I got a chance to watch most of the game yesterday as the U.S. basketball team held off Brazil 70-68 at the FIBA world championships.

And I have to say I was shocked at the lack of organization and the overall way our team played. Can’t players learn a simple motion offense? Why is it that even at this level, with all the talent out there, we can’t see a free-flowing offense where all the players touch the ball, with screens being set and the ball and bodies being moved?

But no, it was like they’ve made Nate McMillan the team’s offensive coordinator. There was all kinds of standing around and watching someone play one-on-one.

And please, spare me the talk about the team not being together for more than a few weeks — and how long all the other teams have been playing together. Really, high school teams install offensive systems in a couple of weeks and play them competently — certainly some of the best players in the world ought to be able to do it.

Besides, most of these players have used some sort of flex or passing game offense someplace during their career, in high school or college, and know what they’re supposed to do. Pass and move — it’s not brain surgery.

It’s just seems to me that somehow players have triumphed over coaches in the NBA — it’s like the coaches have given up — and the result is they just don’t want to work hard on offense and don’t want to give of themselves for the benefit of others. Everyone wants the ball in his hands and when he doesn’t have it, he stands and watches.

Ugh.

Tweet This Post

Of course it’s ridiculous that James Dolan of Madison Square Garden wants to hire Isiah Thomas to consult with his Knicks. The guy is the prime reason the Knicks are in the tank right now.

But, and I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about this right now, I cannot imagine that consulting contract is even legal. The NBA has rules about hiring people who coach college teams — anybody who has contact with underclassmen can’t work for an NBA team. And I’m shocked the NCAA and Florida International haven’t weighed in, too.

I mean, seriously — the NCAA wants one of its coaches taking a check from an NBA team? And a college that’s paying him to coach its team wants him to be on the payroll of an NBA team?

The whole thing is just about the nuttiest story I’ve heard in a long time. Crazy. And it just can’t stick, can it?

Tweet This Post

I give Oregon State coach Mike Riley a lot of credit for having the nerve to stand up and not go all political correct on us with how he feels about the new alignment in the conference:

“I would split it right down the middle,” Riley said. “I want to have a presence and play games often in Southern California, both financially and recruiting-wise.”

I understand how important it is for Pac-10 coaches to retain their presence in southern California. A big part of recruiting in that area is telling the prospective players they will get their one game per season at home. At the same time, I wouldn’t blame the coaches in that part of the conference for fighting these guys on that same policy. I wouldn’t expect them to be OK with these guys from the Northwest walking in and stealing players out of their own backyard. And this “zipper” schedule is the first step toward old rivalry games like the Civil War being placed somewhere in the middle of the season — because nobody is going to like cross-division games coming the week ahead of the conference title game — (the chance of playing the same team in back-to-back weeks, they say).

To me, if you try to take something of a global view, it’s kind of a shame that it’s so impossible to compete using just players from up here. Our scholarships always have to go to players from out of state — rather than Oregon kids. It’s the only way the teams can be good enough to compete on a national level.

And competing on a national level is the only thing anyone these days will be satisfied with. College sports have become a monster — a beast that keeps getting bigger and hungrier. And I’m not sure where all that ends up.

Tweet This Post

At least that’s what it appears in this story, which indicates a candidate who was heretofore unknown:

Jackson also said he did not anticipate coaching at the collegiate level, although a booster from the University of Oregon contacted him in hopes of Jackson taking over that program.

That’s PHIL Jackson, in an ESPN story.

Tweet This Post

It started out as an attempt to research the emergence of “developmental” coaches in the NBA. You know those specialists who are charged with working tirelessly, one-on-one with players on their skills. I’ve been around the NBA since the early 1980s and don’t remember exactly when those guys started to appear.

To make a long story short, I’ve been kicking this idea around for months and started asking about a guy in a backward baseball cap I saw working Sonics players out in Seattle years ago. They called him “Hat Guy” and you can read a profile of him here, written in the Seattle Times in 1995. Gordon actually started his career in the NBA helping Paul Westphal rehab from an injury in the early 1980s.

