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what will Seattle do now that rashard left. and allen.
We've been duped by Bennett
By Steve Kelley
Seattle Times staff columnist
We've been duped.
We thought Sonics owner Clay Bennett really cared about staying when he brought Lenny Wilkens into a position of authority inside the franchise.
We thought he really meant it when he and Wilkens went to lobby the Legislature and ask for a new all-purpose arena that would benefit one and all.
We thought he really wanted to protect the Sonics' gold-plated first-round pick Kevin Durant with a reliable, veteran scorer like Rashard Lewis.
We thought he was serious about finding the right head coach for his young team when he interviewed the best candidate out there, former Sonics assistant Dwane Casey.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. And wrong.
This must be what a basketball apocalypse feels like.
We've been duped.
First, the Sonics botched the Rashard Lewis deal so badly, it made his decision to go to Orlando as easy as choosing a vacation destination.
And at a noon news conference Thursday, the Sonics will name the absolutely wrong choice to be their new head coach.
They had a 50-50 chance of getting it right and they muffed it.
They picked P.J. Carlesimo, San Antonio's assistant coach, over Casey, the former Minnesota coach.
These San Antonio guys — Sonics owner Clay Bennett, a former Spurs minority owner, and Sam Presti, a former Spurs assistant general manager — took their security blanket over the common-sense choice.
They sucked all the joy out of draft night, when Presti made all the right moves — picking Kevin Durant and trading Ray Allen to Boston for the fifth pick, Jeff Green, along with Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak.
On that night, they opened the door to the hope the Sonics could stay in Seattle. This week, they slammed it shut.
They dumped payroll like a troubled jet drops fuel.
Mayday! Mayday!
They lost 50 points per game in Allen and Lewis and replaced it with promise. Promise that almost certainly will be realized some day in some other city besides Seattle.
These past two days were a black-hearted Valentine from Bennett to the people of Seattle. A finger-waving salute to the state's legislators. An adios to pro basketball in this town.
Bennett is sprinting away from this city's NBA legacy. He's turning his back on 40-plus years of hoops.
Rashard Lewis? Why does Bennett need a nine-year Sonics veteran who carries a $70 million-plus price tag?
Dwane Casey? He was too close to the Sonics' more glorious past.
He coached with George Karl all the way to the 1996 NBA Finals. Coached with Nate McMillan when they shocked the league and won the 2005 Northwest Division, then took Bennett's beloved role models, the Spurs, to six nail-biting games.
Casey was too dangerous for Bennett. He had friends in Seattle. He wanted the franchise to stay. And Bennett couldn't have that.
We've been duped.
Bennett couldn't have a former Sonics assistant coaching his team.
Casey has a home in Seattle, for crying out loud. He got married here.
Yikes, he might have let it slip to the media that this team belonged in Seattle.
And we already know how much Bennett hates the Seattle media. In the job interviews with both general managers and coaches, he whined about the "unfair" treatment he has received here.
Apparently he takes no responsibility for his blunders.
Not hiring Casey is the latest.
The former Sonics assistant was the guy who could have coaxed and pushed and cursed and cajoled this young team, which will have an opening-day roster that averages between 24 and 25 years old.
Carlesimo is wrong for this team.
What happened the last time Carlesimo coached a young NBA team?
The Golden State Warriors fell into anarchy during his two-plus-year tenure when the team went 46-113.
Let's not even mention the Latrell Sprewell incident.
(OK, we just did.)
Carlesimo is a grinder. He chews on players. He wears on them.
It will take a certain, secure veteran player, like Robert Horry or Michael Finley, to play for Carlesimo. Those are players the Sonics don't have.
With Carlesimo, Bennett is looking for the second coming of Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, a great coach who can get away with being cold-hearted because he has Tim Duncan and Duncan always salved the psychic wounds Popovich inflicted on the other Spurs.
Seattle is a much different team.
In terms of maturity, these Sonics are as much like the Spurs as Bellevue High School is to the Indianapolis Colts.
Maybe Seattle will win 28 games next year. Maybe the Sonics will get lucky and Durant goes LeBron on the league and they win 35.
I'm not sure it matters anymore.
It appears Bennett is counting days, not wins. He is looking to take his young team to some naïve smaller-market city that will be thrilled, at least initially, just to have a team.
In the meantime, this season in Seattle, for Bennett, is just an inconvenient truth.
what will Seattle do now that rashard left. and allen.
-Casey was too dangerous for Bennett. He had friends in Seattle. He wanted the franchise to stay. And Bennett couldn't have that.
-Carlesimo is wrong for this team.
What happened the last time Carlesimo coached a young NBA team?
The Golden State Warriors fell into anarchy during his two-plus-year tenure when the team went 46-113.
Let's not even mention the Latrell Sprewell incident.
(OK, we just did.)
Carlesimo is a grinder. He chews on players. He wears on them.
-
if Casey is a good coach why Minnesota didn't even see the playoffs last yr? with KG as leader?
let's be realistic if you're a good coach you bring something to the table. Maybe Sonics getting P.J. is a gamble but a promising one because he's from a franchise who knows how to win games and run the organization.
OMG, I just can't believe what I'm reading. At least Duncan gets one point for that one.With Carlesimo, Bennett is looking for the second coming of Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, a great coach who can get away with being cold-hearted because he has Tim Duncan and Duncan always salved the psychic wounds Popovich inflicted on the other Spurs.
Good luck PJ.
How much playoffs games did they lost ?They lost 50 points per game in Allen and Lewis and replaced it with promise.
