Frankly we get too much coaching discussion sometimes during the regular season. The old saw that a coach gets too much credit when things go right and too much blame when things go wrong holds a fair amount of truth.

If we can make it through the first twenty so games without a “Fire Nate!” fanpost, I’ll be amazed.

Its possible another coach will come in and take us to the top if Nate can’t get us there, but for now we haven’t seen anything to suggest a change will be needed in the near future.

I’ve been satisfied with his coaching for the most part. He has made some questionable substitutions (or lack of) but for the most part he’s just the right type of coach a young impressionable team needs. One that doesn’t take crap from players and doesn’t treat the stars like the stars.

Granted he has some favorites, but thats normal for any coach. I like him and hope he can be the guy to coach us to a ring.

KP: Hey Mr. Allen, now that we’ve had two 55 win seasons, two Western Conference Finals apperances, one Western Conference Final Series Win, one NBA Finals appearance, and one NBA Finals Series Win, don’t you think we could use a top-level coach?

PA: Kevin, I’ve told you a thousand times. Call me Paul. And yeah, I think you’re right! Nate just isn’t getting things done for us. I mean, 1 and 1 in the last two Finals appearances?! Come on. That’s like…[pulls out laptop and opens “Calculator” ]…..uhh….50 percent! Jack Ramsey’s win percentage in his Finals appearances as the Blazers’ coach is like….100 percent!

KP: Jack who? I thought we traded that guy two years ago!

PA: No dingbat—our coach! From the ’77 team…you know….our other championship team?

KP: Yeah I remember reading something about those guys….

PA: Anyway, like you were saying. I think we definitely could use a better coach. What about that Terry Porter guy? The fans sure seemed to love the “Honor Terry Porter” campaign last year when we retired his jersey.

KP: Naww he just signed a big extension with the Suns. Besides, he wasn’t really that good. We did that just to shut up those annoying bloggers.

PA: Hmm well how ’bout uhh…Sam Cassell? I heard he wants a head coaching position.

KP: Yehh…but his bald head makes him look like an alien. I don’t think the fans would like him.

PA: Ok….well Mister Smarty Pants! YOU come up with a candidate.

KP: How ‘bout that Special K guy from Duke? After all, he’s obviously better than Nate. Didn’t you see he was head coach of USA basketball team two years ago? Nate was just a puny little assistant.

PA: You mean Coach K? Yeh he might work. Give him a call.

[ring] [ring]

Coach K: Hello?

KP: Hey there Mr. K! This is Kevin Pritchard from the Portland Trail Blazers. How’s it going?

Coach K: Hello there Mr. Pritchard! I’m doing well. And for the record, it’s Coach K., not Mister K.

KP: Ok whatever. Anyway, you want to leave Duke and come take over our basketball squad? We’re firing Nate.

Coack K: Sure! I’d love to. I haven’t had a good coaching season here at Duke since Grant Hill and Christian Laettner left. You think we might be able pick either of them up in a trade?

KP: We’ll see what we can do Mr. K

Coach K: Alright, sounds good! And again, it’s Coach K.

PA: Hey Coach K….this is Paul Allen. I’ll put you on payroll right away. When can you show up?

Coach K: Well my boys have finals this week and I told them if they played ball I’d make sure they pass….so…better wait at least a couple weeks until grades are posted.

KP: No problem…you can share a place with Rebecca Harlow, one of our highest-paid staff members, until you can find a place of your own.

Coach K: Alright sounds good. Say…this will be my first year coaching in the NBA. You guys won’t mind if it takes me a few years to get a ring, will you? And how much am I going to get paid?

KP: You’ll be paid enough, Mr. K. We can assure you of that, right Mr. Allen?

PA: Definitely. It won’t be a problem. And don’t worry about getting adjusted. We’ll evaluate your position on this team year by year. I mean, it’s not like we’re going to fire you if you’re putting up good results. And by the way Kevin, it’s Paul.

