If it's a two-year tryout, what have we got to lose? Like I said, he might be ready. If he wins, we win, if he loses, we win (a lottery pick to round out the rotation).
Looking at his teams in the past I don't see how he even comes close to the candidate of D'Antoni. But I'm hoping for the best!
I'm willing to give the guy some rope. If Batum suddenly develops into a consistent threat offensively and Lillard realizes all of the hope and promise he's supposedly got then I think you have to give him a little bit of credit. The wins and losses hardly matter to me in the short term; the talent level is pretty thin, so the thing to look for is a coherent offensive system and guys developing or stepping up their game and playing hard. I just hope to god this guy isn't a habitual arm-crosser, I can't take that again.
I guess I can change my avatar now that that pipe dream didn't pan out. Thank You Mr. Allen and Mr. Olshey.
A close friend of Canales says he's doing "a slow stew." He has many allies among players, coaches, and administration, and can make Stotts' short stay here difficult.
Thats a pretty nice way to get yourself blacklisted from any further coaching job. Who the hell is going to hire you as an assistant if you got a head coach fired for no other reason then they were hired instead of you? It would be HC job or nothing for Canales. Also doesn't fit the profile of how Canales has presented himself to the media, if he is the hard worker and nice guy everyone says he is then he will suck it up and do whatever job he is supposed to do and wait for his next shot at a HC job.
I'd be interested - anyone know - the records of the two teams Stotts coached with his successor. Because you know, sometimes a team just isn't very good. Red Auerbach wouldn't have won with last year's Bobcats. So I'm curious if he had a losing record because he was a bad coach or because he was coaching a bad team. Rick Adelman won in Portland, lost in Golden State (where an incredulous Warriors fan once asked me if folks in Portland actually considered him a good coach), won in Sacramento and loses in Minnnesota. So if he lost but the coach after him won, that would indicate Stotts is not too good a coach, but if the next coach had a worse record or even a comparable record, maybe there just wasn't a lot to work with. At any rate I wish him well, hope he succeeds. And Go Blazers. Personally I'm glad Paul Allen doesn't fire a coach at the first fan grumble, otherwise no coach would last a single preseason game. Hell, no coach would even get a chance to coach a single game, the way some people around here grumble.
