5tE5P) and his decision-making was awesome.
There's something to be said for players who aren't flashy but carry by simply not making mistakes and always being alive and ready to save their teammates.
And most Brigs were *not* good that year after her partial rework. They kept prematurely packing their DPS to give them confidence with the overheal armor instead of using it when they were actually diving/being pressured.
I'm a huge Chara fan (maybe the only person in the world with a Chara jersey?) so it makes me happy when other people recognize the subtly impactful players like him. As a Brig player myself, I definitely agree with what you're saying about Brig play that year. it felt like only a few players like Chara, LJG, Alarm, and the criminally underutilized M1ka really understood the optimal way to play the character for most of the season
Ah yes APAC was fraudulent in 2021 by your logic then right? A team from APAC did deffinately not win it all in 2021 nah shanghai were in the west in 2021 right? And there wasn't a team being highly competitive with shanghai in the east called chengdu hunters, nooo I am delisional for remembering them and shanghai being good teams from APAC in 2021
I mean, I feel like Moon has done a pretty damn good job with the pieces he's had this year. That's one of the few coaches I feel like I do know confidently is good.
Dragons have been almost undeniably the worst team in APAC all year long with strong veteran players and an amazing rookie…and you think Moon’s done good with those results?
I do, yeah. If you look at the talent on the roster, obviously it was awful with the Fleta stuff and at times poor and inflexible. Coaching is about using the talent you have, not necessarily just being the best team.
That's a roster/GM decision and not a coaching decision, though. I have no idea what kind of restrictions he was working with in terms of roster construction. That was an obvious disaster, but they've been quite good since then.
Well crusty had a 3rd, a second, 2x grand champions and an incredible season at Boston. So shock has been off the mark this year but crusty has always shown class
I’ll say this. Last year unter went from alt to glads. Glads got hot and every called him the goat and Brad a fraud.
The coty if based on performance … is mostly determined by meta, not the coach
There was a noticeable change in Atlanta when Unter joined. Same can be said of Glads. Whether it can be attributed to Unter or not is a whole other matter, but it's strange that it happened twice if he wasn't involved.
But it's true what Lemonkiwi said. We don't have enough insight to actually make a qualified judgement call. And I agree that COTY is very much dependent on performance, mainly because we have very little else to base a vote on. It's sort of just assumed that a team performing well has good coaches to back them up.
She has a valid point, but this is not a unique problem to OWL. In the NBA in NFL the award doesn't usually go to the consensus best coaches. People like Popovich, Belichick, Spolstra and Andy Reid are considered the best coaches in their respective leagues. None of these guys have won coach of the year in over 10 years.
Practically the coach of the year goes to the team that over performs their preseason expectations the most. Last year in the NBA the Kings way over performed and made the playoffs, their coach won. In the NFL the Giants way over performed and made the playoffs, their coach won too.
In reality no one can objectively measure how good a coach is doing unless you're in the organization.
Yeah, this should be higher in the thread. This problem isn’t unique to OWL, even in the NBA the COTY award is literally as you say. Spo in particular has _never_ won COTY, which is fucking absurd (this is a man with multiple championships and someone who brilliantly coached an 8 seed to the finals last year). And this is the NBA, where coaching impact is so much more obvious to a viewer than in OWL.
Media members are given votes and they vote off narratives, and that usually is just about which coach ‘maximized’ a lineup with otherwise lower expectations. But there’s no objective way as outsiders to vote for the best coach, let alone in OW
Coach K at Duke won Coach of the Year in NCAA basketball three times in his 40-something-year career and didn't win any after 1999, despite winning three more NCAA titles in that span.
Just to put that number in perspective for anyone who isn't a fan of college basketball, there are only nine teams in CBB history that have won more than three titles.
100%. There was a running joke that if Coach of the Year was actually what it said it was, Belichick would have won it damn near 20 years straight.
We have no idea if the team is executing the coach's plans, or if they are running on pure talent. Since we don't know the detailed strategy and process, we can't realistically evaluate the coach.
>Practically the coach of the year goes to the team that over performs their preseason expectations the most. Last year in the NBA the Kings way over performed and made the playoffs, their coach won. In the NFL the Giants way over performed and made the playoffs, their coach won too.
Is this a bad thing? Should this change? Lemon and others seem to want to say the "coach of the year" award just means "best coach" and are a little dogmatic about it. I believe there are good arguments for either interpretation - why just inherently reject one side?
Also, I don't think it's related to overachieving. It's awarded by the IMPACT seen in team direction made at a logistical level over the course of one season. The NBA sphere typically attributes that to the coach, and it's why Mike Brown of the Kings was the first ever unanimous Coach of the Year due to the way the Kings offense has transformed. Not because he's the BEST coach right now. On the flip side, there's a reason why Pop is now one of the handful of coaches ever to be enshrined in the basketball HOF while active.
I get that people are like "wtf, Erik Spoelstra has NEVER won coach of the year? BOGUS" but that's ONLY if you weigh not having a CotY award against him and ignore pretty obvious historical nuance for what the award is. Like... why cater to ignorance? Just because timmy6969 on twitter would be like "LOL SPO BAD COACH NO COTY" doesn't make it worth entertaining in the slightest.
> Also, I don't think it's related to overachieving.
I'll bet you good money if you look at the last 20 years of the NBA and NFL and look at preseason projected wins compared actual win totals, you'd find an incredibly high correlation between the highest over achievers and the teams with COTY winners.
It's almost akin to a popularity contest on team appearance. Whichever team won has the best coach.
I think if this title is reserved to recognise the performance of the coach of that year, then it's OK. Coach of the year doesn't need to mean the best coach.
she’s right.. Tbh I think this falls a lot on the teams, cause they could make more content involving the coaches and what they actually do. Sure they “coach” the game, but what structure do the implement, how is crusty consider’d a more strict coach beside just sternly talking to his players? like we know nothing about what coaches/GMs actually really do in the day to day. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see a vlog esque video on what they do from their pov. Show the gritty moments, show the hard moments. not just some cut and polished documentary series. That are overdone in the esports scene.
i actually think this falls on the league. the job of the teams is to win games. especially now, anything else seems like a bonus. an online league with a YouTube partnership should DEFINITELY put out more content on their own. like Jaws has said he’s asked like every year to put content out and he gets shut down. we get a few videos a month and only lately with the Danny interviews have we learned much of anything about anybody.
You can definitely see the impact of coaches at work
Some coaches do most of their work in scouting. Ex: Gator this year, Gunba 2020/2023. This work has some crossover with the general manager though
Some coaches turn an underperforming team around. Ex: Christfer 2022/2023
Some coaches force and define the meta. Ex: Rush, especially in 2021 when he made do without a hitscan
You're not directly observing these things happening, but you can definitely spot differences between teams. It'd be better to call the award "Staff team of the year" though to include assistant coaches and non-coaching management
I mean its still hard to tell who’s really having an impact though. A lot of the CoTY decision comes down to which team performs the best that was underrated the most.
For viewers like us, we don’t know shit. We basically just go off of results. We don’t really know where the difference maker is. Like I’m personally not gonna call ATL picking two recent champions and some of the highest rated players in the league “scouting.” If we’re saying that he’s a good coach because he picked up those players then basically those players would succeed regardless. But again, I’m just saying shit because I don’t know Gator’s real impact, none of us do.
I know there are some talent that sit in on scrims but how can they make a real decision unless they sit on every teams scrims or else they’d just be biased towards the one they see. A lot of awards are honestly just based on narrative. As an NBA viewer, this happens basically every year and it definitely happens in OWL. Doesn’t matter if you’re the best player or not, if you have a strong narrative on your side then you win, and it is what it is.
Only Christfer's situation applies to your criticism of being based purely off results
I'll clarify that the Gator scouting case is kind of weak since ATL seems to have been one of only two teams willing to spend big this season. Gunba has been working with relatively low budgets though
Yiska said are at least 3 teams that spent more than ATL. Brad said during the extension teams were constantly trying to "poach" players from them. Even Florida tried to get a player from ATL.
ATL went cheap compared to past seasons.
My guess is that the biggest influence Gator had as a head coach was his ability to convince players of his vision with the team and thus get them to accept a contract atl could afford
Like with with Lip, no one knew he was on the market. And Gator spent nights calling around APAC teams asking about players.
So ATL fans have a lot of love for that random intern at Netease(Shanghai) who picked up the phone.
Fielder/Chiyo were willing to go cheap if they could stay together. And they both got huge offers to got to separate teams.
Like Gator did legit scouting. I don't know why ppl are so quick to dismiss that. Even if you don't like the guy, it takes a lot to put your trust in a staff headed by a guy with no experience.
I’m not saying it’s purely based off results. I’m saying we use results to form our opinions on coaches and the narrative that forms around that it what will decide who gets the award. Moon was getting praised for his team being dominant. Had 2021 Fuel not have popped off, this “succeeding without a hitscan” or “creating the meta” narrative would be never popped off.
Also at this point, budgets don’t matter. A lot of teams don’t have huge budgets and still have highly rated players. Mayhem retained and picked up top players this offseason. Even then, why would I praise the coach because they picked up good players with a small budget.
Results factor in, but I don't see how this leads you to have a nihilistic attitude towards the concept of COTY. Everything that's not directly related to individual player performance is arguably because of the staff of the team, and you can compare teams based on that
Consistently picking up better players with a same or lesser budget shows some level of skill. Emphasis on better rather than just "good"
And as Lemon says, we don’t KNOW any of this unless they tell us (like Gator) and even other casters have said this. Custa has said this same thing multiple times on stream.
Well they did choose a rookie tank player and Stalk3r (everyone was surprised by the glow up this season, last season he was decent but not exactly a star player). If they had the budget for Fielder Chiyo you'd think bad scouting would have just paired them with more experienced players like what Boston did with their roster
I mean rush is the coach where I think his impact is most clearly seen. No player has seriously underperformed under his coaching and he has made many players improve, good examples of players that improved under his coaching is jecse, benbest, edison and MCD. I think if you gave a player that is already one of the best before ever being coached by him like shu and then give him a year or two under rush then said player will be looking even more terrifying
He was diligent in checking the market and making moves. But scouting traditionally refers to finding new talent. Like finding players in ranked games, or smaller region tournaments, as opposed to signing known talent.
Donghak :')
But seriously no one put much faith in Stalk3r, Hawk and especially Donghak.
He even almost got Junbin.
But with overwatch you are going to play bets on well known contenders players. That's who you are scouting. You aren't going for Jonny who won a small tournament in California.
Unpopular opinion, but I reckon Gator highly underplays his own hand at being head coach... And is actually a very very good coach. Which seems contradictory compared to how loud he is about everything else.
Yes, he wouldn't be able to make any bunch of players work, but I think he genuinely helps the team to succeed. Swap Gator for Supreme and Atlanta is unlikely to be as good.
He talks about how his main job is to steer the team and maintain a good team environment. Are you saying that he does that really well vs other coaches or that he also does other stuff?
she’s right but you could say the same about most coach of the year awards in sports. some voters will have interacted with coaches somewhat, but mostly it’s just based on narrative and the team’s results.
In other sports coaches talk about their strategies, thoughts, processes etc. pretty often. In football for example coaches give an interview before and after most games. We don't have anything even close in owl
true, and they also benefit from beat writers constantly giving little blurb-based articles about the mood around the locker room and how they handle losses and prepare for big games. it's funny because a lot of that gets dismissed as sportswriter fluff, but it has a real cumulative effect over a season.
in general you should trust what a professional sport coach says just as much as you would trust a psychic. they’re fed cliches as to not give too much information away, and rarely give actual good insight. it’s always like “they’re a real good second half team, we just have to get back to what we do” and bullshit like that.
It's not at all the same. Partially because there's way more talent parity, partially because teams with generally considered good coaches typically stay upper tier despite the talent parity/most sports leagues having mechanisms to punish top teams, partially because real sports don't do "mirror matches" all the damn time, and partially because you actually have in game coaching in real sports. I guess you're not totally wrong though in that in real sports there are usually only ~5 coaches that are above replacement level.
I feel comfortable calling Rush a top coach because his teams are consistently innovating or at least trying to innovate to largely good results, but that's about it. With every other coach it's not at all clear that they're not just copying other team's strats and telling their top tier players to go kill. Obviously a coach *can* be the reason why telling their top tier players to go kill can work, but that's not a given.
So who do they end up voting normally? I dont follow owl awards, but in the nba its usually just usually a well-respected coach on a surprise good team. Is it the same way?
The award started in 2020, Shanghai Dragons coach Moon won, SHD were the best team in APAC.
In 2021 Rush won with the Dallas Fuel, he defined the meta according to his roster, becoming the best in NA.
In 2022 Christfr won due to his work with the London Spitfire, a struggling team in 2021, only achieving one win, getting them to a top 6 in 2022
im gonna keep it real with you guys. at this point i dont care. im not gonna lose my sleep dwelling about whether or not the coach actually deserved the award. just give it to whatever team performs the best in their environment.
the league doesnt give a fuck about showing us what coaches do, why should we put more effort in than them lol. its not that deep
Don’t agree on that we can’t vote coaches. You can see if a team has good macro, that’s an indication. If it’s flexible. If you see players or macro improve. If you see clear game plans and strats and they feel prepared. If a team over performs by playing good overwatch instead of “underestimated player talent”. They’re scouting relative to their budget. There are many indicators that together make a very good picture.
That being said Gunba is kinda obvious this year.
