www.bostonherald.com/sports/basketball/other_nba/view.bg?articleid=1138903&format=textIs he coaching timber?
If not, Kevin McHale could be next one felled by Glen Taylor
By Mark Murphy / NBA notes | Sunday, December 14, 2008 |
www.bostonherald.com | NBA Coverage
Photo by AP
Though Randy Wittman was the one who early last week was sacked from a team that is still too young to win, Kevin McHale didn’t escape indictment by Minnesota owner Glen Taylor.
Asked about how much say McHale would continue to have in personnel decisions in his move from the front office to coach, Taylor said, “The same that Randy had.”
Which is to say almost none. The Timberwolves owner, whose name triggers silent disgust from Kevin Garnett, has essentially told McHale that the mess is his to clean up, perhaps even more than Wittman was held responsible for not working miracles.
McHale is thus repeating history. He took over when Flip Saunders was fired, too. He has also indicated that he wants to turn the franchise around before he takes a permanent fishing vacation.
It’s the sort of thing that Isiah Thomas said during his prolonged exit from New York. But where the former Knicks coach never did clean up the mess he created, at least one of McHale’s closest friends believes there is hope on the Minnesota bench.
“Kevin has a lot to offer,” Danny Ainge said. “He’s a bright guy with good people skills.”
Though McHale now says he has joined the bench for the long haul - a huge difference from his last tour, which seemed forced at best - there is still a question about just how much he likes this idea.
He was obviously forced onto the bench by Taylor.
“If this is something he wants to do, than I think he can do a good job,” said Ainge, who as of late last week hadn’t talked to his former Celtics [team stats] teammate. “But I know Kevin is the kind of guy who isn’t going to be forced into something he doesn’t want to do.
“I thought he did a good job the last time. He really wanted it to work out with Randy - I can tell you that. But he obviously feels that this is what has to be done.”
The problem is that the NBA’s level of patience seems to be shortening.
Wittman was the fourth coach to be fired this season, following Eddie Jordan (Washington), P.J. Carlesimo (Oklahoma City) and Sam Mitchell (Toronto) onto the street.
With the exception of Mitchell, all had young teams with no immediate future.
Perhaps the Celtics’ rapid turnaround last season has contributed to the anxiety now felt by many of these teams.
Oklahoma City seems to have a healthy draw - courtesy of a populace hungry for major league legitimacy - regardless of the quality of the team. But Timberwolves attendance is once again a major concern.
Taylor obviously feels that a core of players like Al Jefferson [stats], who can’t defend any better than during his time with the Celtics, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair [stats], Randy Foye and Corey Brewer should be better than the 4-15 record this team had at the time of the trade.
“I don’t know what it is, but there’s a lot of unusual expectations,” Ainge said of the leaguewide atmosphere. “There’s four coaches gone, and speculation of more who might be gone.
“I’m not saying that there isn’t a time and place to change coaches. But there seems to be a lot of situations out there with unrealistic expectations of coaches and player. Players are put under such a microscope today. There are so many talk shows now where all you hear about are these players not being any good.”
Many of those players - at least more than their coaches, anyway - find fulfillment somewhere else.
Ainge knows, for his own team has benefited from providing a change of scenery for two significant players: Garnett and Ray Allen. Paul Pierce [stats] came close to needing a similar change of location.
“We have three players now who have been through that,” Ainge said. “They were maligned for not winning, but they were able to win somewhere else.”
Though he is now living on the edge, perhaps McHale can still escape a firing.
“I hope he can have an impact with these young guys,” said Ainge. “It seems like that team is a little disconcerted right now. But Kevin is one of the most competitive people I know. He loves to teach. I hope he can make this work.”
Sun spots blemishes
Starting with the departure of Mike D’Antoni, Phoenix general manager Steve Kerr has been committed to changing the free-wheeling culture of a Suns team that was good, but never enough to reach the NBA Finals.
The question now is just how far Kerr wants to go.
In addition to shipping off two valuable role players in Raja Bell and Boris Diaw to Charlotte last week for a big scorer (Jason Richardson) and a young role player (former Boston College forward Jared Dudley), he may have inadvertently sent a message to the man who has made Phoenix run: Steve Nash.
Or maybe it wasn’t inadvertent. With all the talk about the 2010 free agent class focusing on LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, it has been almost entirely overlooked that Nash, too, could be a free agent.
The two-time MVP was visibly bothered by the departure of his friend, Bell, and responded in the next game with a seven-point, 2-of-12 shooting performance during a loss to the Lakers Wednesday.
It should be noted that Nash, with nine assists, tied Bob Cousy for 13th on the NBA’s all-time assist list.
Not that it was much fun.
If Diaw is to be believed - and the swingman was speaking out of bitterness over Kerr’s changes when he said it - it’s not a lot of fun to be a Sun these days.
“It definitely wasn’t as fun,” Diaw said of Kerr’s veer toward a more defense-oriented mind-set with a slower pace anchored by Shaquille O’Neal. “It wasn’t as fun for fans. It’s not as fun for people on the team. I’ll always remember Phoenix with Mike.
“We went from a winning team that was the most exciting team in the league to a half-winning team that wasn’t exciting at all.”
Diaw and Bell were both known to be unhappy before the trade occurred.
But even Mr. Solid Citizen, Nash, has mirrored Diaw’s feelings about the fun factor with his own comments.
The summer of 2010 isn’t that far away, as every LeBron-obsessed fan in New York knows.
“Like I said before about the 2010 speculation, it’s so far away,” Nash said. “I just want to try and win as many games as I can and worry about it after.”
That may become a challenge.
“I was pretty flat emotionally,” Nash said of the Lakers game. “I had a tough one. I struggled. I was emotionally drained and just couldn’t give the guys what they needed to get the win.”
Losing his friend had taken that kind of toll.
“It’s tough,” he said of the trade. “While I’ll welcome my new teammates with open arms, it’s tough when you lose your best friend. It’s tough when you lose two of your best buddies. It’s tough and it hurts.” . . .
The true head-scratcher in all this is what the trade does for Charlotte. Players like Bell and Diaw only play to their full value when augmented by stars. Richardson was that star.
It helps that Gerald Wallace, one of the best two-way performers in the league, is still on board. But coach Larry Brown appears to be assembling his floor plan one end at a time. And right now the coach seems to care almost nothing for offense.
“We don’t have an offense,” he said recently of the Bobcats’ scoring scheme.
But that almost seems to be OK with Brown, who built his championship team in Detroit on the basis of stopping people first, and scoring off the fruits of his defense.
Rivers politicking
As evidenced by the absurdist plight of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, dirty politics can be the source of great entertainment. The news certainly drew a roar out of Celtics coach and Chicago native Doc Rivers, for whom politics is indeed a spectator sport.
“I’m a Chicago politician,” he said, laughing at Blagojevich’s alleged attempt to sell president elect Barack Obama’s vacant senate seat to the highest bidder.
“Here in Boston, you guys have your city councilors and state senators,” said Rivers, who as a player in Atlanta had actually been asked about his interest in someday becoming mayor of that great southern city.
Rivers, who never took the approach seriously, turned these supporters down.
Perhaps the stage wasn’t big enough.
“Where I come from, they go for the big stuff,” Rivers joked about the difference between Boston and Chicago politics.