Coach K: And it’s Coach K, not Mr. K. Get it straight Mr. Pritchard. But yes, that sounds like a plan.

KP: Alright, sounds good. Team meeting two Mondays from today. Be there or be square.
 
Coach K: Aight, see ya. And by the way, in basketball, it’s not called a square. It’s called a box.

KP: Bye Mr. K.

[Click]

8 Years Later, summertime

KP: So Mr. Allen, what do you think? One championship in the last eight years. Pretty good, ehh?

PA: Yeah that’s terrific! That’s like [pulls out laptop and opens "Calculator]…uhhh….12.5%!

KP: Yeh that’s pretty good. Now that Mr. K’s retired, who do you think we should hire?

[buzz buzz]

KP: Hold on, just got a text message. It says, “Thx 4 the goodbye card. Will miss u guys…and the checks. Give my regards 2 Mr. Allen. Sincerely, COACH K.”

PA: Yeah I’m gonna’ miss that guy. Anyway, there’s always that Nate guy we let go a while back. I’m sure now that he’s got 7 rings with the Lakers, he’d be thrilled to come to our team to work on his ninth and tenth.

KP: Hmmm yeah….but I remember we fired him for a reason. He couldn’t seem to win very many championships with us or something.

PA: Yeh maybe so. We sure wouldn’t have fired him for no reason. Hmm…maybe we could get Sam Cassell?

We had the youngest team in the league last year, third youngest in the history of the NBA. On top of that, our first round draft pick, #1 overall, goes down for the season. Sure, we’ve got good players out there, but to pull out a .500 season is more than all but the homeriest of homers would have predicted. Reality pointed to another rebuilding year, a year of waiting. But I give McMillan a great deal of credit for getting this young team to believe in themselves. Not just Roy and Aldridge, they were already very mature for their age, but the whole team.

People get frustrated with the substitution patterns, and the coaching decisions that don’t end up working out. But when you step back and look at the completed product, I don’t know how anyone can say that the team would have been better off in the least bit without him.

Patience is important. Patience is what the front office has been preaching. Patience is what McMillan has been instilling in this young squad. And patience is the very thing that many fans of which have none. But patience pays off big in the end, whereas impatience almost always ends in loss.

And I think he’s the best dressed coach in the league. Doesn’t that count for something?

But then Dave has to come up with something for us.

What exactly does McMillan have yet to do to prove he’s a good coach?

He’s everything you look for in a coach. He is a teacher, a disciplinarian, a hard worker. He’s fair, honest and doesn’t throw his players under the bus. The man has integrity, a trait that should be valued. And he knows the game of basketball. Someone show me how many times he’s been out coached. Just who do you think is largely responsible for the Blazer’s record last season in close games and OT contests? That’s an excellent indicator of a good coach, particularly with a team as young as Portland.

I do not buy into the idea that it often takes a certain coach or style to win with a particular type of team. That’s ass backwards. Players come and go. A good coach can last a decade or more. The NBA needs more Jerry Sloans, where the players fit the coach’s system, not the other way around. Fortunately for Portland, Nate gets to work with our guys from the very start. They’ll grow up in his system.

Why is this the case with coaches even more so than players? I suppose we can see what each players max potential is and whenever they don’t achieve that…all at the same time…it must be the coaches fault.

When we talk coaching change, it always includes the name of the winning coach that we presumably can get and presumably will help us win exactly the same as he was able to do once upon a squad.

I don’t have any issues with Nate right now.

And now timg56’s comment popped up and says just about exactly what I wanted to say…so ditto.

Nate for now. Nate for the future.

He adapts, he grows, he instills discipline and principles and he helps get teams to over achieve.

He’s been designated as the best coach coming out of a time out. He made the olympic team and has been part of that gold medal WINNING success.

He gets guys to buy into his system. He’s helped create the culture that is the Blazers with KP and Roy.