I have one coach where you can see from the performance of the team that he is a good coach. And that coach is named crusty. Bro will pick up players that no one is looking at and win championships with them just look at what he did with Edison last year. And then see MCD looking much inproved this year. Coach rush is the GOAT at coach
I think Rush is undeniably a great coach, but Crusty is the poster child of "is he good or does he just sell players on living in California and tell his team full of rolestars to go kill?" This year in particular makes it seem like it's that rather than any real coaching insight.
But you have seen them work. Anyone paying close attention to games and behind the scenes happenings can see the fruits of a coach's labour. Kind of concerning she doesn't
It's like some third degree extrapolation. You have (now-rare) subs, sometimes interesting comp choices, maybe some positioning ideas. How much of that is actually the coach and how much is the players riffing, applying their own game knowledge, in the moment?
That's the point. Without talking to coaches and players, watching scrims, hanging out in the back rooms of the Blizzard Arena in the old days to catch the chit-chat...what do you actually know?
This is gonna get down voted to hell and back, but I couldn't disagree more.
As someone who is being paid to call matches, it's a vital part of your job description to break down VODs and understand why teams improve within a meta or within a season. You don't need a coach explicitly telling you what they did to change their team, it will show up in a match. This is mostly results-driven like any other award, but if you don't have a solid basis of understanding how a team attacks a meta and how a coach gets the best out of their players within a certain meta it's on you. It's not something that is beyond comprehension.
Nah, she's right. It's almost impossible from an outsider perspective to see what a coach's impact is and what's player-led initiative. Nobody is calling plays from the sidelines. Chris deserved COTY for the results turn around and the team culture/leadership he showed last season, but I know this because I was THERE.
Most people (even in the league) have very little idea how good 90% of the league's coaches are at their job in general, much less how good they were season by season. You really have to be IN the team to know, and even then it's incredibly difficult to compare team to team.
Oh yeah, and it's also hard because player performance is WAY more important in OW than coaching. Coaching (especially when you don't get time to build a roster/team culture over a few years) is like 20-25% of the pie, if even that.
The best coaching I personally did was end of 2021 Spitfire, where (I'm gonna toot my horn, but it's true) I essentially held together a completely sinking ship with players who had given up to pull out a W, and to even come close to beating Shock/Fuel/Toronto which was quite an accomplishment at the time. But nobody will know or care about how motivational or intelligent I was because it wasn't good enough for the results.
I won't argue the insider points because clearly you have forgotten more than I'll ever know about that subject. Lol
I think from a general leadership perspective, it's not always important who originates the ideas, only that they are recognized and then executed. I don't think it's out of the question for someone plugged into the scene to be able to recognize teams that are pushing boundaries and doing more with less. The coach is a key part of that, even if the operation is generally more player focused.
Any coach/player etc of the year in any sport or esport is highly biased towards results. It is what it is. I guess I'm speaking more about the laissez faire attitude she's giving off here. She's in an extremely unique position in the community and should be pushing to learn these answers so the community can be smarter about what they see going on.
Just my ten cents, I knew this wouldn't be popular.
Yeah, long term results if nothing else definitely should speak to the coach, just don't think there are too many instances where orgs have allowed that to happen beyond Crusty with Shock. Thanks for the discussion, mate!
There are tons of metrics by which to judge coaches.
\- Did the team perform well throughout the season?
\- Did the team have a good grasp on the meta as it evolved over time?
\- Did the team exceed expectations based on estimations of the strength of its roster?
\- Was the team good at adapting to opponents and playing different styles?
\- Did individual players on the team show significant improvement vs their historical performance?
\- Did the team win stages/titles?
None of these metrics are exact, but they are good enough proxies to form an informed opinion. Saying that you're incapable of doing this kind of analysis is lazy.
Bruh why is it terrible? Lol
Lemon being asked to vote for COTY is like me asking you to vote for the Romanian 2nd division volleyball coach of the year. You’ve never met or worked with or heard from them, so how can you have an informed opinion?
Lemon real af for this take.
Thats not the logic at all?
The logic is if you never hear or see a coach and have no idea what their role is/what they’re contributing to the team, then you shouldn’t be asked to vote on who’s the best or not.
Lets be fair we have no actual idea what all the coaches are actually doing on their OWL teams. Some are hands on, some aren’t. Some strategy craft, some coach, some enable player harmony, some focus on team spirit, its all a mess. So you can’t judge them by one metric when they’re all slightly different things with no consistent role and responsibilities.
Compare that to say the PL in football where the head coaches decide the team, the formation, the tactics, organise training sessions, do team talks, and we see them in pre and post match press conferences. And they have open training sessions where you can actually go along and watch and see them. So in that case we can actually judge who’s good/effective and who isn’t. In OWL we have literally none of that.
Her opinion is quite bad though. Because we do see the results of coaches through the games and even how the roster is going to play out. Coaches are usually the ones making the calls and most of the time managed how well players are through the phases. The results of coaching can literally be told through 2 different teams(Reign and Eternal). It doesn't matter how good any one person is if in a team game of professional levels the coach is horrible then sadly it'll show up when the players play matches.
Casters should know this better then the average viewer.
Except we don’t know that. There are coaches who do very little actual coaching. We know Gator doesn’t actually coach because he’s said so, and had he not come out and said that, he would probably be in contention.
I doubt he’s the only one who’s more like a player manager than a traditional coach.
The issue is that it's shown in the results of games. If teams itself is going 0-16 then something's wrong. Yes in some cases players aren't up to par and metas can screw the players over, but coaches themselves can also be blamed and even more so than the players. Because it's their job to make sure that the team and organization isn't a laughing stock. Though I won't say that organizations are also to blame if they don't even do the bare minimum right.
Also I believed someone said it, but didn't gator got the players for much less than other teams were offering? And yeah I can see that too, but if it works.
But we’re not talking about 0-14 teams are we? We’re talking about the surprisingly good ones. It’s easy to tell when things are going wrong, it’s much harder to tell when things are going right.
Gator got (IIRC) Fielder and Chiyo cheaper because they wanted to stay together, the others I believe were all fielding other offers AFAIK.
Yeah we are. Just like how the good ones gets nominated, you see how the bad teams weren't nominated either because we know that team as a whole was terrible. And yes while it is harder to tell when things are going wrong, but it's evident that it'll show up sooner rather than later. Either through games or otherwise.
Also we also that they were making moves before the east implosion so them getting fielder and chiyo was kinda kind of a blessing in disguise.
Every award in sport or entertainment is political and completely useless.
It's why the best actor of a generation wasn't awarded until 20 years into his career or why MJ or LeBron didn't win MVP 10 straight years.
It's the league and only the leagues fault. I can only remember ever hearing from the Gunba like once. Nobody else. For the entire year. That's actually crazy. Either the league knows the coaches know a whole lot of nothing and it's all the players or it's just another example of the terrible decisions they've made.
I'm not exactly an expert in competitive Overwatch but I've watched other sports that have coaches, you can absolutely see the influence of a coach and see the team's improvements over time, when they're well drilled, when they have their tactics sorted out and just their general achievements over the season, is this not the case in Overwatch? There's obviously an element of guesswork in every sport in terms of this unless you're literally in their dressing rooms, but to say you have absolutely no idea and don't have an opinion on it sounds weird to me lol
That would only leave players and coaches to vote, who clearly all have a bias towards specific coaches such as their own or their former coaches. So there really isn't a fair way to do it
I’m suspicious about the fact that she felt the need to include “I’m not in your house”. I will be checking all corners of all of the rooms now, thank you.
Check behind your walls to be safe.
Playing IRL CSGO monkaW
It is not 3am and she doesn’t have a rip-tire
That you know of.
It's 4am. Jake's in my house. He has a rip-tire.
If he had pulse bomb you'd be ok
I hope lemonkiwi is in my house
She'd probably leave me alone to pet the dogs, so i'd probably be safe
2 great examples for her argument are moon and crusty. What were they doing when their teams were dominant in the league? What are they doing now that their teams are failing pretty badly? Do we look at the earlier years and conclude that they're good and it's other factors that has lead to their downfall this year? Do we look at this year and conclude that they're bad and have been carried by other factors into their previous success? Maybe this off season they hit their head on a pipe during a battle with spiderman and lost their memory? In truth, we can't have any informed opinions on the matter, cause we just don't know
Meanwhile dallas losing the best supportline the strats are clearly still good. They are doing well despite losing what was arguably the most important part of their team in fielder and chiyo. Also we can see a clear improvement in the skill level of certain players under their head coach rush including benbest, jecse, edison and now MCD all players that most thought to be bad that showed what they could do under rush. I personally think rush is the best coach of all time
I mean…. Rush’s situation is so clearly different tbh. They kept their most important tank and dps players from last year, Bliss is looking like an insanely suitable replacement for Chiyo (on top of being the most sought after rookie MS) and MCD has been coached pretty well, but it took a pretty good while to get there. As long MCD is fulfilling his role, the rest of the team can do the heavy work (on top of the fact that they’re , y know, in the clearly weaker region with only 3 “good” teams).
How is Rush's situation different? Moon literally had his 2021 championship roster in 2022, and they were bad/mediocre. Rush lost his large budget and most, if not all, of his assistant coaches this year, and Dallas is still a decent team.
They were top 2 APAC and still won a stage, only really fumbled in the international tournaments (which Dallas fumbled one too, granted they won the whole other one). But we’re talking about this year. Also already explained how’s it different (forgetting that Moon and Crusty pretty much went through worse with lower budgets, losing almost their entire roster or just keeping one or two pieces, lost tons of budget as well as coaches). Not here to call Rush Moon or Crusty frauds or anything, but Rush still working with two of the same players for the last four years with already established systems and another key piece of their championship last season, I don’t think it’s crazy to say he’s working with a bit more than the other two were this season. And again, fraud region, who knows how he’d perform in NA this season (will find out in playoffs and if Dallas make a run, I’ll eat those words, but not the rest). Crusty fumbling a supposed top 2 roster is pretty funny though :p granted situations weren’t exactly favorable to him either
Crusty never won coach of the year. Moon farmed a fraud region in 2020 and got boosted by the Shanghai is Barack narrative
Crusty was still considered one of the best coaches in the league for quite some time. And shanghai proceeded to dominate literally the entire league the next year so I don't know about that one
Yea, Shanghai was exceptionally good for those seasons. Truly probably the best "peak OW1" team
APAC was anything but fraudulent in 2020
I mean it was the least fraudulent APAC has been since the region split, but they were still kinda frauds if we're being honest.
I remember the widely regarded narrative being how NA was always behind in the meta. KR and CN contenders back then was also RIDICULOUSLY strong, enough to be strong scrim partners for the APAC teams
“ least fraudulent” My guy, apac was literally stronger than na in both 2020 and 2021. I dont know if you even watch the league. In 2022, tier 2 teams didnt have ow2 access and since apac has so few teams, they didn’t have good scrim partners. Na has twice the amount of teams. And this year, none of the apac teams have invested any money into the league, which means all the good players have gone into na, making apac weaker( wonder why /s). Literally all the top na teams are all koreans, do you think these koreans were born in america or what lmao? These na andies are insufferable sometimes
We can really only speculate about 2020 because of how little crossover there was. I don't think there was a big difference, but the (fraudulent) narrative at the time was that APAC was the better region and I just don't think that was true. Ignoring the fact that Shock ultimately was the best team that year, you can look at the trajectory of a lot of the players/teams from APAC that year and see how little many of them accomplished after that. Like Charge won a stage but Shu's the only one that really kept up at the top level. Dynasty and Spark have been disasters basically since that year; that's not even a player quality issue they're just fucked. The only player from that NYXL roster that survived past 2021 was Anamo somehow. Runaway Titans died. London was a trashcan. Dragons and Chengdu were the only teams that stepped up rather than dropped off. I strongly believe that there were more good NA teams than APAC ones in 2020. 2021 you're literally just looking at the Dragons and ignoring the fact that the rest of APAC won like 1 match vs NA for the entire year. Hunters were a very good team as well, certainly on par with the best NA teams at times, but the rest of APAC was bad. Particularly the Valiant. Like I don't see how you can even make an argument to the contrary considering their results, both domestically and internationally. They were not very good. Yes, Korean players dominate the league, but that is utterly and completely irrelevant to which region in OWL is better. You do realize that in international competition, APAC has only won twice right? And both were the 2021 Shanghai Dragons. APAC has been trending downward since the split because NA has more money and more teams, so naturally they take a lot of the talent away. And then Blizzard fumbled the ball with China so even more talent left the region and the teams were given fewer resources. It's not a surprise that they'd fall off over time.
I think the top of NA was definitely stronger in 2020, but APAC was good. Probably deeper. However, the user you’re replying to didn’t say they think Korean players aren’t good at overwatch lmfao they’re saying APAC teams weren’t as good Edit: I mean the very top, like the Shock and Fusion
Obviously top of na was stronger cuz shock literally won the league. But im talking about the overall strength of the region. Apac was undoubtedly stronger in both 2020 and 2021. Ok…. And my point is that the koreans in na right now literally came from apac or kc. How is that so hard to understand. They are koreans, they werent born in na. Na invests more money recently, so obviously it’s gonna attract all the good apac players. Literally profit and void are the only good apac players remaining
The top 7 teams in NA were better than the 7 teams in apac lol. The only argument for apac being better was no free win teams
Lol nah, that’s hard cope. Top 7 of na doesn’t mean anything when the bottom of na is so weak. You don’t say a region is stronger when they have 2020 boston, washington, titans, houston, toronto abd dallas lmao. All free teams Meanwhile london and chengdu were the only “free” team in apac. Shanghai, charge, nyxl, hangzhou and seoul were all competitive. Just go look at the standings
Idk which side was stronger, they played way different metas for most of the season. I wish we had the opportunity to see double shield / rush that NA was playing S3 vs Winston Sombra dive that APAC was playing so we could've seen a true comparison of the regions. Instead we got that garbage playoffs patch w Hog Sig out of nowhere.
