<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">As the Seattle SuperSonics undertake the final quarter of their season while playing their best, most consistent basketball, star guard Ray Allen said on Monday that he thinks the team should extend the tenure of coach Bob Hill. Though Hill was not given an interim tag when he took over for Bob Weiss on Jan. 3, he is essentially on an extended job interview through April 19. The team?s management has not specified what Hill must accomplish to earn a new contract, saying they would evaluate him at the end of the season. But Allen said that he has gathered more than enough information in the nearly 21/2 months since Hill has been in charge to make a firm decision about who should guide the Sonics in 2006 and beyond. ?What we are doing is great ? because of him,? Allen said. ?He is putting players in position to do their job and be successful. These (centers) coming out and doing what they do, they wouldn?t be doing it if Hill wasn?t here. ?He incites passion with these guys. He keeps lines of communication open. He gets on you, and at the same time he will reward you positively. Those are the types of things you want from a coach. And I think if you ask each and every one of these guys, they like playing for him.? Since general manager Rick Sund cleansed the team of some negative forces and gave Hill a working roster, the Sonics have won four of six games heading into tonight?s game against the high-scoring Phoenix Suns. The atmosphere is better, the attitude is better and the play is decidedly better. But that, Allen says, is not what impresses him most about Hill. It is his attention to detail and his willingness to get out on the floor and work with players, something that many head coaches leave to assistants. ?I think since I have been here he is the only coach that I thought was developing the players who were in the system,? Allen said. ?No knock against Bob Weiss or Nate (McMillan), but (Hill) is the only coach who really invests in the guys. He comes out and works with them and makes sure they get up shots. He will sit out here and work with Rashard (Lewis) on his dribbling. He has done that on numerous occasions before practice.? Allen said he embraces the idea of developing young centers Robert Swift and Johan Petro, a decision that Hill committed to the day he was hired. ?To me, you are only as good as your players, and to me if you have young players you have to develop them,? Allen said. ?Last year and this year, we have talked about how (Swift) is going to be good for the future. All last year, he didn?t play and he didn?t work on any moves before practice, he didn?t do anything. Starting this year, same thing. ?But then when Bob took over, he started getting on him, him and Johan, he started making them work on post games, think the game, understand the game. And how they are playing now is a result of that. I now have hope they will be two All-Stars in the future, I believe that.? It was pointed out to Allen, of course, that he endorsed the hiring of Weiss, going so far as to call principal owner Howard Schultz in Europe to lobby for Weiss to replace McMillan. ?Everybody made that decision; everybody thought he was the logical choice,? Allen said. ?They were talking about candidates coming in, and we all said, ?Yeah, this is somebody we agree with and we think he can help us out.? We didn?t do it because Bob Weiss was a friend of ours. We did it because we wanted to win. We didn?t do it because we wanted to be terrible. It just didn?t work out.? Allen said he is certain Sund will ask him what he thinks about working with Hill. </div> Source
Ray also wanted Bob Weiss as coach, and look what happened there. If Shiek gets annoyed when Bob Hill openly talks about roster changes, he's going to love this piece.
That's the kiss of death right there--the Ray Allen endorsement. To be honest, Ray and Bob Hill have a lot of similarities. Here are some recent quotes from Bob Hill about his former star player at Fordham University, William "Smush" Parker: <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">"I told them the truth about his (difficult) life about how he grew up. And I told them he wasn't a student and didn't want to go to class." "He has an enormous ego, which is good because that's why he's (in the NBA). He probably doesn't, behind closed doors, respect Kobe (Bryant) but he's got to respect (coach) Phil (Jackson) so that will kind of keep him in his place."</div> Link There is nothing to be left to the imagination when you talk about Ray Allen and Bob Hill. Full disclosure is what anyone with a microphone and an audio tape will get when talking to either one of these clowns. The thing is that I think that Bob Hill is going to have an opportunity to come back next year b/c I think that the Sonics are going to play well enough down the stretch for him to get the endorsement of management and the players. The problem with this is that as candid and as egotistical as Hill is as a interim head coach (I know that isn't his title but he is in fact a lame duck coach at this point) you can only imagine how he will run this ship when he has some long term financial security behind him. I love the make up of this roster, but if we are going to be an elite team in this league we have to have a coach who is capable of getting this unit to defend. Bob Hill hasn't had the new players long enough to burn his bridges yet but considering how much he has tinkered with lineups in the short time he has been in charge, I can only imagine that at some point there will be some very disgruntled members of our ball club. Hill has helped this team in only one way. He has given our young bigs an opportunity to blossom. Luke Ridnour's development was more a testament to Hill's lack of confidence in the reserve point guards (before the trade deadline) as opposed to schemes to maximize Luke's strength. Telling a point guard to "Get it and go and don't worry about making mistakes b/c I am not taking you out" doesn't mean that you are a good coach/teacher. It means that you are looking elsewhere for point guard depth--which they found in Watson. Again, I am going to go on record and suggest that we bring in Terry Porter as our head coach next season and I'm also going to make the suggestion that Ray, if he really wants Hill to be the head coach, should be smart enough to make his desires known behind closed doors. The next coach that comes in should get Ray's ire. Ray has been the most successful in his career when he has had coaches who have challenged him to play harder and more unselfishly on both ends instead of allowing him free reign on the court and in the pressroom. Ray hates George Karl for a reason--but at the end of the day he was one game away from the finals partly b/c George didn't cater to the demands of a self-indulgent self-perceived superstar.
Oh, NOW you want Terry Porter. I should keep my old suggestions on file just so I can brag about them when they turn out to have been good and annoy the forum with my arrogance. But nobody would be able to say anything because I was right.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Casual:</div><div class="quote_post">Oh, NOW you want Terry Porter. I should keep my old suggestions on file just so I can brag about them when they turn out to have been good and annoy the forum with my arrogance. But nobody would be able to say anything because I was right. </div> Check the track record: #10 <div class="quote_poster">Quoting Shiek 2/9/06 11:57 AM PST:</div><div class="quote_post">Personally, my first hire would be Terry Porter as head coach. He has NW connections, was a fierce competitor as a player, and performed very admirably in his first two seasons in Milwaukee. His first season he overachieved dramatically and his second season he had some injury issues, some bad moves by management, and some free agent saga. I don't think he deserved what happened to him in Milwaukee and I think he has the character to instill some pride in these fa*got ass muthaf*ckas.</div> JBB Link Thou shall not steal, fam.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Casual 6/23/05:</div><div class="quote_post">Because he sucks. I'm hoping Nate goes somewhere else so we can snatch up Flip or Terry.</div> Linky.
I would like to see Terry Porter as the Sonics' coach as well. Nobody other than the Sonics seem to like Hill and there has to be a reason for that...and as Shiek has stated on numerous occasions...he is an "Asshole".