This guy has no clue about what Presti is doing and about what it takes to transform a losing franchise into a perennial compe ive one.
Premature panicking article !
yeah...those San Antonio guys....them and all those rings they have...who needs them?
yeah...those San Antonio guys....them and all those rings they have...who needs them?
these seattle guys talk like they actually had a shot to do anything this year. with or without allen and lewis, the sonics were going to be a lottery team. at least now they're going to have a bright future ahead of them instead of years of mediocrity.
this mother er better not jump on the Sonics bandwagon when they start doing good. Idiot!
Another Prozak-popping, overcast-skies having Seattle citizen, gettin' all depressed and stuff.
Casey is a decent coach. The Wolves were on the track to the playoffs (.500) before McHale fired Casey, and hired Randy Wittman, then they proceeded to tank, and has nothing to show for it.
But the article is so full of homerism it's not even funny. Pop with his psychic wounds? Ask Manu and Parker how it turned out. You have to be tough-minded in this league, and if you are so soft mentally you can't take a little constructive criticism from the head coach, you will end up like a William Bedford or a Beno Udrih.
And I struggle to see how keeping Allen and Lewis will increase the chances of the Sonics staying in Seattle. They have been there for years, and it didn't stop the rumours of the Sonics leaving last year, did it?
Hmmmm...looks like Seattle has to relearn what it's like to have a successful and well-run franchise.
Actually, I like the PJ hire much better now than I would have with Vagina Allen and Smokin' Rashard Lewis on the roster. If there is ONE takeaway from Pop that PJ needs to really incorporate in Seattle, it's to bond with your star player. He needs to really bond with Kevin D and get him on his side. If he has the young star and the young players, they can clean out the disgruntled vets in a year or two, and battle Porty for the NW division for a decade.
Guess this guy won't be getting too many inteviews with PJ.
I like what they did by letting Allen and Lewis go. They were nothing more than two show ponies. Good looking games, but not winners. And $$$$
Uh, when Casey was fired, the Twolves were at 20-20 and well in the playoff chase.
McHale's buddy Randy Wittman was the guy who flushed the season down the toilet with a 12-30 finish.
There are lots of reasons to believe PJ is going to be a subpar coach for the Sonics.
Are you insinuating he won't?
If the Sonics end up in the top half of the division, this hack will be blowing Presti and PJ.
they must eat their own in Seattle. talk about a brutal article
The guy was pulling for Casey???
What makes you say that?
According to this Seattle Times readers poll, the marjority of Sonics fans think signing PJ as their coach was a bad idea...Losers!
http://tinyurl.com/yop3un
What an idiot columnist....
The fact that the guy was really average to below-average in two previous stints. The NBA's benches are filled with ex-head-coach assistant who did nothing with multiple shots at being the lead dog, and nobody clamoring for them to be put back in charge.
In fact, you could make the argument that the only reason he's getting yet another job is that, because of the Sprewell incident, people sympathize that he didn't get a full chance. But if that had never happened, would we be talking about him at all?
Some interesting comments from Ian Thomsen:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...tes/index.html
When it comes to teams with zero hope of contending, no coach will be scrutinized as minutely as P.J. Carlesimo. It has been 10 years since he was throttled by Latrell Sprewell, yet that incident continues to define him.
I remember talking to Carlesimo a few months after Sprewell was suspended for the worst kind of mutiny. Understood at the time was that Carlesimo had provoked the insurrection, and I asked him whether it was asking too much of a college-trained coach like himself to deal with NBA players. There was no good answer: The Sprewell incident was proof that the NCAA authoritarian style is doomed in the NBA, where coaches must form partnerships with their richer, more secure players.
When I talked to Carlesimo a decade ago, I saw him as a college coach who had spent his entire career at Fordham, New Hampshire College, Wagner and Seton Hall before becoming head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers just three years before he was attacked by Sprewell. So here's the crucial difference today: Carlesimo isn't a college coach any longer. No longer do I feel like I'm talking with an alien to the pro game. He's a fully naturalized citizen of the NBA. He has lost his NCAA accent.
Five seasons as an assistant to Spurs coach Gregg Popovich have endowed Carlesimo with the credibility he lacked when he tried to jump straight from college to a No. 1 seat in the NBA. People will be watching closely to see if he can get along with his players, but if that is Carlesimo's goal, then he'll be making a big mistake. Instead, he must explore common ground with his players that will enable him to exact discipline while maintaining their cooperation. Let's give him credit for growing wiser and learning how to talk to players without inciting them to violence.
And recognize too that there isn't a coach in the league who doesn't have issues with his players. Carlesimo needs to clash with them occasionally -- he won't be earning his money otherwise -- and he can't let the Sprewell incident weaken his standards of right and wrong. People are going to bring up his past no matter what he does. I would imagine he'll invest a lot of time building relationships with his key players that will withstand the scrutiny.
He's also spent 5 years as the lead assistant on the most successful team in basketball over that span. I think that will garner a certain amount of attention in its own right.
You're right, he's had a couple of unsuccessful stints as a head caoch before. He may suck again this time. But some guys fail, take a step back, and learn from their experiences and their time away. Think of Bill Belicheck, for example.
These are the same losers who, in 2005 said that Duncan got owned by, ummm, uhhhh, that guy who had a couple good games and refused to give Duncan or the Spurs any credit for anything.
Hmmmmmm, he's so insignificant that I fail to remember his name.
Anyway, the same dolts who think PJ was a bad hire are the same dolts who rode the jock of insigificant 2005 Sonics player.
The northwest is known for many things. A majority of intelligent sports fans is not one of those things.
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