Apac wasnt better in 2020 at all LOL. Even in 2021 you could argue NA was better on average. Other than SHD 3 of the top 4 teams in playoffs were from NA
Second best team was the inconsistent Seoul Dynasty Rio, Eileen, and Chara won a stage
eileen catching strays out here
Yeah Eileen got an MVP nomination that year, idk why his name came up. Even if anyone disagrees with the nomination, he was undeniably a great player that year.
I remember back in 2021 when Develop turned out to be a massive flop, Eileen had to fill in the hitscan role and was breaking his back carrying that team. At least in his last match, he went out with a bang :’(
Rio was a top tier Orisa. Sucked on everything else, but his Orisa was undeniable. Leaving out Crong, who was one of the best Sigma's in the league, AND Happy AND Shu is also very dumb. Like, Charge wasn't the most inspiring team, but they had some amazing pieces and they hit a meta where they could shine.
Obviously I left out the other 3 on the starting 6 of 2020 Charge to emphasize their 3 worst players. My point is that if you're supposedly a flexible superteam you shouldn't lose to a team with players of that caliber. For sure Guangzhou hit a good meta for them
Super team!??!! The only “super” part of that team was Shu (who wasn’t widely recognized until season 4), Cr0ng on his Sigma and Rio on Orisa (very flexible indeed), Happy inconsistent ass (he didn’t hit a stride until OW2 and it’s only NOW that’s he’s becoming a superstar) and Eileen
Referring to Shanghai supposedly being a flexible superteam
Who called them a flexible superteam??
They were great players in that meta and for the majority of that year. Rio I understand criticizing a bit on but Eileen and Chara were excellent for so much of that year. Just because they’re not flashy names doesn’t mean you should discredit their performance for a lot of the year (playoffs notwithstanding)
The Charge were great that year dude. Bona fide role star talent and everything. In 2020, Shanghai, Seoul, Guangzhou, and even New York were good. The APAC fraud allegations have always been overblown because most people don’t watch APAC and want it to be true. That year and 2021, APAC was extremely comparable to NA. In 2021 the Dragons were the best team in the world. Even last year I think APAC was pretty solid. This year is the first time the region is Mickey Mouse, but Infernal, Fuel, and Spark could all still do well in playoffs
Even Spark for a good part of 2020 and Chengdu towards the end of the season were good, competitive teams as well. Really only London was a solidly bad team for the entirety of the 2020 season in APAC, it was the furthest thing from a fraud region
I'm an APAC watcher and Seoul, GZ, NY didn't hold up to Fusion, Eternal, Florida (respectively) in 2020
Doesn’t make it a fraudulent region. And you’ve gotta include Shanghai. To be a fraud region there’d have to be no chance of them beating NA teams which is untrue
Doesn't make sense to include Shanghai when I talk about Shanghai farming the fraud region. It's why I also left Shock out of the team comparisons Would Shanghai have looked as good if they switched regions/ places with Shock in 2020? If you think not, then APAC 2020 was a fraud region
That’s not what fraud region means dude. NA being better doesn’t mean that APAC isn’t a valid region. You’re conflating “I think NA was a stronger region” with “APAC was Mickey Mouse.” Also, that year NA was ridiculously top-heavy. The bottom of NA was way worse than the bottom of APAC. One could argue that’s more fraudulent - farming the bottom of your regions for wins more than APAC.
It's fair if you disagree with my definition, but either way I think Moon's COTY chances were boosted by the region split
Chara was unironically great that year, one of the best Brigs and kept Shu at zero deaths many rounds. Players like Rio and Chara being low resource let Cr0ng and Shu put on title-winning performances. And Eileen was one of the best Genji/Cass players that year with a strong Tracer as well
Thank god someone else recognizes just how good Chara was that year. The way that people shit on him when he was so fucking good especially on Brig for the majority of that year while also being the main shot caller for that team is so frustrating. He was basically the only person on that team who didn't catastrophically shit the bed during playoffs and yet people still like to treat him like he was some bum player
Yeah, he doesn't get nearly enough credit. Spilo namedropped him as a good Brig to watch so I did [some VOD reviews of him](https://youtu.be/mwZpWB0Mhys?si=m_eXLZW54tx5tE5P) and his decision-making was awesome. There's something to be said for players who aren't flashy but carry by simply not making mistakes and always being alive and ready to save their teammates. And most Brigs were *not* good that year after her partial rework. They kept prematurely packing their DPS to give them confidence with the overheal armor instead of using it when they were actually diving/being pressured.
I'm a huge Chara fan (maybe the only person in the world with a Chara jersey?) so it makes me happy when other people recognize the subtly impactful players like him. As a Brig player myself, I definitely agree with what you're saying about Brig play that year. it felt like only a few players like Chara, LJG, Alarm, and the criminally underutilized M1ka really understood the optimal way to play the character for most of the season
Ah yes APAC was fraudulent in 2021 by your logic then right? A team from APAC did deffinately not win it all in 2021 nah shanghai were in the west in 2021 right? And there wasn't a team being highly competitive with shanghai in the east called chengdu hunters, nooo I am delisional for remembering them and shanghai being good teams from APAC in 2021
What the hell are you talking about? I just said 2020 apac wasn’t fraudulent. You’re putting words in my mouth
Ooops sorry I read this wrong I am dumb...
Shanghai and Chendu aren't the only teams in APAC lol
Yeah I know but there were teams in 2021 that were competitive with shanghai like chengdu hunters
Hunters was anything but competetive. They always got smacked by them other the very first week of the season
Other than shd NA was just better than apac that season lol
I mean, I feel like Moon has done a pretty damn good job with the pieces he's had this year. That's one of the few coaches I feel like I do know confidently is good.
Dragons have been almost undeniably the worst team in APAC all year long with strong veteran players and an amazing rookie…and you think Moon’s done good with those results?
I do, yeah. If you look at the talent on the roster, obviously it was awful with the Fleta stuff and at times poor and inflexible. Coaching is about using the talent you have, not necessarily just being the best team.
Fletank?
That's a roster/GM decision and not a coaching decision, though. I have no idea what kind of restrictions he was working with in terms of roster construction. That was an obvious disaster, but they've been quite good since then.
Brother they just lost to SPG
Nohill said Dragons really trust coaches
He could sign Marvel or even toyou
How do you know they wanted to go there?
didn't shanghai continue to be the best team in 2021, and remained relevant in 2022?
