This is another topic I meant to get to a while back (I think inclement weather fouled us all up for a while). There was some suggestion somewhere that Portland’s front office was dictating to Coach Nate McMillan that he should play or not play certain players.

I recall thinking at the time, of course there is that pressure. Not that anyone would admit it. But my experience in professional sports is that very often the front office DOES suggest playing time or role changes for various reasons to coaches — and that even though coaches sometimes resist the suggestions, the best-run franchises survive and flourish through these situations. And most of the good coaches figure out a way to placate the front office while still doing their best to win games.

Obviously, good communication is a key here. Each side must respect the other.

Here’s what you need to understand: Unless a coach has complete job security, he’s usually going to resist having to develop too many young players on his watch. Why? Because it’s normally going to cost him games. And if it costs him too many games, it’s going to cost him his job. Yet, for the good of the franchise, it’s often beneficial to give playing time to young players — either to develop them or to find out their talent level in order to assess the possibility of trades or just letting them go.

Neither side is necessarily wrong, it’s just that each side can have different motivations. But in the case of an insecure or inadequate front office, for example, it can merely be forcing playing time on players who don’t deserve it, just to justify their selection in a draft or acquisition in a trade. In the case of a lousy coach, resisting using a young player can be a sign that the coach just doesn’t want to spend time actually working with that player and improving him. Lazy coaching staffs (often the ones who have been around too long) hate spending time with young players. It takes too much work.

But way back when I covered the team many years ago, I remember a very good Trail Blazer head coach laughing about the prospect of playing one of his younger bench players with the possibility of winning a championship at hand. “Why should I develop some player for the next coach?” he said. “I have to win games or I’m out of here. Besides, he just wants the guy to play so he can justify drafting him in the first place.”

He was quite possibly correct, in that case. But while that philosophy is understandable, it may not be entirely in concert with the best interests of the franchise. For a coach to risk losing games to develop young players, he has to know the front office is going to understand the possible ramifications and not penalize him for them.

I’d be very surprised if most good franchises don’t often have to put subtle pressure on their coaches to use certain players in a different role or more frequently. It’s just the way it works — sort of a checks-and-balances way that good franchises function. Coaches can get all huffy about it, but if they understand that butting heads with their own front office isn’t a healthy situation for a coach, anyway, they’ll figure out a way to be accomodating. And good front offices respect their coach’s point of view and listen to him.

But it’s always been part of the way franchises function. Or disfunction.

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Tags: coach, Dwight Jaynes, front office, NBA, Trail Blazers