Portland Trail Blazers on Facebook: Head Coach Nate McMillan will undergo surgery to repair a ruptured right Achilles tendon on Monday, Dec. 7. McMillan sustained the injury during Friday’s practice and will miss Portland’s upcoming four-game road trip but he will coach Saturday’s game vs. Houston. Lead Assistant Coach Dean Demopoulos will serve as the team’s head coach. We hope Nate gets better soon and returns to the sidelines quickly.
Dean usually gets to coach when Nate goes down. This has happened once or twice before, and in rare occasions, Nate gets ejected.
I know, I just like Monty, and want to see him coacha few games for us before he goes on to coach a different team. And he always seems like the first one up to reel in Nate, first one in Nate's ear, etc. Just always had the look of lead assistant.
The key question, in my mind, is will the team be coached differently and will the players respond to slightly different "rules" from the sideline? Inquiring minds are anxious to know. Gramps...
LMAO. First of all, get well Nate. Second of all, don't think for a minute that anything is going to change with this team with Dean on the road. Dean is a puppet to Nate. If it was Monty, I would have more hope. But it's Dean and I'm not expecting to much.
I was rather hoping that the starting lineup works for Nate, and it helps break him out of his "box". I don't see an asisstant in for a game or so as establishing a pattern for success when you know the coach is coming back.
Yeah, I agree. Dean isn't going to run the team like he just got named permanent head coach and the team will take on his identity. Get well Nate! Just never try to practice ever again, you're too old for that now.
So....what happens if we play bad during this stretch? Is it... Nate is better than we thought? Or... FIRE DEAN!
Fire Dean of course. He'll be the Steve Blake of the coaching staff, while Monty plays the role of Andre Miller.