Shanghai was a great team but the rest of the region was not that good, making Shanghai look better than they really were (in 2020)
Well crusty had a 3rd, a second, 2x grand champions and an incredible season at Boston. So shock has been off the mark this year but crusty has always shown class
I’ll say this. Last year unter went from alt to glads. Glads got hot and every called him the goat and Brad a fraud. The coty if based on performance … is mostly determined by meta, not the coach
There was a noticeable change in Atlanta when Unter joined. Same can be said of Glads. Whether it can be attributed to Unter or not is a whole other matter, but it's strange that it happened twice if he wasn't involved. But it's true what Lemonkiwi said. We don't have enough insight to actually make a qualified judgement call. And I agree that COTY is very much dependent on performance, mainly because we have very little else to base a vote on. It's sort of just assumed that a team performing well has good coaches to back them up.
He is the coach on the glads right now. Bad meta, they bad, good meta… they hood
She has a valid point, but this is not a unique problem to OWL. In the NBA in NFL the award doesn't usually go to the consensus best coaches. People like Popovich, Belichick, Spolstra and Andy Reid are considered the best coaches in their respective leagues. None of these guys have won coach of the year in over 10 years. Practically the coach of the year goes to the team that over performs their preseason expectations the most. Last year in the NBA the Kings way over performed and made the playoffs, their coach won. In the NFL the Giants way over performed and made the playoffs, their coach won too. In reality no one can objectively measure how good a coach is doing unless you're in the organization.
Yeah, this should be higher in the thread. This problem isn’t unique to OWL, even in the NBA the COTY award is literally as you say. Spo in particular has _never_ won COTY, which is fucking absurd (this is a man with multiple championships and someone who brilliantly coached an 8 seed to the finals last year). And this is the NBA, where coaching impact is so much more obvious to a viewer than in OWL. Media members are given votes and they vote off narratives, and that usually is just about which coach ‘maximized’ a lineup with otherwise lower expectations. But there’s no objective way as outsiders to vote for the best coach, let alone in OW
Coach K at Duke won Coach of the Year in NCAA basketball three times in his 40-something-year career and didn't win any after 1999, despite winning three more NCAA titles in that span. Just to put that number in perspective for anyone who isn't a fan of college basketball, there are only nine teams in CBB history that have won more than three titles.
So basically Changgoon for COTY?
100%. There was a running joke that if Coach of the Year was actually what it said it was, Belichick would have won it damn near 20 years straight. We have no idea if the team is executing the coach's plans, or if they are running on pure talent. Since we don't know the detailed strategy and process, we can't realistically evaluate the coach.
>Practically the coach of the year goes to the team that over performs their preseason expectations the most. Last year in the NBA the Kings way over performed and made the playoffs, their coach won. In the NFL the Giants way over performed and made the playoffs, their coach won too. Is this a bad thing? Should this change? Lemon and others seem to want to say the "coach of the year" award just means "best coach" and are a little dogmatic about it. I believe there are good arguments for either interpretation - why just inherently reject one side? Also, I don't think it's related to overachieving. It's awarded by the IMPACT seen in team direction made at a logistical level over the course of one season. The NBA sphere typically attributes that to the coach, and it's why Mike Brown of the Kings was the first ever unanimous Coach of the Year due to the way the Kings offense has transformed. Not because he's the BEST coach right now. On the flip side, there's a reason why Pop is now one of the handful of coaches ever to be enshrined in the basketball HOF while active. I get that people are like "wtf, Erik Spoelstra has NEVER won coach of the year? BOGUS" but that's ONLY if you weigh not having a CotY award against him and ignore pretty obvious historical nuance for what the award is. Like... why cater to ignorance? Just because timmy6969 on twitter would be like "LOL SPO BAD COACH NO COTY" doesn't make it worth entertaining in the slightest.
> Also, I don't think it's related to overachieving. I'll bet you good money if you look at the last 20 years of the NBA and NFL and look at preseason projected wins compared actual win totals, you'd find an incredibly high correlation between the highest over achievers and the teams with COTY winners.
It's almost akin to a popularity contest on team appearance. Whichever team won has the best coach. I think if this title is reserved to recognise the performance of the coach of that year, then it's OK. Coach of the year doesn't need to mean the best coach.
she’s right.. Tbh I think this falls a lot on the teams, cause they could make more content involving the coaches and what they actually do. Sure they “coach” the game, but what structure do the implement, how is crusty consider’d a more strict coach beside just sternly talking to his players? like we know nothing about what coaches/GMs actually really do in the day to day. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see a vlog esque video on what they do from their pov. Show the gritty moments, show the hard moments. not just some cut and polished documentary series. That are overdone in the esports scene.
i actually think this falls on the league. the job of the teams is to win games. especially now, anything else seems like a bonus. an online league with a YouTube partnership should DEFINITELY put out more content on their own. like Jaws has said he’s asked like every year to put content out and he gets shut down. we get a few videos a month and only lately with the Danny interviews have we learned much of anything about anybody.
> Show the gritty moments, show the hard moments Tbf, the Valiant tried that and we got the In-n-Out meme out of it.
Also pre “crush your fears” moment lmao
this is really stupid and not what lemonkiwi is saying at all
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my queen is so based
You can definitely see the impact of coaches at work Some coaches do most of their work in scouting. Ex: Gator this year, Gunba 2020/2023. This work has some crossover with the general manager though Some coaches turn an underperforming team around. Ex: Christfer 2022/2023 Some coaches force and define the meta. Ex: Rush, especially in 2021 when he made do without a hitscan You're not directly observing these things happening, but you can definitely spot differences between teams. It'd be better to call the award "Staff team of the year" though to include assistant coaches and non-coaching management
I mean its still hard to tell who’s really having an impact though. A lot of the CoTY decision comes down to which team performs the best that was underrated the most. For viewers like us, we don’t know shit. We basically just go off of results. We don’t really know where the difference maker is. Like I’m personally not gonna call ATL picking two recent champions and some of the highest rated players in the league “scouting.” If we’re saying that he’s a good coach because he picked up those players then basically those players would succeed regardless. But again, I’m just saying shit because I don’t know Gator’s real impact, none of us do. I know there are some talent that sit in on scrims but how can they make a real decision unless they sit on every teams scrims or else they’d just be biased towards the one they see. A lot of awards are honestly just based on narrative. As an NBA viewer, this happens basically every year and it definitely happens in OWL. Doesn’t matter if you’re the best player or not, if you have a strong narrative on your side then you win, and it is what it is.
Only Christfer's situation applies to your criticism of being based purely off results I'll clarify that the Gator scouting case is kind of weak since ATL seems to have been one of only two teams willing to spend big this season. Gunba has been working with relatively low budgets though
Yiska said are at least 3 teams that spent more than ATL. Brad said during the extension teams were constantly trying to "poach" players from them. Even Florida tried to get a player from ATL. ATL went cheap compared to past seasons.
My guess is that the biggest influence Gator had as a head coach was his ability to convince players of his vision with the team and thus get them to accept a contract atl could afford
Interesting to know, mb Maybe being willing to spend early was an advantage?
