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djsunyc
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Posted by BlueSeats:
"A" was said by Nate McMillian, the coach who's Seattle players overachieved the year before in his optempo offense. Many wanted him here to bring that to the Knicks, but Portland jumped on him while we courted PJ and LB. Portland thought his style would serve them and their "talent" well too, but his ragamuffin Portland creepos failed him and each other miserably to finish in last place.
But they aren't firing him after just one season because they understand their players have issues. here are some articles on nate mcmillan: Friday, March 31, 2006
Meanwhile, the Blazers looked forward playing Utah on Saturday. This prompted a discussion of McMillan’s admiration of Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, and a hint of McMillan’s personnel goals — not that they are a big secret — for the offseason.
McMillan loves the way Sloan’s teams play. “I think they are hard-nosed, they are very tough, they play for 48 minutes, and they’re a pretty disciplined team, very physical team,” McMillan said of the Jazz.
The thing McMillan clearly envied is how the franchise shapes its roster to fit Sloan’s style. “He’s been one guy that brings in guys that fit his style of play,” McMillan said. “If you look at all of the guys he has on his roster, those are what people would say are ‘Sloan guys.’ Guys that haven’t been able to make it -- there’ve been a few of those guys -- they move pretty quickly.”
That last sentence ... well, if you’ve been following the Blazers, you can see how McMillan might covet that quality.
McMillan said that some players simply fit certain styles better. He mentioned, for example, Phoenix coach Mike D’Antoni, whose free-wheeling system perhaps favors a different type of player than the Jazz.
“I think that would be all coaches, you try to get guys who can play your style of basketball,” McMillan said. “It’s no different from Mike D’Antoni. Totally different system, but they fit his style of basketball.”
McMillan admitted that what some call “Nate guys” are similar to “Sloan guys.” And ultimately, he would like the Blazers roster to be filled with “Nate/Sloan guys.”
“We gotta get guys who can do things that you feel comfortable doing,” he said. “I think you want your team to take on your identity, and I think the way to do that is to bring in guys that can bring in the style of basketball you want out there.” Portland -- McMillan was brought in a year ago to turn Portland's collection of misfits into a winning group. A year later, he's seen his inaugural campaign punctuated by more misses and fits than any memorable wins.
He's clashed with no fewer than four players, fined two of them, suspended another, and as recently as this week, sent Darius Miles home early after he inexcusably changed out of his uniform during halftime of the Blazers' game against the Clippers.
Another day, another distraction.
Another war of wills.
"You teach what you believe in and you try and get your team, your players, to believe in those teachings," McMillan said of holding his ground. "Some guys get on board, some guys don't."
"I think that's what I'm trying to do and what most coaches are trying to do. You have a certain style and way you go about your business. You expect certain things from your players."
McMillan expected them to show up for training camp in shape. Randolph didn't, and was subsequently fined.
Finally, McMillan expected them to play when told. Forward Ruben Patterson once refused, and was suspended for two games.
It's made for a rocky first season for McMillan, who was a 50-game winner with Seattle before taking over the young and sometimes defiant Blazers. Portland is now toting a 21-59 record, the poorest in the league, and Saturday's game featured the two worst teams in the Western Conference.
McMillan isn't going anywhere after signing a five-year deal worth a reported $27.5 million. That leaves Blazers general manager John Nash, who is in the final year of his contract, to tinker with personnel and put together a group of players who will fall in line under McMillan.
At the top of McMillan's list of requirements: commitment, scrap, sacrifice, unselfishness, respect. And after reeling those off, he adds "talent and some toughness."
nate talking about the team during their worst month in february: McMillan says he'll bench poor performers
The coach, in an effort to motivate the Blazers, will take away minutes from those not playing hard
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
JASON QUICK
LOS ANGELES -- Seemingly at his wits end, Trail Blazers coach Nate McMillan emerged from the All-Star break vowing to utilize his final, and most powerful, coaching card.
Play hard or sit.
"I'm trying to get the motivation back, and the only way to try and motivate guys is to cut into minutes," McMillan said Monday after the team reconvened from the All-Star break with a two-hour practice at Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus. "I'm trying to figure out a way to get guys to play, and play hard, and shoot, we are getting kicked anyway, so if I'm going to get kicked, I'm going to get kicked with some guys who are working hard, and at least making an effort." here's an article after a very bad month of february: McMillan says he'll return if he feels effective
Sunday, March 05, 2006
With financial issues swirling, the team spiraling and offseason flexibility declining, Trail Blazers coach Nate McMillan last week gave a vague answer when asked whether he would return for his second season.
"At the end of the year, I will look at myself and the job I've done," McMillan said. "And this is no different than what I was saying at the end of last year in Seattle: If I feel like I can't get it done, if I can't get this team to play, then I won't sit here and do something I'm not capable of doing."
McMillan, who signed a five-year contract worth an estimated $27 million last summer, said he has taken the same approach every offseason since he became a head coach.
"At the end of each year, you look at the direction, and what the plan is to improve the team," McMillan said. "And just as ownership looks at the coach, I will look at myself and the situation here."
