Nate McMillan fired by Blazers - now available

[Dr. Spaceman]

Story here: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/7691965/portland-trail-blazers-fire-coach-nate-mcmillan

McMillan was stuck with a terribly unlucky situation for years and had them competitive and dangerous year after year in spite of everything. They're now tearing everything down and he's an unfortunate product of it.

Their loss, our gain. Smart has proven himself to be a good teacher, but an awful coach who can't break out of the Nellieball hypnosis he's stuck in.

Absolutely the best coach available on the market -- I would make the move the second the buzzer sounds during our last game of the season.

Thoughts?

 

[UK_King]

My thoughts is it's just not going to happen barring an epic epic blowout losing streak

I'd be stunned if Smart doesn't start next season.

 

[bajaden]

It was just tweeted that Portland is going to waive Greg Oden to open up roster space.

 

[swisshh]

I like Nate, but I have a feeling the most attractive coaching job available this off-season might be the Clippers.

 

[ParniValjak]

My thoughts is it's just not going to happen barring an epic epic blowout losing streak

I'd be stunned if Smart doesn't start next season.

Unfortunately I tend to agree. It was the same story with Westphal last year. A few of us did not want the Kings to pick up the option on the 3rd year of Westphal's contract because we felt he would not finish the season and we needed a coach who could finally propel the team further up the standings. I was a strong advocate for getting Adelman but understood that might not be possible considering the past relationship between Adelman and the Magoofs.

We are in precisely same situation now. We picked up the option on a coach who will NOT finish the next season with the team. That is as clear as day light. I am hoping that we swallow our pride and say, you know what, we ****ed up and we need to stop doing it so we will right the wrong, thank Smart for his effort this year and sign McMillan to a multi-year deal.

What McMillan has done with the Blazers has been really under-rated. He re-built the team and got his trio to build around in Oden-Aldridge-Roy but unfortunately, 2 of the 3 had a career ending knee injuries which pretty much ****ed up the entire rebuild. He did a remarkable job to get the team into the play-offs last year basically without Roy and for some unexplained reason the expectations where high for this year. People didn't realize just how remarkable last year's effort to make the play-offs was.

If I was GP or the Magoofs, McMillan's phone would have rung the second his sacking was made public.