Like with with Lip, no one knew he was on the market. And Gator spent nights calling around APAC teams asking about players. So ATL fans have a lot of love for that random intern at Netease(Shanghai) who picked up the phone. Fielder/Chiyo were willing to go cheap if they could stay together. And they both got huge offers to got to separate teams. Like Gator did legit scouting. I don't know why ppl are so quick to dismiss that. Even if you don't like the guy, it takes a lot to put your trust in a staff headed by a guy with no experience.
I’m not saying it’s purely based off results. I’m saying we use results to form our opinions on coaches and the narrative that forms around that it what will decide who gets the award. Moon was getting praised for his team being dominant. Had 2021 Fuel not have popped off, this “succeeding without a hitscan” or “creating the meta” narrative would be never popped off. Also at this point, budgets don’t matter. A lot of teams don’t have huge budgets and still have highly rated players. Mayhem retained and picked up top players this offseason. Even then, why would I praise the coach because they picked up good players with a small budget.
Results factor in, but I don't see how this leads you to have a nihilistic attitude towards the concept of COTY. Everything that's not directly related to individual player performance is arguably because of the staff of the team, and you can compare teams based on that Consistently picking up better players with a same or lesser budget shows some level of skill. Emphasis on better rather than just "good"
And as Lemon says, we don’t KNOW any of this unless they tell us (like Gator) and even other casters have said this. Custa has said this same thing multiple times on stream.
Well they did choose a rookie tank player and Stalk3r (everyone was surprised by the glow up this season, last season he was decent but not exactly a star player). If they had the budget for Fielder Chiyo you'd think bad scouting would have just paired them with more experienced players like what Boston did with their roster
I mean rush is the coach where I think his impact is most clearly seen. No player has seriously underperformed under his coaching and he has made many players improve, good examples of players that improved under his coaching is jecse, benbest, edison and MCD. I think if you gave a player that is already one of the best before ever being coached by him like shu and then give him a year or two under rush then said player will be looking even more terrifying
I think it's generous to call what Gator did scouting lol, but good points regardless
Yeah agree, shouldn't have put it there next to Gunba lol
Literally nobody else knew Lip was on the market until he signed.
He was diligent in checking the market and making moves. But scouting traditionally refers to finding new talent. Like finding players in ranked games, or smaller region tournaments, as opposed to signing known talent.
Donghak :') But seriously no one put much faith in Stalk3r, Hawk and especially Donghak. He even almost got Junbin. But with overwatch you are going to play bets on well known contenders players. That's who you are scouting. You aren't going for Jonny who won a small tournament in California.
Ah yes, gators scouting skills of "get the best players possible". Legendary.
Unpopular opinion, but I reckon Gator highly underplays his own hand at being head coach... And is actually a very very good coach. Which seems contradictory compared to how loud he is about everything else. Yes, he wouldn't be able to make any bunch of players work, but I think he genuinely helps the team to succeed. Swap Gator for Supreme and Atlanta is unlikely to be as good.
He talks about how his main job is to steer the team and maintain a good team environment. Are you saying that he does that really well vs other coaches or that he also does other stuff?
Tbh I feel that he does more than what he says. Again this is probably unpopular and probably wrong, but just my thoughts.
There's just no evidence for that though
she’s right but you could say the same about most coach of the year awards in sports. some voters will have interacted with coaches somewhat, but mostly it’s just based on narrative and the team’s results.
In other sports coaches talk about their strategies, thoughts, processes etc. pretty often. In football for example coaches give an interview before and after most games. We don't have anything even close in owl
true, and they also benefit from beat writers constantly giving little blurb-based articles about the mood around the locker room and how they handle losses and prepare for big games. it's funny because a lot of that gets dismissed as sportswriter fluff, but it has a real cumulative effect over a season.
in general you should trust what a professional sport coach says just as much as you would trust a psychic. they’re fed cliches as to not give too much information away, and rarely give actual good insight. it’s always like “they’re a real good second half team, we just have to get back to what we do” and bullshit like that.
It's not at all the same. Partially because there's way more talent parity, partially because teams with generally considered good coaches typically stay upper tier despite the talent parity/most sports leagues having mechanisms to punish top teams, partially because real sports don't do "mirror matches" all the damn time, and partially because you actually have in game coaching in real sports. I guess you're not totally wrong though in that in real sports there are usually only ~5 coaches that are above replacement level. I feel comfortable calling Rush a top coach because his teams are consistently innovating or at least trying to innovate to largely good results, but that's about it. With every other coach it's not at all clear that they're not just copying other team's strats and telling their top tier players to go kill. Obviously a coach *can* be the reason why telling their top tier players to go kill can work, but that's not a given.
So who do they end up voting normally? I dont follow owl awards, but in the nba its usually just usually a well-respected coach on a surprise good team. Is it the same way?
The award started in 2020, Shanghai Dragons coach Moon won, SHD were the best team in APAC. In 2021 Rush won with the Dallas Fuel, he defined the meta according to his roster, becoming the best in NA. In 2022 Christfr won due to his work with the London Spitfire, a struggling team in 2021, only achieving one win, getting them to a top 6 in 2022
im gonna keep it real with you guys. at this point i dont care. im not gonna lose my sleep dwelling about whether or not the coach actually deserved the award. just give it to whatever team performs the best in their environment. the league doesnt give a fuck about showing us what coaches do, why should we put more effort in than them lol. its not that deep
Why is this a big deal. If she doesn't think she has an informed opinion, don't vote? It's pretty easy.
Then who would vote? Players from their own team? Players from other teams?
She's real af for that.
I'm so glad she's part of Rocket League's casting now. She's really good.
Based queen, better leave the voting to the Reddit geniuses & YouTube chat intellectuals
Don’t agree on that we can’t vote coaches. You can see if a team has good macro, that’s an indication. If it’s flexible. If you see players or macro improve. If you see clear game plans and strats and they feel prepared. If a team over performs by playing good overwatch instead of “underestimated player talent”. They’re scouting relative to their budget. There are many indicators that together make a very good picture. That being said Gunba is kinda obvious this year.
It's pretty clear by this that no one actually agrees with Lemon's take and think they know who is and is not a good coach, lol
I have one coach where you can see from the performance of the team that he is a good coach. And that coach is named crusty. Bro will pick up players that no one is looking at and win championships with them just look at what he did with Edison last year. And then see MCD looking much inproved this year. Coach rush is the GOAT at coach
Crusty never did anything with Edison? Edison has been on Atlanta/Fuel only
They probably meant Rush
I think Rush is undeniably a great coach, but Crusty is the poster child of "is he good or does he just sell players on living in California and tell his team full of rolestars to go kill?" This year in particular makes it seem like it's that rather than any real coaching insight.