Now, that said, people WILL be clamoring for a new coach when the new season begins. It’ll be a knee jerk reaction because we lost three games because we’ll have THREE new key guys learning the system. We’ll be starting off against the best teams in the NBA before our rookies find their footing. People will want to fire him.

Okay, I agree we should always be looking to get better. So, in order to GET BETTER, what coaches out there are better?

Out of those coaches that are better, which are better for our young team?

Out of those coaches, which are available?

How much better are the remaining coaches over Nate and can nate learn and become as good or better if we let HIM develop too?

Those are my questions. If you have answers, pleas post and respond. I’m linking this Entry to past to every response I’ll see in the future to fire Nate. I tired of typing the same thing over and over again.

to coach a more up-tempo style? This team has a lot of speed and needs to be getting up and down the floor to utilize it. You know, the “easier baskets” thing.

I’m reserving judgment to see how he does with that this year. Jack is gone so at least we don’t have that anchor dragging us down.

But he sure thought Nate was a class act: http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8519894/Which-NBA-coaches-make-biggest-impact

10. Insists Paul Allen make him captain of the Octopus.
9. Won’t stop doing his impression of Allen on his first date during press conferences.
8. Insists Oden play point guard and Rudy guard Dwight Howard, Shaq, and Yao.
7. Players increasingly unhappy about Nate wearing jodphurs and carrying a riding crop to practice.
6. Keeps bugging Kevin Pritchard to bring-in tough players “who are willing to strangle kittens.”
5. Refers to Allen, Pritchard, and Tom Penn as the Three Stooges.
4. Caught plotting to hijack team to Seattle.
3. Limits offense to getting the ball inside to Joel.
2. Complains constantly about Pritchard “always stealing my thunder.”
1. Develops man-crush on Kobe.

Moe’ need more info,

I’m open to re evaluate immediately after the 2019-2020 season (day 4,384 of the Oden era).

Perhaps he prefers a rebuilding situation where he can develop, teach and look back on his turnaround efforts and be proud of his body of work.

I used to turn around businesses. That was great fun. In and out. Huge sweeping improvements and then I was gone. I then tried running my own business for a long period of time and after an initial huge turnaround I got very bored and eventually ran it into the ground.

Point? I am a builder. Not a maintainer. Perhaps coach likes the quick high as well and would bore easily with the same team. Maybe he needs that change as his challenge and excitement like Larry Brown lite.

Do I really believe this? No. But it is a possibility.

and still maintain the air of respectablity and leadership-ness (that should be a word) that is required of a leader / coach/ teacher.

Sophia

Nate is a top five coach in the league.

We are not able to get Popp, Jackson, or Sloan. Outside of those 3, there’s not another coach I would take over Nate.

Therefore I expect, and hope, that Nate will be around a long time.

He also seems to have a very healthy relationship with KP. That kind of thing is not to be messed with.

He’s in a prime position. If we made great strides this year he will be able to negotiate his contract to be on par with the other top few coaches in the league. Paul will smell Championship blood in the water and make sure to keep Nate here at any costs. Unless of course we win it all this year, and he (and Greg Oden) retires.

Can anyone note a time this season he was out-coached in a game? And how/why?

Very few seem to be taking a critical eye to Nate in this thread. I’m a little surprised since Nate definitely has his drawbacks. I’ll try to sit down later and write up a few of the games where Nate was out-coached, and why he was. I’m hoping someone can beat me to it because I’m distracted at the moment.

If nobody can remember any games he was out-coached in, it means we’re making opinions on him based on rose-colored hindsight.

They are deservedly so.

A coach is a facilitator.

He (or she) is expected to use the tools available to him and win an appropriate amount of games. For reasons which i have no ability to control or any real ability to explain, that amount of games is an objective number. If the number is not being reached, the coach has misused his or her personnel.