When told those were strong words, McMillan didn't hesitate.
"That's the truth," McMillan said. "And it's not that I'm bailing out. The question is being asked now when things are going wrong . . . but I have always taken that approach. The bottom line is you gotta win and feel like you can win. It's not my plan (to leave); I came here to commit, but the thing is, we need to make sure we are doing what we need to do to get the team competitive. It's obvious we need to do something different."
Scoreboard watching: The race is on for the NBA's worst record and the subsequent best chance for winning the draft lottery, and the Blazers are in the thick of it. Just ask McMillan, who admits that he frequents the NBA standings to keep abreast of the six-team race.
"Oh yeah, I look at it, you know, those teams like Atlanta, Charlotte, New York," McMillan said.
NBA's worst records (entering Friday) 30. New York 15-42 .263 29. Charlotte 16-43 .271 28. Portland 19-38 .333 27. Atlanta 19-37 .339 26. Orlando 20-37 .351 Toronto 20-37 .351
The Blazers find themselves in a similar position to last season, when they began March by firing Maurice Cheeks and ushering in a youth movement, which resulted in a 5-22 finish, each loss helping assure a better chance in the lottery.
Would McMillan resort to the same tactic of using his younger players more than he already has to improve the team's lottery chances?
"I would never say never," McMillan said. "But I don't think I can coach that way, at least not intentionally, where we are saying that. For me, it would be hard to live with myself, and I don't know how the team could play through that. But now, if we go young, are we saying that indirectly? And I think in our situation we can do that, because that has been part of the plan, to play our young guys, and we have been doing that pretty much all season long." finally, this article about the blazers season: Right-way coach, wrong-way season
Nate McMillan ponders his first Portland team - the dynamics, the development, the difficulties, the lessons that fell on deaf ears
Sunday, April 23, 2006
JASON QUICK
The Oregonian
Nate McMillan spent Friday shopping in Portland, selecting kitchen cabinets, purchasing a copier.
It was time to get serious about settling into his West Linn home after a turbulent first season as coach of the Portland Trail Blazers.
The team finished the season Wednesday night with its 29th loss in its final 33 games and an NBA-worst 21-61 record. Only once, in the 1971-'72 season, had the Trail Blazers lost more games.
But for McMillan the season was not about wins and losses. It was about changing the culture of the team and getting across his message: that effort, togetherness and attitude are what makes a team a winner.
From the time McMillan left the Seattle SuperSonics in July to coach the Blazers, it was obvious he had signed up for one of the toughest jobs in Portland. The Blazers were notorious as a team that underachieved on the court and overstepped off it. McMillan was intense, no-nonsense, old-school.
A collision of wills was inevitable, but it became even more complicated in February when the team went public with financial problems and owner Paul Allen said he might sell it.
By the end of the season, the job appeared so difficult that people would walk up to the popular coach and ask him how he was holding up.
McMillan says he expected it to be challenging when he signed the five-year contract that pays him more than $5 million a year. But he also says, "I earned every penny of it."
In the end, McMillan says his message reached some players. But to others, in particular highly paid forwards Darius Miles and Zach Randolph, his message went in one ear and out the other.
Either way, McMillan figures, the grounds for moving forward were identified.
"I've gotten through the first year," McMillan said as he passed through a checkout line. "And I have a better idea of what needs to happen. Now we try to shake this team, transform this team, and this organization."
He says he knows whom to weed out. And whom to keep. That became apparent during a season that took a bitter turn in February and never recovered.
He says he has an idea of what turned the season, and more important, who turned the season.
"There are a number of reasons why things happened," McMillan said. "There are reasons why, I think, there was a change in play, the style of play, why we played a certain way."
Disturbing shift
It was a bright and brisk February day in Boston, but inside the gym at Suffolk University, McMillan was in a dark mood as he thundered his disappointment at the team.
A detail-oriented coach who often preached about playing the game "the right way," McMillan could sense something was amiss.
The hustle, the focus and the effort that had come to define the team -- and reflect his values during a recent stretch of seven wins in 11 games -- had changed.
He barked to the players about "wasting" practices by relying on one-on-one moves instead of focusing on team play. He harped about players approaching games as if they didn't matter, other than a means to another lucrative paycheck. And later, he privately talked to Miles on the sideline about being a positive influence on his teammates.
He could sense something was off, but little did he know that the Blazers season was slipping toward disarray.
Two nights earlier, six Blazers went to a downtown club in Indianapolis, after which they were dropped off by two taxis at the team hotel around 3 a.m. Later that night, the Blazers lost by 32 to the Pacers.
And two days after the "wasted" practice at Suffolk University, Sebastian Telfair -- a heralded young point guard the organization had put at the forefront of its marketing campaign -- was found to have a loaded handgun on the team plane.
Off-the-court distractions, which had come to define past Blazer teams, were surfacing on the watch of one of the most hard-line coaches in the league.
But most disturbing to McMillan was a sense that players who were supposedly the leaders of the team were sabotaging his rule.
When he found out about the nightclub escapade in Indianapolis, McMillan said it all started to make sense.
