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.
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.
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.
This is where I came in, with the U.S. dominant and its Olympic team playing its rear end off.
The first Games I covered were in 1984 in Los Angeles when Bob Knight drove his college players as only he could. With their star power – Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin, Sam Perkins – and that level of effort, the world was overmatched. The talk then was that it, along with the 1960 team with Jerry West and Oscar Robertson, were the best there ever were.
The 2008 U.S. team was like the pro version of Knight’s team, with the same effort and even more star power. That was fortunate for the Americans because when they got into that shootout at the end with Spain, they needed every bit of firepower they had.
Even in 1984, things were changing, although no one knew how much.
As good as Knight’s team was, there was someone out there capable of playing with them – the USSR – but it boycotted.
Four years later at Seoul, the last Soviet Olympic team with Arvydas Sabonis, Sarunas Marciulionis and a cast of jump shooters whipped John Thompson’s U.S. squad fair and square. That did it for U.S. college players, who bowed out in favor of the NBA stars who were supposed to put the U.S. back on top forever, starting with the Dream Team’s triumph at Barcelona in 1992.
It turned out to be forever or 10 years, whichever came first.
Boris Stankovic, the far-sighted head of FIBA who made it possible for the professionals to participate, turned out to be even farther-sighted than he knew.
“Now NBA players are dominating,” said Stankovic at Barcelona, “but one day – not in my lifetime but one day – the world will catch up.”
Stankovic is still going strong and if the world hasn’t caught up, it has definitely closed the gap.
It wasn’t long before the Americans couldn’t just show up and accept everyone’s surrender. If they couldn’t shoot, had no chemistry and/or weren’t together long to prepare for the international game, they were in trouble. As U.S. scout Tony Ronzone, the Pistons’ director of basketball operations said in Beijing last week, “And that’s all we sent.”
At the 2002 World Championships in Indianapolis, the pros representing the U.S. lost their first game, to Argentina. For good measure, they then lost to Yugoslavia and Spain, too.
Then came the Athenian Nightmare in 2004, when nine members of the team that qualified the preceding summer bailed amid scare stories about terrorism. Larry Brown wound up with a makeshift team with Stephon Marbury at the point, Lamar Odom and Richard Jefferson at forward… And lost three more games.
Then the U.S. got serious, with Jerry Colangelo setting up an ongoing program and Coach Mike Krzyzewski making sure his team had plenty of time to prepare for the 2006 Worlds in Saitama, Japan, where they… lost?
Greece stunned them in the semifinals as point guard Vassilis Spanoulis ran pick-and-roll after pick-and-roll down the stretch and the U.S. broke down completely.
That was how far the world had come. Even if the U.S. players parked their attitudes, put in the time and took it seriously, they weren’t guaranteed anything if all the pieces weren’t there. Indeed, there was one piece of the puzzle missing but it – he – arrived the next summer in the person of Kobe Bryant.
Out the summer before after knee surgery, Bryant came joined the team for the 2007 Tournament of the Americas, determined to make an impact on defense. This was a suprise for anyone who didn’t know Bryant but he had seen the game against Greece – which aired at 3 am on the West Coast – which was all he had to see.
On the very first possession of his Bryant’s first game against Venezuela, he pounced on point guard Greivis Vasquez, a rising freshman at Maryland who had missed a triple-double by one rebound in his first game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Bryant tipped the ball away, dove on the floor after it and when Vasquez got it back, jumped up, stole Vasquez’s next pass and started a fast break the other way.
“That’s the clip Coach K always uses, Kobe diving on the floor,” says Ronzone. “You’re talking about an MVP player in the NBA who just made a statement to USA. basketball… And what that did is it took our defense to another level. What you’re seeing is something that started last summer in Las Vegas, which is amazing.”
Even the Dream Team wasn’t known for its defense but for its firepower and star power.
If the 2008 team resembled Knight’s, it’s no coincidence. Knight was once Krzyzewski’s mentor; Krzyzewski even broke down game film for him at Los Angeles. Kryzewski’s team would be one of the smallest teams the U.S. had sent in decades with no seven-footer and only Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh over 6-9. It was also probably the most athletic they ever sent with Howard and Bosh able to get out on shooters.
This team was more than just good. In a refreshing change, it was nice.
After years of arrogance and macho that turned the world off as fast as the Dream Team turned it on, