At the official Fan Blog, pilight Kevin Brown lays out his claim that even great coaches tend to lose effectiveness over time.

"A successful coach," he asserts, "changes the needs of the organization and in doing so she makes herself obsolete. The first thing a coach does when taking over a team is to determine what changes need to be made. Over time, coaches tend to lose the ability to see what needs to be changed."

pilight Kevin first advanced this hypothesis to explain, or partly-explain, the Comets' struggles a couple of years back. It reminds me of temperate forest succession, and of certain large-scale theories of history.

Does it suggest that if Michael Cooper were still coaching L.A., the Sparks wouldn't be very good?

If so, is it plausible? If not, how much explanatory power does it have?

Are the best coaches the ones who can go on seeing what needs to be changed, even when whatever needs replacing or undoing emerged from that very coach's prior decisions?

Also new at the Fan Blog: Lisa describes the Storm's home-court advantage, and Melissa takes straight white boys to Sun games.

Melissa says the young men she brings to Mohegan "are falling in love with the women's game; not just the cheerleaders... These are the guys who are going to be in the room making the decision to keep Title IX around.

"I know there is going to be a day when my buddy Brian is in a meeting and someone makes some comment about lesbians and athletics. And Brian is going to cut that person to shreds 'cause he is now a WNBA fan and it was a lesbian who taught him about the game."