HoopsHype.com NBA Blogs - Mark Heisler

What did they do with the beach, Toto?

Actually, Kurt Rambis, who got four rings as a Laker player wearing horn-rim glasses with “Rambis Youth” fans, and three more as an assistant coach, wasn’t exiled to Minnesota, he took over the Timberwolves of his own free will.

He’s not out of his mind, either. Of course, for a beach guy with a year-round tan, who spent most of his career in an organization with limitless resources, it won’t be exactly the same.

Still, Rambis wanted to coach again, after bombing—or being bombed—in his 37-game debut in the lockout-shortened 1999 season, although that can be summed up in two words: Dennis Rodman.

If Rambis never had a chance—Dennis was far beyond wanting to play, or sobriety, for that matter—it took 10 years for Kurt to get another chance.

All the while, Jerry West, who always had a keen eye for young coaches, has been recommending Rambis all over. Phil Jackson, who arrived leery of Kurt, who scouted for a year after being fired before joining Phil’s staff, became a big supporter. By the end, Kurt was Phil’s top lieutenant.

Rambis was also as Laker Family as Laker Family got with his wife, Linda, who works for the team, best friends with Jeannie Buss. Nevertheless, the cold reality was that Kurt wasn’t ever likely to succeed Jackson.

Kobe Bryant’s idea of Rambis as a head coach was formed in 1999. Actually, Rambis foundered trying to heal the breach between Kobe and the other players, which was so deep, Kurt fell in. In one meeting, Rambis urged the other players to consider Kobe’s age. Point guard Derek Harper got up and said that was crazy, it was Kobe who had to adjust to them. Harper lost his starting job, the rift stayed where it was, and wound up consuming them all.

If Bryant is down on Rambis, or merely OK with him, Kobe has others he’s passionate about: Hornet Coach Byron Scott, Laker assistant Brian Shaw… or my bet–Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, whom he reveres from their Olympic experience. 

Actually, Rambis’ first chance at a coaching job this spring came from Sacramento, if you want to call it that. The Kings, who are almost paying ex-coaches enough to hire Phil Jackson at $11 mill per, offered Rambis two years at $1.5 million, their way of offering him a blindfold, a cigarette and a 401K before turning him over to the firing squad of fate.

In Minnesota, Rambis got four years and $8 million. Even if things don’t work out, he’ll last long enough to get a chance with a lot bigger 401K.

The hiring went over well in the Twin Cities, which is saying something for a market that snickered at the Timberwolves when they were making the playoffs annually but getting knocked out in the first round in their first six post-seasons.

In those days, when they had Kevin Garnett, Flip Saunders, Chauncey Billups, et al., their actual failing was being in the West, averaging 49.5 wins in the last four.

At 0-5, they finally crashed the top four to earn home-court advantage for the first time… and found themselves facing a Shaq-Kobe Laker team that had sandbagged its way to No. 5, and knocked the Woofies out in the first round again.

Not making the playoffs went over worse, as did trading KG, letting Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell move on, firing Flip, and their great 2006 draft-day deal, Brandon Roy for Randy Foye. These days, the Timberwolves are doing well when the community even notices they’ve done something.

The Wolves have actually struck off in a bold, new direction, hiring a dynamic, whip-smart Pres. David Kahn, who fired the Old Tradition Personified, Kevin McHale.

(I should note that David is one of my oldest friends and has been telling me how smart he is for decades, starting when he interned at the Los Angeles Times. Of course, if I claim to be his mentor, I have to account for failing to teach him how many point guards to draft in the same lottery.)

It’s fashionable, or mandatory, to sneer at McHale, who’s actually one of the coolest people in the NBA, even if he’s a little on the stubborn side (the Lakers offered him Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum for KG, instead of Al Jefferson and all those Celtics who are no longer there.)

What is forgotten is what McHale did for the laughingstock franchise he took over with Christian Laettner and J.R. Rider, whom Kevin cleaned out en route to making the Timberwolves respectable, even if that was as far as they got in the West.

Unfortunately, owner, Glen Taylor, an approachable guy with deep pockets, was too loyal, if anything, giving McHale a blank check. With Kevin still in that great player’s mode of not wanting to explain himself, and with no one telling him he had to, they had the worst of both worlds, a mom and pop store that was not only low-powered but arrogant, freezing out the local press from the most mundane information.

Not that they didn’t come off well, but Kahn could have fired McHale, resigned the next day, and gone into the Twin Cities Hall of Fame.

David stuck around long enough to choose Johhny Flynn and Ricky Rubio, both point guards, at Nos. 5 and 6. Let’s just say it’s a good thing for all concerned Stephen A. Smith was no longer at ESPN for that one or he might have died of apoplexy on the set.

Kahn is now trying to coax Joventut Badalona to lower that $8 million buyout on Rubio’s contract, with no success so far.

Being a friend, I’m rooting for Rubio to stay where he is. With the excitement that grew around him, the mystique around Ricky will only grow by next spring, when they may be able to trade him for a top pick in a better draft, which could include big men like Ed Davis and Cole Aldrich.

Rambis’ arrival was almost as popular as McHale’s departure. The Minneapolis Star’s hard-nosed Pat Reusse called it “the most impressive coaching hire in the team’s two decades” noting Kurt is their first who could have been hired somewhere else.