This is how it is in manufacturing, or sales, or pretty much any other business I can think of. There are times when it is clear that player is not pulling his or her weight. the more important/able the player (which also seems to be an objective number), the more likely the coach will and should be expected to make a situation in which that player will be able to maximize productivity. Fo instance, no one is on Nate’s case because Raif hasn’t met his potential. however, if Brandon and or LMA had horrible seasons this year, because their potential is relatively determined and fixed by the public, people would look to Nate to see how they were being misused.

Criticism of coaches is fair. Nate has met or exceeded expectatons at this point, so he’s fine. When that changes… We can and will talk about what the hell he did wrong, aka say: “FIRE HIM.”

I think this is such an example of how fickle we as fans are. Almost all posts are in favor of Nate. Right now, Nate has won a gold medal and got us to .500, but wait for a 5 game losing streak (if it takes 5) and people will be calling for his head. I have loved Nate since his days coaching in Seattle and believe we got VERY LUCKY he was willing to come here and it would take quite alot for me to think that he was not the best option for this team. Remember this thread in a few months.

I love discipline. That Nate is so disciplined makes me love Nate, but not in a Jon Waters kind of way. For those of you who live in Vancouver, Jon Waters is a director who happens to be…….Nevermind……

Nate has done certainly done a good job with a developing team. He will have a lot to teach the young guards, and it doesn’t heard that BRoy grew up in Seattle..

But let us just think logically here.. Nate has not done one thing that makes me feel that he is a lock for us beyond two years down the line. And if we are not seriously flirting with a Western Conference Final spot in 2010, he will probably be moving on..

I don’t think there is any reason to believe that a good development/training coach definitely makes a great playoff gametime playmaker type of coach. Will he? I don’t know. Mike Brown has done some great stuff with developing the Cavs and even got them to the finals. But how long will he have to prove that he hasn’t hit the ceiling on his ability to take this team? I think he has one year left personally!

I think that Adelman would likely join the list of strong coaches who have a lot more playoff coaching experience than Nate does if Nate were to be to sent along. Don’t get me wrong.. I would love it if Nate could prove that he is a great coach.. but NONE of us have seen the real evidence..

Oh, ohhh ee-yoh.

Oh, ohhhh ee-yo-oh.

The Right Coach.

..but “Give us your thoughts and ideas about the coaching situation” really irked me.

Frankly, there isn’t a “situation” to begin with. Nate has been at the helm of 3 consecutive improving seasons, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, a 4th as well as a possible playoff birth (knock on wood) in a significantly tough conference. To already be thinking “can he take us that last step to the promised land” is extremely far-sighted to the point where you’re missing what is happening in front of you.

The blazers have been one of the most, if not THE most solidly growing team in the entire league over the past few years. The talent, work ethic, and comradery on this team can put us in the top echelon of teams.

I liken this whole discussion to a kid who has been a notorious D student in school. All through elementary and middle school, he’s received failing grades. Now that he’s in high school, he’s steadily improved his grades via help from a tutor; first to C’s, then into the B’s, and even a sparse A or two. Now that his senior years has arrived, do you get rid of the tutor now? Do you go find another tutor because you don’t think this current tutor has what it takes to have that kid get straight A’s? No way!

I apologize for the elaborate analogy, but I think it’s ludicrous to even be talking about a coaching "situation". McMillan has done all that’s been asked of him and more. This team has a fresh, wholesome image, they’re winning again with the right kinds of players, have a ton of talent as well as depth, and a coach who has facilitated a winning attitude through discipline. To assume he can’t this team where they need to be is absurd and not backed by anything more than a pessimistic attitude.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120846936079424371.html?mod=at_leisure_main_reviews_days_only

Nate is a good coach. He is good for the Blazers. Young coach with an up and coming team. He has experience on his side from his playing days, and good ones too as he has been to the Finals with the Sonics in 96 as a player. So he is the right coach. And a good one too. Last good coach the Sonics ever had.