"It's sickening is what it is," McMillan said. "I sensed that was creeping back into this team, and I'm trying to figure out why. I think I have an idea."
McMillan wouldn't reveal that idea, but it might not have been a coincidence that the team's chemistry and behavior had changed after Miles rejoined the team on the trip for the first time since he had knee surgery in December.
"I talked to him today, and that's part of what the conversation was about," McMillan said after the Suffolk University practice. "The peer pressure about doing right. I felt like a lot of our guys were doing right. And now we are back to . . ."
Miles, a talent who had yet to realize his potential during his first five years in the league, acknowledged after the season that he was part of the group at the Indianapolis nightclub. He also said he could tell McMillan was blaming him for the team's downfall because the coach always looked at him while admonishing the team about attitude and effort.
The unspoken tension between the two turned out to be a major subplot during the season, as Miles rarely gave McMillan effort to protest being labeled what he termed the team's "fallback guy."
By the end of the five-game trip in February -- which included three straight losses of 32 points or more -- McMillan had used expressions such as "the team has lost its fire," and "we have no fight." Eventually, his oft-preached creed of patience was tempered by his own loss of it. His calming explanations to the media about youth, and the downfalls associated with it, were replaced by terse statements and icy stares.
"All season long we talk about attitude and effort, really harp on it, and you see it occasionally, then have it disappear," McMillan said near the end of the season. "I haven't figured out where that comes from yet."
A chance to nurture
Jarrett Jack taped a box score from the Blazers' 105-104 loss at Denver on Feb. 4 to his bathroom wall.
"See it every night when I go in to wash my face," the promising rookie said last week.
Jack posted the sheet with the game's statistics as a reminder of what happened that night. The Blazers were leading by a point in the final seconds when Jack was stripped by Nuggets veteran Andre Miller, who raced downcourt and made the winning layin with 4.3 seconds left.
It was a crushing defeat for Jack, and the Blazers, because they had the eventual Northwest Division champions on the ropes.
"A devastating loss," McMillan would say later.
McMillan consoled Jack by telling him a story from his 12-year playing career with Seattle, when as a rookie he was stripped by Dallas veteran Derek Harper during a key game.
It was the type of coaching, and nurturing, McMillan knew was in store when he took the Blazers job. The Blazers opened the season with the NBA's second-youngest roster, with an average age of 24 years.
In addition, the Blazers had four players -- Martell Webster, Telfair, Travis Outlaw and Miles -- who came to the NBA straight from high school, and two more -- Randolph and Joel Przybilla -- who attended one year of college.
"This is a different era, a totally different era that we are going into. The (Scottie) Pippens and (Terry) Porters aren't here anymore," McMillan said, referring to former Blazer stars. "I knew there would be a lot of teaching, a lot of developing, and there was. And I thought it worked. That's why I don't measure this season by wins and losses."
By season's end, McMillan said the team succeeded in its plan to develop its young roster. Jack emerged as a point guard whom teammates expect to challenge for the starting role next season. Webster, the Seattle high schooler taken with the sixth overall pick in June, displayed such an accurate shot at season's end that McMillan speculated "he could be something special."
Second-year players Telfair and Viktor Khryapa also made regular contributions that went beyond their statistics.
"You can't call our season a success with only 21 wins, but our plan was to develop and get our young guys the opportunity to play, and we have been able to do that," McMillan said. "So we have developed this potential and now we have some guys who teams are interested in. We have young talent that people want."
Looking toward next year
McMillan said he doesn't know which direction the Blazers will take this offseason. Maybe some of that young talent is dealt. Maybe it's some of the veterans. Or maybe they stay the same.
He doesn't even know who will own the team.
The only thing he is sure of is that he will be back.
"I'm committed," McMillan said. "I was hired to do a job, and I intend on following through."
He became amused late in the season by how many people asked him how he was holding up, if he was sure he would return.
"Hey, losing is hard," McMillan said. "Was it harder than I thought it would be? I don't know. I just knew it would be difficult with the talent and experience we had, and all that we had to overcome. I knew it would be a challenge."
In the immediate, he is settling into his new home, which was painfully empty this season as his wife and two kids remained in Seattle. They plan to stay in Seattle throughout next season, as his son finishes his senior year of high school. In the meantime, there will be visits from the family, and solitary nights when he dreams of the goal he set when he was hired.
"What I came down here to do was put a roster together that can win games and win a championship one day," McMillan said. "It's going to be difficult and filled with a lot of hard work, but I expected that, and I'm OK with that. What happened here in the past will take some time, but I plan on getting this back to where people will have pride in the team and the organization." reading all that EERILY similar stuff from portland makes me more upset about our situation. nate mcmillan had a roster full of questionable characters. he used MANY lineups. he constantly talked about his team's motivation, effort, desire. his team won 29 games. yet their management is sticking by nate. in fact, they dumped the GM. sadly, i'm afraid that if nate came to ny, he may be suffering the same fate as lb. we are in serious serious trouble and lauding the dumping of brown is NOT a good thing. it just makes me shake my head. |
