Kingster
Hall of Famer
Well I'm already on record as preferring Nate McMillan as our next coach and that hasn't changed. The reason he's at the top of my list is that he's shown in the past that he prioritizes defense and his offensive scheme is built around solid no-gimmick half-court sets which are typically what wins you close games in the playoffs. The player Brandon Roy became in Portland under his watch is pretty much best-case scenario with Evans and Aldridge turned out alright too. With Cousins and Evans as our cornerstones, if they remain our cornerstones, our identity should be built around exploiting that size and strength advantage. Find an ace defensive wing (I'm really liking Oladipo in the draft this year -- but maybe we could try to pry Moe Harkless from Orlando since they also have Tobias Harris or try to sign free agent Tony Allen away from Memphis this summer) and find a defensive ying to Cousins' yang (this is the tough part -- I'm not expecting a Nerlens Noel miracle. I still think Oden is worth a look. I'm coming up short here on plausible options... Splitter?). You'll probably also want a do-it-all third option scorer who hopefully can shoot well enough to space the floor. The bench we can figure out later, so that's three positions of need to make McMillan's system work since we already have the two most important roles covered.
The other reason I prefer McMillan is that he sortof bridges the gap between the older generation and the younger generation of coaching. He's a part of the USA basketball staff so he already has a relationship of some kind with the best players in the league and I feel like he might relate better with our young players than some of the older coaches being mentioned. I'd love to see what Sloan could do with this team given 3 years and the full support of our new front office, but then we're probably shopping for a new coach after that in the middle of our window of contention which is a frightening prospect. I like Jeff Van Gundy for a lot of the same reasons I like McMillan, but he's been away from coaching for awhile now. I don't think he's as prepared to step in and start turning this around from day 1 as Nate would be. I wouldn't touch SVG at this point. Even forgetting what happened the last time we tried to sign him, he came out of that whole Orlando fiasco looking almost as bad as Dwight Howard did and he's already cultivated a reputation as a coach that players learn to hate in a relatively short time. I just think he's too volatile a personality to be clashing regularly with DMC.
And Calipari is an intriguing option, but he's not leaving Kentucky this year. Maybe in 5 years he'll be ready to give the NBA another go, but we can't afford to sit around spinning our wheels going nowhere for that length of time. We need to get this coaching problem fixed ASAP so we can start actually making forward progress and shaking loose the memories of the past 10 years of Maloofian incompetence. Phil Jackson is also intriguing particularly for the 'sticking it to the Lakers' potential, but I'm not convinced he's even ready to coach again. Like Bill Walton it seems that he's barely held together with scotch tape at this point. He's on the short list, but he's also going to command the biggest coaching salary in the history of sports, which is asking a lot of a new ownership group that also has to deal with renovating an entire city district (slight exaggeration).
PS -- On a related note, I can't tell you how angry I am that UCLA chose this season to end their Ben Howland train wreck, effectively reducing the odds of USC landing the best coach available to nill. Thanks a lot guys. Couldn't you have let your program nosedive for just one more season? No up and coming coach is going to pick the USC job over the one across town at UCLA with all that history behind them.
We always aim to please USC fans...
