As you have probably seen Geoffrey C. Arnold has a nice article in the paper (posted at OregonLive) about Coach McMillan's defensive influence on the national team. It's a familiar theme, with Nate supposedly drawing inspiration from the U.S. squad's effort to take back to the Blazers. That always works...up and until the point that we figure out we don't actually have Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd on the team. However this year the slant was more that he would use the stars' efforts to inspire the team, which seems reasonable. Also the article reminds us how Nate is valued and respected as a coach...never a bad thing. I think it's generally true over time that a fan base will find enough flaws in any coach to not be satisfied with him...mostly because coaching is an impossible job that cannot be done perfectly. My feeling has always been you find a coach that you're pretty sure is good and stick with him through all the ups and downs and complaints, lest you nitpick yourself onto the coaching carousel. Things like this help us do that.
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)