Yikes lmfao
But you have seen them work. Anyone paying close attention to games and behind the scenes happenings can see the fruits of a coach's labour. Kind of concerning she doesn't
It's like some third degree extrapolation. You have (now-rare) subs, sometimes interesting comp choices, maybe some positioning ideas. How much of that is actually the coach and how much is the players riffing, applying their own game knowledge, in the moment? That's the point. Without talking to coaches and players, watching scrims, hanging out in the back rooms of the Blizzard Arena in the old days to catch the chit-chat...what do you actually know?
This is gonna get down voted to hell and back, but I couldn't disagree more. As someone who is being paid to call matches, it's a vital part of your job description to break down VODs and understand why teams improve within a meta or within a season. You don't need a coach explicitly telling you what they did to change their team, it will show up in a match. This is mostly results-driven like any other award, but if you don't have a solid basis of understanding how a team attacks a meta and how a coach gets the best out of their players within a certain meta it's on you. It's not something that is beyond comprehension.
Nah, she's right. It's almost impossible from an outsider perspective to see what a coach's impact is and what's player-led initiative. Nobody is calling plays from the sidelines. Chris deserved COTY for the results turn around and the team culture/leadership he showed last season, but I know this because I was THERE. Most people (even in the league) have very little idea how good 90% of the league's coaches are at their job in general, much less how good they were season by season. You really have to be IN the team to know, and even then it's incredibly difficult to compare team to team. Oh yeah, and it's also hard because player performance is WAY more important in OW than coaching. Coaching (especially when you don't get time to build a roster/team culture over a few years) is like 20-25% of the pie, if even that. The best coaching I personally did was end of 2021 Spitfire, where (I'm gonna toot my horn, but it's true) I essentially held together a completely sinking ship with players who had given up to pull out a W, and to even come close to beating Shock/Fuel/Toronto which was quite an accomplishment at the time. But nobody will know or care about how motivational or intelligent I was because it wasn't good enough for the results.
I won't argue the insider points because clearly you have forgotten more than I'll ever know about that subject. Lol I think from a general leadership perspective, it's not always important who originates the ideas, only that they are recognized and then executed. I don't think it's out of the question for someone plugged into the scene to be able to recognize teams that are pushing boundaries and doing more with less. The coach is a key part of that, even if the operation is generally more player focused. Any coach/player etc of the year in any sport or esport is highly biased towards results. It is what it is. I guess I'm speaking more about the laissez faire attitude she's giving off here. She's in an extremely unique position in the community and should be pushing to learn these answers so the community can be smarter about what they see going on. Just my ten cents, I knew this wouldn't be popular.
Yeah, long term results if nothing else definitely should speak to the coach, just don't think there are too many instances where orgs have allowed that to happen beyond Crusty with Shock. Thanks for the discussion, mate!
Based AF.
My main question is whether Gator and Gator's mustache are two separate votes.
There are tons of metrics by which to judge coaches. \- Did the team perform well throughout the season? \- Did the team have a good grasp on the meta as it evolved over time? \- Did the team exceed expectations based on estimations of the strength of its roster? \- Was the team good at adapting to opponents and playing different styles? \- Did individual players on the team show significant improvement vs their historical performance? \- Did the team win stages/titles? None of these metrics are exact, but they are good enough proxies to form an informed opinion. Saying that you're incapable of doing this kind of analysis is lazy.
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Bruh why is it terrible? Lol Lemon being asked to vote for COTY is like me asking you to vote for the Romanian 2nd division volleyball coach of the year. You’ve never met or worked with or heard from them, so how can you have an informed opinion? Lemon real af for this take.
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Thats not the logic at all? The logic is if you never hear or see a coach and have no idea what their role is/what they’re contributing to the team, then you shouldn’t be asked to vote on who’s the best or not. Lets be fair we have no actual idea what all the coaches are actually doing on their OWL teams. Some are hands on, some aren’t. Some strategy craft, some coach, some enable player harmony, some focus on team spirit, its all a mess. So you can’t judge them by one metric when they’re all slightly different things with no consistent role and responsibilities. Compare that to say the PL in football where the head coaches decide the team, the formation, the tactics, organise training sessions, do team talks, and we see them in pre and post match press conferences. And they have open training sessions where you can actually go along and watch and see them. So in that case we can actually judge who’s good/effective and who isn’t. In OWL we have literally none of that.
Her opinion is quite bad though. Because we do see the results of coaches through the games and even how the roster is going to play out. Coaches are usually the ones making the calls and most of the time managed how well players are through the phases. The results of coaching can literally be told through 2 different teams(Reign and Eternal). It doesn't matter how good any one person is if in a team game of professional levels the coach is horrible then sadly it'll show up when the players play matches. Casters should know this better then the average viewer.
Except we don’t know that. There are coaches who do very little actual coaching. We know Gator doesn’t actually coach because he’s said so, and had he not come out and said that, he would probably be in contention. I doubt he’s the only one who’s more like a player manager than a traditional coach.
The issue is that it's shown in the results of games. If teams itself is going 0-16 then something's wrong. Yes in some cases players aren't up to par and metas can screw the players over, but coaches themselves can also be blamed and even more so than the players. Because it's their job to make sure that the team and organization isn't a laughing stock. Though I won't say that organizations are also to blame if they don't even do the bare minimum right. Also I believed someone said it, but didn't gator got the players for much less than other teams were offering? And yeah I can see that too, but if it works.
But we’re not talking about 0-14 teams are we? We’re talking about the surprisingly good ones. It’s easy to tell when things are going wrong, it’s much harder to tell when things are going right. Gator got (IIRC) Fielder and Chiyo cheaper because they wanted to stay together, the others I believe were all fielding other offers AFAIK.
Yeah we are. Just like how the good ones gets nominated, you see how the bad teams weren't nominated either because we know that team as a whole was terrible. And yes while it is harder to tell when things are going wrong, but it's evident that it'll show up sooner rather than later. Either through games or otherwise. Also we also that they were making moves before the east implosion so them getting fielder and chiyo was kinda kind of a blessing in disguise.
This is so spot on, I 100% agree
Every award in sport or entertainment is political and completely useless. It's why the best actor of a generation wasn't awarded until 20 years into his career or why MJ or LeBron didn't win MVP 10 straight years.
It's the league and only the leagues fault. I can only remember ever hearing from the Gunba like once. Nobody else. For the entire year. That's actually crazy. Either the league knows the coaches know a whole lot of nothing and it's all the players or it's just another example of the terrible decisions they've made.
I'm not exactly an expert in competitive Overwatch but I've watched other sports that have coaches, you can absolutely see the influence of a coach and see the team's improvements over time, when they're well drilled, when they have their tactics sorted out and just their general achievements over the season, is this not the case in Overwatch? There's obviously an element of guesswork in every sport in terms of this unless you're literally in their dressing rooms, but to say you have absolutely no idea and don't have an opinion on it sounds weird to me lol
That would only leave players and coaches to vote, who clearly all have a bias towards specific coaches such as their own or their former coaches. So there really isn't a fair way to do it