It’s not that there’s nothing to build around… especially if you like power forwards. They have one established star, Al Jefferson, and one intriguing one, Kevin Love. At point guard Flynn, a warrior type with tremendous athleticism and leadership coming out of his ears, looked great in Las Vegas and then there’s Rubio/whoever they get for him.

Of course, if they win 30 games, Rambis will get coach of the year votes.

On the positive side, no matter how peculiar David’s insights, he won’t try to bring back Dennis Rodman. I don’t think.

Share:

Pretend you’re Mark Cuban.

Right away, everything is different. For one thing you have $2 billion.

More things have changed than that. As you start to look around, you find you suddenly have boundless energy and a keen insight into things you didn’t know anything about, like the Internet, the stock market and the future of global communications.

On the other hand, you don’t care about things that seemed important, like clothes. Now a T-shirt will suffice, no matter where you’re going.

Oh, and you have an obsession with this NBA team you own, that seemed to be going down the drain.

You still go everywhere with it… and it’s ever more painful as its fall accelerates from its pinnacle (2-0 up over the Heat in the 2006 Finals with a 13-point lead midway through the fourth quarter of Game 3) to its present state.

Even if you have a lot going on, like trying to buy the Cubs, which Commissioner Bud Selig will never let happen —Bud likes owners with a more reverent attitude toward commissioners—and SEC is charging you with insider trading, you’re still out there suffering day-by-day with your Mavericks.

You bought the franchise when it was nothing… just as coach Don Nelson started to pull it together.

Of course, dying to help, you got him Dennis Rodman, who scuttled the rest of that season like an anvil dropped from space.

In subsequent years, you and Nellie disagreed about which of you was the genius, but you managed to put your personal feelings aside and let Nellie do what he does.

Then, when Nellie left and the legal proceedings began, you even went Avery Johnson, whom Nellie nominated to succeed him. Avery took Nellie’s offensive team and made it defend.

Voila!

Avery went 16-2 after stepping in for Nellie, 60-22 in his first full season and 67-15 in his third, giving him the highest winning percentage in NBA history at that point.

You let Steve Nash go… to back-to-back MVP seasons in Phoenix and still wound up as a better team!

It looked like it was going to become a championship team except for your misadventure in the 2006 Finals after going up, 2-0 and blowing that 13-point lead in the last six minutes in Miami when it looked like you were about to lead, 3-0.

Now all everyone remembers is you railing about the referees, you getting fined $250,000 by Commissioner David Stern, Avery changing hotels and bristling at the press, presaging your losses in Games 4, 5 and 6.

The next season was even better and worse: 67 wins, utter domination of the regular season, followed by that first-round loss to the Warriors… and that damned Nellie.

The season after that, 2007-2008, you started 35-17 but that was only No. 3 in the West as everything changed.

The Lakers, who had almost lost Kobe Bryant, were back with Andrew Bynum on the rise and the Grizzlies donating Pau Gasol.

Worse, the Suns had just beaten you to the obvious move —Shaquille O’Neal— who would have fit naturally with you but fit awkwardly with them.

So now, you had to think up a dramatic move of your own… Jason Kidd?

Unfortunately, you gave up Devin Harris, your best player under 25, and it would have been nice if someone had figured out Jason would fit about as well with you as Shaq did with the Suns.

Your offense was built around isolations for Dirk Nowitzki and Josh Howard, leaving little for Kidd to do but hand them the ball and get out of the way.

So you finished 16-13, lost in five games to the Hornets in the first round and offed Avery, who was supposedly too controlling and making everybody crazy.

Now you’ve got Rick Carlisle, a sharp guy who turned around his first two teams, the Pistons and Pacers, but it’s clear your days of winning 55-60 are over.

What do do now?

Make trades in the hope of patching on the fly?

Back up the truck?

Unfortunately, there’s a certain point at which you’re out of good moves—and you’re there.

If you want to trade, you’ll soon discover the only players anyone wants will be Dirk, Josh and Brandon Bass, the ones you’d want to rebuild around.

If anyone knows you, they know you won’t ever be trading Dirk, your No. 1 fave.

There are deals out there, they’re just loaded with risk and freighted with huge, long-term contracts (see: Zach Randolph, Eddy Curry, Stephon Marbury or your choice of any Clipper of Bobcat.)

On the other hand, when you see it’s not working, how long do you intend to gaze at it?

Detroit’s Joe Dumars just decided he wasn’t going to watch his veterans—who had been in the last six East Finals—die by inches, plunged boldly into the future and, in the meantime, aligned his fate with Allen Iverson.

Meanwhile, Denver just went from uncoachable with AI, Carmelo Anthony et al. to semi-lucid with Chauncey Billups there to restore order.

We don’t know how they’ll wind up but it was Denver’s best shot to right the ship before Carmelo abandons it and it pushed Detroit headlong into the future.

Of course, the best thing would be if you can get one of those flashes of genius like creating Broadcast.com.

Did you ever see that movie, “Weird Science”, in which two geeks program all the facets about their perfect woman into a computer and out pops Kelly LeBrock?

In any case, you’d better figure out a new way to get where you’re going because you’re not getting there this way.

Share: