The Blazers home page is reporting that Nate McMillan will miss Friday's game due to a death in the family. It doesn't go any farther than that except for saying Nate thanks us for our thoughts and respecting his family's privacy, so we won't speculate further.
As someone who has been through that recently myself, heartfelt condolences to Nate and his loved ones. This Trailblazer stuff is important to a lot of us, but there are more important things yet. It doesn't seem fair to love Nate as a coach without also caring for him as a person. Other people can coach the team for a little bit. Only he can be Nate for his family. I hope he takes all the time he needs.
I'm sorry Nate. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. God bless.
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)