Adelman's taking no joy in watching a sad season
Another piece on on Rick. Really miss the guy.
Edit - this is the Mark Kreidler article in the other thread, found here:
http://www.kingsfans.com/forums/showthread.php?p=420382#post420382
Sacbee /
Sacramento Kings
First thing first: When he said, "It's their problem, now," on the phone from Portland the other evening, he said it absent malice. There was nothing self-congratulatory in the tone. Venom was never Rick Adelman's thing, anyway.
In fact, Adelman repeatedly sounded notes of empathy as he discussed the latest Kings stretch -- the losing, the cross-talk, players and agents and coaches all in the fray. He said he feels for the staff, for the players he coached. He knows the front office. These are friends.
"And it's not too late. It's really not," Adelman said. "Those last couple of playoff spots in the Western Conference are wide open. If they can win their home games, they could be right back in it. That's what got us back in it last season, the home court. They've just got to find a way to win."
And it's just so Adelman, that last sentence. It was his mantra through eight consecutive years of playoff basketball with the Kings: Find a way to win a game -- any way will do -- then worry about tomorrow, or the "tone" of a season, or whatever. You get right down to it, Adelman was the most practical sort of winner.
That didn't earn him a ninth tour with the Kings, not even after Adelman and his staff helped turn the Ron Artest-Peja Stojakovic trade into one of the great saved seasons of recent memory. A 26-12 finish and that pulsating first-round playoff series against San Antonio weren't enough to repair fractured relationships, and the Maloof family told Adelman -- through intermediary Geoff Petrie -- that it was time to go.
So now Adelman is gone, and the Kings struggle under first-year coach Eric Musselman. The casual fan -- and even some not-so-casual fans -- might be inclined to connect those events. It makes for decent early nostalgia. But not for Adelman.
"I don't feel vindicated," he said. "I just feel like I did a good job. I feel like maybe we did more than the Maloofs realized at the time. The truth is, it was eight hard years, and we were constantly changing pieces those last three years.
"It's not that I don't sometimes say, 'Well, they made their decision. Live with it,' but I know it's never that simplistic. Every season is different, and no one but the coach ever really knows what he's dealing with on a day-to-day basis.
"I have no idea what Eric Musselman is facing. I know most of the players, but only Musselman knows what he's truly facing."
Adelman paused.
"But it's their business, not mine. The Maloofs had the choice to make that change, and they made it."
Then again, Adelman might not need to crow. His record with the Kings speaks for itself (his 395 victories are by far the most in franchise history), and it seems to gain a little luster with each passing week. His market value, which was considered high from the moment the Maloofs cut him loose, may well blast into the stratosphere by the time this NBA season ends and the new group of coaching jobs comes swinging open.
Adelman said he has not considered what he'll do. He knows jobs will be available, and by the time they are, he and his wife, Mary Kay, will be empty-nesters, able to take a spot anywhere on the NBA landscape that looks good to them.
But it wouldn't be the greatest shock to see Adelman remain in Portland. Which is to say, remain home.
When Adelman and the Kings parted ways, Portland was almost the automatic destination. The Adelman family had essentially grown up there, through his playing and coaching days with the Trail Blazers. Most of the children and grandchildren still live in the area.
Still, it was a difficult call. The youngest of the Adelmans' six children, Patrick, had just finished his junior year at Granite Bay High School and was looking forward to considerable playing time on the basketball team as a senior. Instead, he's getting limited minutes on a powerhouse Lake Oswego High team in the Portland area that features UCLA-bound star Kevin Love.
"It's been tough for him, but he's a solid person, and he has handled it really well," Adelman said. "And we've got all the other kids right here in the area. We just felt like, for the family as a whole, moving to Portland last summer was the thing to do."
From Portland he sees the Kings struggling but offers no prescription. He's not a big armchair-quarterback guy. Instead, Adelman talks about people such as Pete Youngman, the trainer, and Robert Pimentel, the equipment manager, and various members of the staff and front office -- the people who labor mostly anonymously in an effort to create a winning atmosphere.
He speaks occasionally with Petrie, the Kings basketball president and his longtime friend, but usually briefly and almost never about the day-to-day Kings. Jerry Reynolds, whom Adelman calls "in many ways the real face of that organization," checks in regularly.
Joe and Gavin Maloof?
"I've never heard from them since before the Ron Artest trade," Adelman said.
It is perhaps the one facet of the deal that still bothers the former Kings coach. Adelman said he was disappointed not to receive a call from the Maloofs when the professional relationship ended (Joe Maloof has acknowledged that he didn't call), and the coach was livid about a subsequent suggestion in a newspaper column that the Maloofs were unwelcome at his practices.
"That was an outright lie," he said of the notion. "It's their team. They could look out from their offices right onto the practice floor. They could talk to me anytime they wanted.
"It just blows me away. If I was that imposing, I should have gone in and demanded a five-year contract. I mean, don't justify it (the move). Just say you want to make a change. I can live with that."
When asked if he regrets anything from his Kings tenure, Adelman said that, in hindsight, he wishes he had "pushed more" to talk to the Maloofs about what was going on. Then again, the coach says, "They were dealing with things on a different plateau.
"With the Ron Artest trade, they were handling the massive media stuff that accompanied that. The staff and I were trying to figure out how to make it work on the court."
It did work, at least temporarily. Under Adelman, the oft-controversial Artest was a major contributor down the stretch last season, and in the playoffs it was another occasional character suspect, Bonzi Wells, who came up huge.
Adelman considers those developments representative of his approach to coaching NBA players, which is, he said, "to put them in a system that is best suited to them, and let them have a little fun out there playing."
It was an approach that delivered career performances from the disparate likes of Chris Webber, Doug Christie, Bobby Jackson, Mike Bibby and others.
It's an approach that might well be pulled back into action. Adelman keeps tabs on the league's doings, so as not to be out of touch. But as for specific thoughts about future coaching jobs, "I'm just letting it go.
"I would love to find something here in Portland," Adelman said. "I would love to be part of the Blazers' organization -- not as a coach -- because I think they're really doing some good things.
"But I don't want to get into a thing about it. I am not looking right now."
Instead, Adelman observes,watching NBA games when he can, in between seeing his own family's basketball action. He gets league-wide updates daily on his computer.
When he sees Musselman's team fail to hold leads and give away fourth quarters, it is, he says, without joy.
"There are so many players on that team that I really like. I don't want to see them not win," he said. "It's a great town, with such a great fan base. You'd like to see it all work out with the arena and the team."
And on the other hand, "It's not mine to say anymore," Adelman said.
