Mark Kreidler: The first call needed to be to Adelman
The Kings coach isn't naïve, but the Maloofs should have told him of their interest in Phil Jackson.
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Rick Adelman deserved the first call. That's all.
Adelman doesn't require your sympathy. He's in the coaching business, and he has been for a long time. He knows the drill.
Adelman knows that NBA coaching jobs come with good salaries, comfortable living, charter flights and all the random garbage and abuse a body can stand. They come complete with 24/7 fan input, emotional owners, outsized expectations, players of varying loyalty and rampant, wholesale employment insecurity.
He knows the same thing every professional or high-profile college coach knows, which is that he's pretty much always just about to be replaced. Longevity, in coaching, comes down to how long you can make the "just about" part stretch out.
So don't spend a minute worrying over Adelman's "state of mind" in the Phil Jackson flirtation. Adelman is a pro. He'll deal with it.
But he sure as heck deserved the call, the one that told him this was coming.
He never got it.
Ask this: For what?
For what was Adelman shunned, clocking in with 50 victories and a playoff No. 6 seed with a team that was torn apart and Krazy-Glued back together in February?
For going out in the first round against the third seed? For being on the wrong end of lopsided leads in the Seattle series while working with Brad Miller and Bobby Jackson for the first time in months?
For not being tough enough? Losing a playoff game at home? Failing to stop Jerome James with his merry cast of small forwards and Greg Ostertag?
The whole thing's a giant giggle. Adelman getting 50 wins out of a roster that by the end of the season had only four names on it from the 2004 team might not be like squeezing water from a rock, but it was the kind of coaching job that very, very few NBA people could have done.
Still, a little perspective is in order. Adelman has been in Sacramento for seven years, which equals, let me see here, 125 years on the coaching scale. At some point, a certain segment of the fan/media/ownership base is going to stand up strongly in favor of Anybody Who Isn't Him.
So grant the Maloofs their wanderlust.
And now ask this: For whom?
For whom is Adelman being shunned? Phil Jackson? Wow, you sure? Because at this point, it seems to me, the Maloof family is dealing strictly with the idea of Jackson, not the actual man.
The actual Phil Jackson is meeting with the Los Angeles Lakers first, the New York Knicks second and the rest of the field third, including but not limited to Minnesota (unlikely), Portland (nope) and Sacramento (redneck central, when last we checked in with Zen).
Now, though, Jackson is said to be intrigued by the Kings - and you bet. He's intrigued at the possibility that the mere notion of Sacramento landing him as a coach might send Jerry Buss scurrying to a luncheon eager to make peace and sign Phil to a fat new contract. He's intrigued that the Kings might help him drive up his own price and make his demands all the more palatable in Lakerland.
The Kings have talent, absolutely, but when was the last time anyone called them a championship contender? And absent that curb appeal, what are the other factors that would bring Jackson to Sacramento? The media hordes? His children over in the Bay Area? Part ownership in the Palms?
Please. If Jackson is going to need to take time to get another winner, he's going to pass that time in L.A. He has the home there, the girlfriend there, the front office already familiar, Bryant and the roster waiting. It makes sense.
I don't blame the Maloofs for casting a line in the water. The legend surrounding Jackson and his nine NBA championship rings so long ago surpassed the reality that the mere mention of his name would be worth something in ticket sales, in new-arena momentum and the like.
The truth, though, is less forgiving. Part of Jackson's magic came in massaging and handling the egos of superstars such as Michael Jordan in Chicago and Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant in L.A. - and Shaq and Kobe not so much, over those dysfunctional final 18 months or so. Phil's a very good coach but also a great career strategist. He's not jumping back into the NBA to finish fifth and maybe win a playoff round. He wants that 10th ring, and his history says he needs a true superstar to get it.
Still, the Maloofs aren't afraid to take the shot. And that would be wholly laudatory were it not for the fact Adelman didn't so much as receive a call.
I can safely say the family didn't want its pursuit of Jackson to become broad public knowledge; but once it did, either Joe or Gavin Maloof owed Adelman the first call. It's still stunning to think it didn't happen, that Adelman had to find out through other avenues.
Perhaps the Maloofs are so accustomed to having Geoff Petrie do that kind of thing that they genuinely didn't know how to proceed in Petrie's illness-related absence. Then again, Joe knew enough to call Phil Jackson's agent himself.
There was one other call he should have made, the one to the head coach who is under contract for next season. Adelman will deal with it. It doesn't make it right.
http://www.kingsfans.com/forums/showthread.php?p=143411#post143411
The Kings coach isn't naïve, but the Maloofs should have told him of their interest in Phil Jackson.
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Rick Adelman deserved the first call. That's all.
Adelman doesn't require your sympathy. He's in the coaching business, and he has been for a long time. He knows the drill.
Adelman knows that NBA coaching jobs come with good salaries, comfortable living, charter flights and all the random garbage and abuse a body can stand. They come complete with 24/7 fan input, emotional owners, outsized expectations, players of varying loyalty and rampant, wholesale employment insecurity.
He knows the same thing every professional or high-profile college coach knows, which is that he's pretty much always just about to be replaced. Longevity, in coaching, comes down to how long you can make the "just about" part stretch out.
So don't spend a minute worrying over Adelman's "state of mind" in the Phil Jackson flirtation. Adelman is a pro. He'll deal with it.
But he sure as heck deserved the call, the one that told him this was coming.
He never got it.
Ask this: For what?
For what was Adelman shunned, clocking in with 50 victories and a playoff No. 6 seed with a team that was torn apart and Krazy-Glued back together in February?
For going out in the first round against the third seed? For being on the wrong end of lopsided leads in the Seattle series while working with Brad Miller and Bobby Jackson for the first time in months?
For not being tough enough? Losing a playoff game at home? Failing to stop Jerome James with his merry cast of small forwards and Greg Ostertag?
The whole thing's a giant giggle. Adelman getting 50 wins out of a roster that by the end of the season had only four names on it from the 2004 team might not be like squeezing water from a rock, but it was the kind of coaching job that very, very few NBA people could have done.
Still, a little perspective is in order. Adelman has been in Sacramento for seven years, which equals, let me see here, 125 years on the coaching scale. At some point, a certain segment of the fan/media/ownership base is going to stand up strongly in favor of Anybody Who Isn't Him.
So grant the Maloofs their wanderlust.
And now ask this: For whom?
For whom is Adelman being shunned? Phil Jackson? Wow, you sure? Because at this point, it seems to me, the Maloof family is dealing strictly with the idea of Jackson, not the actual man.
The actual Phil Jackson is meeting with the Los Angeles Lakers first, the New York Knicks second and the rest of the field third, including but not limited to Minnesota (unlikely), Portland (nope) and Sacramento (redneck central, when last we checked in with Zen).
Now, though, Jackson is said to be intrigued by the Kings - and you bet. He's intrigued at the possibility that the mere notion of Sacramento landing him as a coach might send Jerry Buss scurrying to a luncheon eager to make peace and sign Phil to a fat new contract. He's intrigued that the Kings might help him drive up his own price and make his demands all the more palatable in Lakerland.
The Kings have talent, absolutely, but when was the last time anyone called them a championship contender? And absent that curb appeal, what are the other factors that would bring Jackson to Sacramento? The media hordes? His children over in the Bay Area? Part ownership in the Palms?
Please. If Jackson is going to need to take time to get another winner, he's going to pass that time in L.A. He has the home there, the girlfriend there, the front office already familiar, Bryant and the roster waiting. It makes sense.
I don't blame the Maloofs for casting a line in the water. The legend surrounding Jackson and his nine NBA championship rings so long ago surpassed the reality that the mere mention of his name would be worth something in ticket sales, in new-arena momentum and the like.
The truth, though, is less forgiving. Part of Jackson's magic came in massaging and handling the egos of superstars such as Michael Jordan in Chicago and Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant in L.A. - and Shaq and Kobe not so much, over those dysfunctional final 18 months or so. Phil's a very good coach but also a great career strategist. He's not jumping back into the NBA to finish fifth and maybe win a playoff round. He wants that 10th ring, and his history says he needs a true superstar to get it.
Still, the Maloofs aren't afraid to take the shot. And that would be wholly laudatory were it not for the fact Adelman didn't so much as receive a call.
I can safely say the family didn't want its pursuit of Jackson to become broad public knowledge; but once it did, either Joe or Gavin Maloof owed Adelman the first call. It's still stunning to think it didn't happen, that Adelman had to find out through other avenues.
Perhaps the Maloofs are so accustomed to having Geoff Petrie do that kind of thing that they genuinely didn't know how to proceed in Petrie's illness-related absence. Then again, Joe knew enough to call Phil Jackson's agent himself.
There was one other call he should have made, the one to the head coach who is under contract for next season. Adelman will deal with it. It doesn't make it right.
http://www.kingsfans.com/forums/showthread.php?p=143411#post143411
