https://www.oregonlive.com/sports/2...rs-and-coach-terry-stotts.html?outputType=amp DENVER -- The other night I looked up at Terry Stotts in the postgame news conference. The Trail Blazers coach was looking back at a dozen or so reporters sitting on folding chairs in front of him, and I thought, “Man, I wish this were a movie." Stotts had just lost an NBA playoff game to the Denver Nuggets in which Nikola Jokic smoked him for 37 points. He was beat and his brain was working on decreased oxygen because of the altitude. His face looked like a boiled ham. Just before it was over, a reporter in the room asked Stotts what he was going to do to stop Jokic. The Blazers coach paused, and let a thought pass. Then Stotts said something about watching film and coming up with a plan. But if it were a movie, I think Stotts might have just looked into the camera like Matthew Broderick did in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” shattered the metaphysical fourth wall and directly addressed the audience. Ferris would have said: “The question isn’t what are we going to do. The question is what aren’t we going to do." I’d have liked that so much better. I’ll bet you would, too. Because what we all got instead was a non-answer from Stotts. It’s sort of what he does in that setting. So much so that a handful of reporters who cover the team only show up to his routine pregame and postgame media availability sessions to eavesdrop and not really to quote him. Stotts rarely says anything groundbreaking in those interview sessions. He’s like an ice cream shop, chronically out of everything except soft-serve vanilla. Intentionally so, I’m convinced. Because there’s no value in giving away his plan trying to make the media happy. But I do think Stotts connects deeply with those who count — Damian Lillard and most Blazers fans. That’s an important play on his part. By the time he arrived at that news conference on Monday night, Stotts had coached against Jokic for the fifth time this season, losing four of them. He’d also watched tape of seven games the Nuggets center played against the Spurs. After all that cramming, he still had a wrong answer. If there were a simple adjustment for stopping Jokic, Stotts would have made it and won the game in the first place. But instead, he spent Monday evening digesting a Serbian knuckle sandwich. Then, for dessert, the coach got a bunch of poorly dressed sportswriters asking him what’s on the menu for Game 2. That fleeting thought Stotts had? I’ll bet it was something less polite than the double scoop of vanilla he served up before going home for the night. But in Game 2, it’s Stotts’ job to have a fresh answer, a better answer, a successful answer, lest he end up facing the same reporters asking the same questions at the end of his shift. Adjustments are his job. Being interesting in a news conference is not. Make enough good adjustments over time, he gets to keep the job. Don’t — and he don’t. Those are the rules. Lots of NBA owners have yachts. I imagine they take a very similar outlook when it comes to their head basketball coach. Thrilled to land one that brings them joy, and after enough years at sea, happier yet to cast it away and get another. Stotts has sailed the seas in Portland for seven seasons. Only three NBA coaches have longer tenure with their current franchise — Gregg Popovich (Spurs), Erik Spoelstra (Heat) and Rick Carlisle (Mavericks). And next season, Stotts’ contract will enter its final year. He’s coached 574 regular-season games in Portland and won at a .566 clip. He’s reached the playoffs in six consecutive seasons. And his best coaching job might be the high-wire act he just pulled off. He took a team Las Vegas hated at the beginning of the season, endured a devastating injury to his starting center, and somehow has that same team still playing. I think Stotts deserves an extension. His agent, Warren LeGarie probably thinks so, too. That Stotts and general manager Neil Olshey are both represented by LeGarie presents an interesting little subplot that is going on in the background of this playoff series. Will the Blazers extend Stotts’ contract early? Will they wait until summer? Or will they make him to go into next season as a lame duck? The franchise, run during Paul Allen’s watch, typically took a “let ‘em dangle while we think about it,” approach. It’s how he did business. Billionaires like to see everyone else’s cards before they play their hand. It’s why they’d rather own the casino than sit in it. In fact, once upon a time, Allen had his general manager float All-Star guard Brandon Roy as trade bait to other teams before yanking him off the table and extending Roy a max-deal extension. Not because Allen actually wanted to trade Roy. But because he wanted to know what other teams thought Roy was worth before he bid. Now, Allen’s sister, Jody, is running the game. The power structure of the basketball organization feels a little like an early “Game of Thrones” episode, doesn’t it? House Blazerian is in mild disarray. There’s restructuring coming. Nobody on the outside quite knows what is going to happen, although, speculation is that the franchise will eventually form an alliance with new ownership. Whatever the case, someone needs to make the call on extending Stotts. And I think letting the coach dangle into next season is a lousy idea because there’s very little good that can come from that. It’s like when you see one of those social media video posts of a shirtless, sunburned guy standing on a garage rooftop next to a pool preparing to take a running jump while his friends film it. We all know the guy sailing into the water, feet first, doesn’t go viral. Stotts is barefoot, climbing onto the rooftop. Let this drag out and his agent might quietly call him down, and seek a new landing spot. Also, jerk Stotts around and Lillard’s confidence in the franchise might be rattled. Also the fan base is coming off what might be its most joyous month in a couple of decades. Some merry continuity feels in order. It’s especially valuable given that Stotts assistants Nate Tibbetts and David Vanterpool are getting a lot of run for some of the vacancies around the league. If Stotts himself were available, there would be a line. It’s all very interesting, isn’t it? Stotts has a major playoff series adjustment on his plate. He has to figure out how to get out of the headlock Jokic has him in. Meanwhile, the organization has an important strategic move to make regarding his future. In question is whether Stotts, 61, is the right guy to make the game adjustments beyond next season. A non-answer from Stotts on the spot after a game is fine. No harm, really. But a long-term, non-answer from the franchise about Stotts’ future could be problematic. Keep an eye on that. You know what Ferris said: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
I read no further than how canzano expects answer to mistakes immediately after the game. Wtf? Give the man time to assess study and determine which changes should happen. Another bs article by canzlamo
