Sorry - title was too long to include, I think.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/13190713p-14033900c.html
Mark Kreidler: There are plenty of concerns when it comes to the Kings, but the coach certainly isn't one of them.
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, July 7, 2005
Get the latest news in sacbee.com's Kings Alert newsletter. Sign up here.
You want something to worry about? I can help with that. Worry over whether the Kings can find the right deal with the right team (Nene and Denver, anyone?) that enables Cuttino Mobley's free agency to come to a productive end.
Worry over whether either Kevin Martin or Francisco García actually shows enough at the two-guard spot over the next week in Las Vegas to embolden Kings executive Geoff Petrie to fashion a sign-and-trade for Mobley.
Worry that the club will revert to its old ways, which is to say, battered and on the injured list too much of the time. Take Brad Miller and Bobby Jackson off that roster again next season with one injury and another. Makes you want to shudder out loud, doesn't it? Worry by the baggie-full.
But as for the coach, let's back away slowly from the pileup. Look, Ma, no fatalities.
"I'm not threatened by anything that has happened," Rick Adelman said during a long conversation Wednesday. "I'm way past that point."
In his career, Adelman meant - and a good thing, that. Is Adelman upset? Of course he is. Have his employers handled things with cast-iron oven mitts so far this offseason? You bet they have.
Does it matter in any ultimate way? Come on, this isn't Little League. They don't take a timeout to make sure everyone's feelings are intact.
I can think of a bunch of scenarios better than the one under which Adelman coaches the coming season as a lame duck, but, look, it happens. Coaches get canned or job-threatened all the time, for reasons that run from fully justified to You've Got to be Kidding Me.
Owners in the NBA routinely step in it, even when they don't mean to. Does anyone seriously believe Joe or Gavin Maloof wanted the Phil Jackson episode to become public knowledge? The owners tried to make what they saw as an upgrade at coach, and even if it was a wild shot in the dark, there's no reasonable suggestion that they did it to undercut Adelman.
Adelman isn't accepting of that situation - he hates it, as you would expect any coach with his kind of credentials to - but he also isn't a rookie. He has coached well enough to know what he's worth in the NBA, and long enough to know what it feels like to get squeezed out even when you're good.
"I didn't start this whole (summer) ball rollin', but I still have a pretty darn good job with a pretty competitive team," Adelman said.
"The important thing for me is simple: I do have a job. It's here. And this is a very important time we're heading into right now. ... We'll be competitive, but I don't have any idea yet where we might fall in the top 10 on the list - and I think anybody who says he does is just blowing smoke."
Adelman spoke on the eve of his trip to Las Vegas, where he'll watch Martin and first-round draft pick García on the Kings' summer-league team - and where he and others in the organization will scout talent and ponder trades and free-agent moves.
The Mobley situation is fluid. The status of restricted free agents Darius Songaila and Maurice Evans needs to be determined. Adelman considers the guard and small forward positions to be the most critical needs in terms of depth and continuity.
All in all, it's a lousy time to be distracted, which is precisely why Adelman won't be. Oh, he'll talk. He isn't afraid to say he would have liked the chance to visit with Portland about its coaching opening, filled Wednesday by Nate McMillan. (Adelman said he doesn't know, and may never know, whether the Trail Blazers formally asked permission to speak to him.) Adelman isn't afraid to say the Jackson deal was a major procedural botch and a professional affront.
But Adelman also is the man who had the focus and the class to walk into the organizational meetings in Las Vegas a few weeks ago and never so much as raise the Jackson issue, even though it was on his mind and even though he was seeing the Maloofs for the first time since the story broke. As a coach, Adelman knew there was just too much other stuff that needed to get covered.
"You never know how those meetings are going to go, anyway," he said. "We needed to discuss the team and what we were going to do in the draft and free agency. ... I had a brief meeting with Joe after everything was done, but the (organizational) meeting wasn't the time for that."
Then Adelman returned to Sacramento and went back to work. He still is the coach, a man coming off his fifth straight 50-victory season. He is a coach who has put his Kings teams into the playoffs in all seven seasons he has been here, a span during which only Indiana and San Antonio have been able to do the same.
"You can fall by the wayside so quick in this league," he said. "It amazes me how people can make light of the idea of even getting to the playoffs, much less getting to a championship, when so many teams aren't able to do it."
Adelman's teams do it in part because they're talented and in part because he can coach, and you don't have to tell Adelman that it's a players' league.
Nobody in the NBA plays to save his coach's job, or to get his coach fired.
The NBA players play for any coach who can reach them, pure and simple.
This guy reaches players doing what he's doing, which is why he won't change the way he approaches the coming season simply because his short leash threatens to become a choke collar. Worry about other things. Rick Adelman, you already know.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/13190713p-14033900c.html
Mark Kreidler: There are plenty of concerns when it comes to the Kings, but the coach certainly isn't one of them.