It was a little bit difficult to get his phone number but eventually I did. And I finally spoke with him Monday afternoon. Turns out that I’ve suddenly got a story I didn’t expect, that of “Hat Guy” — Steve Gordon — and what he’s up to these days. Well, guess what?

The man quietly joined the staff of the Portland Trail Blazers a few years ago. Very quietly. I’ve not found any mention of him in a press guide or any stories associated with the team.

But in a matter of minutes, after a few phone calls to people within the league, I heard all sorts of opinions on what Gordon does for the Portland Trail Blazers. And they are stories tinged with mystery and a lot of speculation.

This was after Gordon, without any prompting from me, admitted that he works for the Blazers now.

“I’ve been with them for four and a half years,” Gordon told me. “I’m a consultant.”

I asked him what he consults about and he was a little vague but mentioned “development, scouting …”

A couple of NBA sources, though, have told me that Gordon — who used to help a lot of Microsoft bigwigs with their conditioning — has the ear of Paul Allen and Bert Kolde. And that he’s not shy about giving them advice. Gordon goes way back with Portland coach Nate McMillan, who worked with “Hat Guy” back in McMillan’s playing days with the Sonics. This from that 1995 story:

“He’s the kind of basketball junkie you meet in the park who knows everybody and everything about the game,” McMillan says. “He’s a guy who should be in a higher position, with some team, but isn’t.”

Now, it seems possible that Gordon IS in a higher position. Reached Monday afternoon, McMillan referred questions about Gordon higher up the corporate ladder.

“Well, I would like for Kevin (Pritchard) to address that,” McMillan said. “(Gordon)’s been doing some scouting over the years. That’s basically it.”

I mentioned to McMillan that Gordon told me he was a consultant for the team and the coach said, “With so much going on right now, I think we should limit our comments to what Kevin says.”

Pritchard said Gordon has input “at all levels” of the Blazer organization. “I’ve known him probably since 1990,” Pritchard said. “He knows Paul, Bert, Nate and me and we all talk to him.

“At his core, he’s a workout guy. He loves to work guys out. He helps us with that and around the draft with scouting and working guys out. He’s one of those guys who loves being in the gym.

However, Gordon’s role appears, at least according to NBA insiders, to be significant.

“He’s got a lot of input,” one league source told me. “Maybe more input than some of the people in Portland who are pretty well known.’”

Another source told me, “The guys in Seattle listen to him. But nobody knows quite how much.” Which was similar to another NBA person, who told me, “I hear that’s who they listen to up there. He’s their guy.”

Henry Abbott, who created ESPN’s “True Hoop” blog, is considered an expert on the league and a man who has followed the Trail Blazers since his childhood in Portland. He has spent a lot of time researching the inner workings of the team.

Here is what Abbott said Monday:

“When Tom Penn was first fired, it was hard to understand why. The more I dug in, the more I started hearing stories about an unfolding struggle for power over basketball decisions between the basketball operations staff in Portland and those closest to Paul Allen in Seattle. Hat Man came up as a part of that — one of several different lines the Vulcans cast from Seattle to Portland in an attempt to keep grips on basketball decisions. I’m not one of those who thinks the only good owners are the ones who do nothing but sign checks, but Hat Man is the latest of many examples that Paul Allen is a guy who likes to have a pretty serious degree of control, even though he’s seldom physically present. Who knows, maybe we’d all be like that if we spent all that money running a team. But it certainly is getting tougher and tougher to make the case that Allen is a delegator who trusts and empowers his guys.”

A lot of speculation has been made about who it is in Seattle prompting Allen’s Trail Blazer moves. “Vulcans” is the name they’re usually given — mysterious, faceless people named for Allen’s umbrella company. Usually, they have been perceived as buttoned-down, corporate types completely out of their element. But it never made a whole lot of sense that Allen, who does know basketball, would be listening to people like that. But a guy like “Hat Guy,” well …

When I tried to probe Gordon for more information about his role with the Trail Blazers he became anxious to end the call. Look, I’m not saying the guy is running the team or anything. Don’t overstate this. But at the same time, with all the scrutiny the front office gets in this town, it’s amazing there’s someone else involved, heretofore unknown, who is doing this stuff behind the scenes, free of criticism.

