i think if people want
controversy, this story absolutely has the makings of it. the way it's been handled has been suspicious to say the least, and it could even affect the team next year, i don't know.
the team was considering a fourth assistant long ago. a
fourth. that's last year's staff plus a new guy. now? sam's right-hand man has taken the jet in a cloud of confusion, and he's been replaced by, granted, a former league coach, but someone in
our scouting department nonetheless. ok. i don't know if i'd criticize that, i don't know the first thing about evans, but it's like we had to fill this hole asap. we couldn't wait a day. we took no time to reflect and do our due diligence- we seemed to have grabbed the first thing within arm's reach. why? very bizarre, imo.
when you couple that with the way we've shelved any ideas of hiring a
fourth coach after all the recent speculation, you start to wonder: what's the story here? does sam want a shorter staff? does colangelo want a shorter staff? instead of having four guys, considered almost normal around the league today, you could make the case that we now have just two and a scout. and to be honest, those 'two' never really made the grade for me. i'm not a big fan of alex english- i think there's a reason all that talk of him becoming a head man somewhere has died down considerably- and neither am i a fan of public relations pawns sticking around on a full-time basis (of whom jay triano is certainly one. either that or it's an absurd coincidence that our former national team head coach has impressed our last three staffs and management teams- similar as they were. i'm sure kevin o'neill would've hired triano had he taken a job in... seattle, for example. he just really liked triano; i believe it.
).
speaking of pr moves, we got another one in the re-hiring of dave hopla. i mean, i'm sure he does a wonderful job, but the timing of this is not a coincidence either (imo). i think the team knows that they
appear shorthanded right now, and are playing every card to defend themselves against that perception. it just doesn't make sense, though- why don't we go ahead and build a staff instead of putting up a guise for it? what are we hiding? why are we so reluctant to: a) do what we said we'd do; or at least b) do what is considered standard around the league?
i mean, you're going to pull a man (no matter how qualified) out from scouting to replace your lead assistant, scrap earlier plans of bringing aboard yet
another body, and instead re-sign your shooting expert as a 'basketball consultant' ("he's pretty much a coach now")? weird, man.
and i haven't even thought about JT's departure and the way that that was handled. i don't know if i've ever heard colangelo so insecure. it was like he was fishing for anything to explain what was going on. and sam? he's notorious for not always being politically correct, so he followed in suit: "i think it has something to do with JT's pension (tongue-in-cheek, before realizing that you can't make a joke on reality when no one is aware of the reality)."
i'd just love to get to the bottom of it... though it probably doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things. coaches are just coaches. but the way it's gone down is still interesting to me: it might reveal how some things might go down in the future, and the way the management team has grown accustomed to the media in this city, what to say and what not to say.
(gotta love the tabloids. but i'm surprised they haven't picked up on this one yet. it's gold.)
peace
Jim Todd to the Bucks?
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