Assistant Coach Discussion: McMillan And Brooks

that alone is a message, right?

 

On the other hand, Jerry West was mentally fried when we gutted our roster to get Shaq and he was forced to take that risk. Hard business.

 

yeah, we're screwed. that's over, even if we do hire borrego or jj or whatever.

i wonder if now isn't the time to circle back to a vet like stotts. i don't think his ego will get in the way, and he may find the immediate challenge (trying to win in a race against lebron's clock) more interesting and less daunting that guys still trying to establish a name/career.

scott brooks was listed as a potential assistant, and he's another veteran coach who's kind of washed out and might want to take a big swing at the naysayers. i feel like that's what we'd be best off with now. nobody should touch our job if they're trying to get their career started on the right foot (ask luke and ham). but somebody who's been maligned or marginalized could see it as a chance at redemption.

 

I agree they are really thin on sources right now because of how tight lipped and cutoff Rob is being right now. But, and we might not ever know this so it could be speculation, did Woj "son" him if he and his good ole buddy used us to get the Uconn deal? You're not going to have sources on something that's being manufactured by another news breaker cause they're creating the news.

Woj is essentially this awful Bond villain

 

I think JJ is out and Borrego heads to Cleveland. Borrego saw how things played out for the last guy who was our third choice.

Stotts may end up being the guy. But I think probably end up with an assistant.

 

This site is going to go ballistic when we hire Sam Cassell.

 

I actually think a combo of Stotts with Vogel makes a lot of sense for the Lakers. But they're going in a very different direction

 

woj might have sonned him by staying out of the process because he knew the imminent hiring of jj redick wasn't true and he knew that he didn't know what was true. when he did know something (that hurley was talking to the lakers), he threw down the hammer, and it was funny (to me).

and i think hurley definitely got the real benefit out of this whole mess, but rob had to be playing along with woj to some extent, imo. the two reasons i think so is that we really haven't counter-leaked anything and that woj was clearly in spin control--partly for us--in that segment earlier in the thread.

 

i don't think anyone knows right now, except the principal players in our front office--who haven't been telling people much, it appears.

 

I think we either have other names in our pocket (useful to remember that nobody knew squat of Hurley until last week) that nobody knows and we proceed with our strategy or it makes sense to pivot to a short term guy to ride LeBron to the sunset and then try again for a dinasty coach

 

And I wonder if we could get one of those overlooked veteran coaches on a shorter term deal that aligns with Lebron’s.

Say Lebron opts out and re-signs on a 3 year deal (2 years and a player option), and you align that with Brooks or Stotts on a 4 year deal (last year team option so functionally a 3 year deal)

That way you have your veteran coach to try to “win now” during the remainder of Lebron’s window, and then once Lebron leaves/retires you have the flexibility to transition to a new era and survey the coaching market again for your true “program builder” of the future. In that scenario you probably try to grab a young coach with “potential” as your lead assistant to groom them as an option for the long term guy in a few years

Wouldn’t be exciting for the fans, and would keep the optics that the FO is cheap and not capable of long term building, but it might be the safer option. It’s not that we wouldn’t want to build for the long term, it’s just conservatively kicking that can down the road a few years since the field is dried up right now

 

Who could these other secret names even be though?

Are there any other college coaches, assistants, unemployed former head coaches, etc who would really move the needle more than the remaining names that have already been reported?

Would be pretty funny if the FO feels obligated to go for another splashy outside-the-box name and starts to pursue Becky Hammon only for her to also spurn us because she’s focused on trying to win a three-peat

 

this. we're in a bad time right now, as there's no unjustly fired head coach out there, imo. like, everyone knew mike malone got a raw deal in sacramento, like, the day he was fired. i wouldn't be shocked if our golden goose lue is fired in the next three years. i think it's can-kicking time. that involves some embarrassment, but...we're already living there full-time.

i sorta threw that out yesterday. hammon, the coach at alabama, some ex-pat a la david blatt to cleveland back in the day? i'm certain they've considered folks we haven't heard about yet, though. maybe not made contact, but discussed.

 

Time to call Phil Handy.

I'm only half joking.

 

Yikes look at that upper body. Reminds me I was surfing on youtube the other day and came across one of those stupid humans teasing or waay too close to wild animals compilations. In one this kangaroo got pissed and stood up and was close and clear in the frame. Holy crap he looked like a giant demon or something. Massive arms up top and big muscled chest. And people box those things? Think how powerful the hind legs must be they boing around on ... if they want to go martial arts on you.

 

Depending on who is really available, we may not have much choice here.

 

This is possible, but I still don’t see Borrego as being THAT in demand that he’s Cleveland’s primary target and they’ll give him an unmatchable offer.

Possible that the escalating talks with Cleveland are to put pressure on the Lakers. I could see a scenario where after the botched Hurley stuff, Rob wants to just rip the bandage off and move forward, and we end up getting an announcement within the next day or two that we’ve hired Borrego

 

I actually thought about that on the drive home today. With Hurley the plan was now and the future, that sounded like what they are/were hoping for regarding the swing for JJ. But with fewer and fewer options and if we're resetting the board, letting Handy try his hand (I know) at being the stopgap until Bron retires, it might not be a bad idea. Or at least one of the better of the remaining bad ideas.

The window before the off-season starts is growing smaller by the minute. At least you don't have to catch Handy up. He knows the players and the latest rumors were we're most likely making upgrades on the fringes vs wholesale roster changes, so there wouldn't be a drastic change in the style of play he'd want to run now vs come training camp.

 

I don't like the idea of Adelman. I know he's supposed to be a great offensive guru but to beat a drum, he has the best big man in the NBA who also happens to be one of the best non PG facilitators of all time. Unicorns like that are a cheat code that makes it impossible to predict success elsewhere (it fails much more than it success) . I'd be much more interested in Nori if we went that route. I'm interested in why NOTHING came out from either side about how those talks went. If they went well, you'd assume their side would be leaky trying to get their current team to make staying worth their while.