Not sure why Gordon bailed so quickly on the conversation if has just another mundane job with the team. And why has he not been listed on the roster of team employees?

But maybe I’m wrong about his haste to cut the conversation short. Perhaps that was just some sort of Vulcan mind-bend.

Tweet This Post

Kenny Vance over at 95.5 The Game was the first to report this, like 10 days ago — and even predicted that Bernie Bickerstaff would be hired as the new lead assistant coach.

All I can say is, you’re going to shake up your staff and Bernie Bickerstaff is the answer? Well, maybe. I guess. I was looking for an innovator — someone with a new approach. Someone a little younger? Of course, I guess Bernie has the No. 1 quality for anyone getting hired around here — he spent some time in Seattle.

As far as his son, J.B., getting hired here, I’m not so sure about that. He’s still under contract in Minnesota. Plus, he’s so far been just a developmental coach and in Bill Bayno and Caleb Canales Portland already has two of those.

Let me say, too, that if the Blazers are losing Joe Prunty they’re losing a very promising young coach. I really don’t understand that.

I’m also not sure where this is coming from. It doesn’t sound like a Nate McMillan thing to jettison assistant coaches in bunches. You have to wonder if this isn’t coming from up north. Certainly Kevin Pritchard doesn’t seem to be in any position to force such changes on the head coach.

Usually, in any sport, when you see the head coach making wholesale changes on his staff it means the head guy is under some serious pressure. And it often means management is looking for not just coaching changes — but changes in the team’s style of play.

Which would be nice.

One thing is certain — next season is looking more and more like a very critical year for this franchise. And its head coach.

Tweet This Post

The death of the great John Wooden last week prompted a memory that I haven’t pondered in years.

Probably American’s Greatest Coach (any sport, any level) Wooden is a legend as much for his contributions to life as to basketball. But only old timers know all the stories about Sam Gilbert, the legendary booster who was always said to be responsible for so many great players showing up at UCLA.

Most of the stories about how well Gilbert took care of the Bruin basketball players were told only out of the media spotlight. People whispered them back and forth but never published them — either unconvinced they were true or afraid to come close to tarnishing the Wooden legend.

But on a few trips to the Southland to cover basketball, I was told a story by a couple of veteran sports writers that fascinated me. And that story was that there was a book already written, prior to the death of Gilbert many years ago, that chronicled abuses in the UCLA program and told all sorts of interesting stories about that school’s recruitment and special treatment of basketball players.

They would tell me about this (and I heard it two or three times) and finish by saying, “But the agreement has always been that the book would not be published until after Wooden’s death.” I heard these stories more than 20 years ago and I believe the writer who supposedly wrote this book may already be deceased, too.

I never really believed the story. I just don’t think secrets like that could be kept for so long. But I guess now that Wooden is gone, we will find out.

God bless John Wooden. He’s published more sensible and valuable words to live by than a whole lot of famous philosophers and world leaders combined. And I have to tell you, as someone who was around while he was winning NCAA championships every season, there was no more of a hopeless feeling ANYTIME, ANYWHERE than rooting for a team on the same floor as one of his UCLA teams.

You. Could. Not. Beat. Them.

I mean, it was hopeless. I’ve never seen another situation quite like it. You think the Chicago Bulls were difficult to beat when Jordan was there? That was nothing.

Wooden’s UCLA basketball teams were absolutely impossible to beat. Season after season.

Tweet This Post

• Isn’t it funny how all the people who said Orlando couldn’t win four straight against the Celtics — or even, when the Magic trailed 2-0 in the series, said they couldn’t win four out of five — are now saying that the Magic will win Game 6 in Boston and there’s no way Boston could win a Game 7 in Orlando? Don’t count on anything in that series.
• And people are talking about Phoenix “not boxing out” on Ron Artest late on the last play of Thursday night’s Laker win over the Suns. Thing is, when a guy throws an airball, boxing out isn’t always the answer. Boxing a guy out means being between him and the basket. On an airball, the guy with inside position doesn’t always get the ball. In this case, Artest had the advantage of coming from the weakside, so he had a line of vision to the ball and the rim, which helped him. The man “boxing him out,” Jason Richardson, didn’t watch the ball — which normally is OK. But it’s funny how often an airball is beneficial in that situation. A whole lot of big plays have come off offensive players plucking an airball and throwing it in the basket — just ask Houston against North Carolina State, the most heart-breaking loss I’ve ever seen in a big game.
• All of a sudden, people are making Orlando the favorite to win that series. I think you still have to think Boston will win Game 6. But in a city where the NHL Bruins famously blew a 3-0 series lead — even a 3-0 lead in Game 7 at home — there will be incredible depression in Boston if the Celts don’t win that series.
• Do the Blazers look good after seeing how well Phoenix has played in these playoffs? After all, Portland is so far the only team to defeat the Suns on their homecourt during the postseason. Yeah, I think it makes Portland look good. But I’ve also thought about what a great opportunity this season would have been for the Blazers if they’d stayed healthy. There was a definite path there to a long playoff run.
• If Orlando emerges from the East to a berth in the Finals, well, my love for Stan Van Gundy will continue to increase. Love the guy. One of the most straight-talking guys in sports. And he still COACHES. He never stops coaching. He doesn’t defer to these guys or shy away from confrontation — in fact, he gets right in their face. I’m not saying he’s going to last for a long time doing that, but I love it as long as he gets away with it. It’s refreshing.

Tweet This Post

Man, to go anywhere I think he’d want a firm commitment that LeBron James will be wherever he goes. And I’m not sure how the timing would go on something like that.

It’s no secret Jerry Buss wants to cut his salary in Los Angeles and Jim Buss, Jerry’s kid, is a bit of a pain in the ass in the front office. But come on, Jeannie Buss is still his girlfriend and Kobe Bryant’s got a few more years of dominant play. I just can’t imagine Phil bailing this soon. (By the way, if he does, it’s great news for the Western Conference. There is no tougher act to follow than Phil Jackson).

I do know, the minute Jackson’s convinced he can’t win championships there, he’ll walk. That’s for sure. He doesn’t do rebuilding. He isn’t patient. And folks, he’s not in a position to have to be. For me, I really don’t care what it costs to get him, if you bring him in, you’re pretty much assured you’re going to win.

And win big. He’s worth it. The guy is probably the only coach in the league with enough heft to handle James. In fact, I think he’d consider it a challenge. But in the back of my mind, there is something else — would James want to play for him? Does he really want to surrender to his coach? Maybe. Maybe not.

I’m still not convinced of exactly what James is looking for. If you ask me, things went off the tracks in Cleveland during the playoffs because of LeBron, not because of Coach Mike Brown. James doesn’t want to take responsibility for that but the fact is, if LeBron had been LeBron against the Celtics, Cleveland would likely still be playing.

Believe me, this promises to be the most interesting off-season for the NBA in years. Between all the free agents, all the cap space, all the coaching vacancies and the impending possibility of a work stoppage, this is going to be one riveting summer.

Tweet This Post

You could say, if you want, that it’s not LeBron’s fault that Mike Brown was fired, but I’d counter by saying he certainly could have stopped it. Really, if he wanted Brown, don’t think for a minute Brown wouldn’t still be there.

And man, James is in the name-your-own-coach mode now, pretty much wherever he lands next season. I’m not sure that’s a healthy place but whether it’s Cleveland, Chicago, New York or New Jersey — those teams are in a position to give him what he wants, or who he wants.

Of course, superstars are always in that spot. Phil Jackson serves only as long as Kobe Bryant allows him to serve as the Lakers coach. Just as Nate McMillan would probably last only as long as Brandon Roy wants him here.

It’s the way it is.

And the real question is, what kind of coach will James want? And keep in mind, coaches are people who are supposed to push you. I always think they’re people who can make you — or help you — do things you don’t necessarily want to do. Like work harder, or play defense.

I think the best thing for James would be an iron hand. A guy totally unintimidated by him. And I’m not certain he’s going to go for that. We will learn a little bit about James by watching the kind of coach he chooses — and make no mistake, he’s probably going to have a say in it.

Tweet This Post