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, July 7, 2005
Get the latest news in sacbee.com's Kings Alert newsletter. Sign up here.
You want something to worry about? I can help with that. Worry over whether the Kings can find the right deal with the right team (Nene and Denver, anyone?) that enables Cuttino Mobley's free agency to come to a productive end.
Worry over whether either Kevin Martin or Francisco García actually shows enough at the two-guard spot over the next week in Las Vegas to embolden Kings executive Geoff Petrie to fashion a sign-and-trade for Mobley.
Worry that the club will revert to its old ways, which is to say, battered and on the injured list too much of the time. Take Brad Miller and Bobby Jackson off that roster again next season with one injury and another. Makes you want to shudder out loud, doesn't it? Worry by the baggie-full.
But as for the coach, let's back away slowly from the pileup. Look, Ma, no fatalities.
"I'm not threatened by anything that has happened," Rick Adelman said during a long conversation Wednesday. "I'm way past that point."
In his career, Adelman meant - and a good thing, that. Is Adelman upset? Of course he is. Have his employers handled things with cast-iron oven mitts so far this offseason? You bet they have.
Does it matter in any ultimate way? Come on, this isn't Little League. They don't take a timeout to make sure everyone's feelings are intact.
I can think of a bunch of scenarios better than the one under which Adelman coaches the coming season as a lame duck, but, look, it happens. Coaches get canned or job-threatened all the time, for reasons that run from fully justified to You've Got to be Kidding Me.
Owners in the NBA routinely step in it, even when they don't mean to. Does anyone seriously believe Joe or Gavin Maloof wanted the Phil Jackson episode to become public knowledge? The owners tried to make what they saw as an upgrade at coach, and even if it was a wild shot in the dark, there's no reasonable suggestion that they did it to undercut Adelman.
Adelman isn't accepting of that situation - he hates it, as you would expect any coach with his kind of credentials to - but he also isn't a rookie. He has coached well enough to know what he's worth in the NBA, and long enough to know what it feels like to get squeezed out even when you're good.
"I didn't start this whole (summer) ball rollin', but I still have a pretty darn good job with a pretty competitive team," Adelman said.
"The important thing for me is simple: I do have a job. It's here. And this is a very important time we're heading into right now. ... We'll be competitive, but I don't have any idea yet where we might fall in the top 10 on the list - and I think anybody who says he does is just blowing smoke."
Adelman spoke on the eve of his trip to Las Vegas, where he'll watch Martin and first-round draft pick García on the Kings' summer-league team - and where he and others in the organization will scout talent and ponder trades and free-agent moves.
The Mobley situation is fluid. The status of restricted free agents Darius Songaila and Maurice Evans needs to be determined. Adelman considers the guard and small forward positions to be the most critical needs in terms of depth and continuity.
All in all, it's a lousy time to be distracted, which is precisely why Adelman won't be. Oh, he'll talk. He isn't afraid to say he would have liked the chance to visit with Portland about its coaching opening, filled Wednesday by Nate McMillan. (Adelman said he doesn't know, and may never know, whether the Trail Blazers formally asked permission to speak to him.) Adelman isn't afraid to say the Jackson deal was a major procedural botch and a professional affront.
But Adelman also is the man who had the focus and the class to walk into the organizational meetings in Las Vegas a few weeks ago and never so much as raise the Jackson issue, even though it was on his mind and even though he was seeing the Maloofs for the first time since the story broke. As a coach, Adelman knew there was just too much other stuff that needed to get covered.
"You never know how those meetings are going to go, anyway," he said. "We needed to discuss the team and what we were going to do in the draft and free agency. ... I had a brief meeting with Joe after everything was done, but the (organizational) meeting wasn't the time for that."
Then Adelman returned to Sacramento and went back to work. He still is the coach, a man coming off his fifth straight 50-victory season. He is a coach who has put his Kings teams into the playoffs in all seven seasons he has been here, a span during which only Indiana and San Antonio have been able to do the same.
"You can fall by the wayside so quick in this league," he said. "It amazes me how people can make light of the idea of even getting to the playoffs, much less getting to a championship, when so many teams aren't able to do it."
Adelman's teams do it in part because they're talented and in part because he can coach, and you don't have to tell Adelman that it's a players' league.
Nobody in the NBA plays to save his coach's job, or to get his coach fired.
The NBA players play for any coach who can reach them, pure and simple.
This guy reaches players doing what he's doing, which is why he won't change the way he approaches the coming season simply because his short leash threatens to become a choke collar. Worry about other things. Rick Adelman, you already know.
About the writer:
- Reach Mark Kreidler at (916) 321-1149 or mkreidler@sacbee.com. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/kreidler.
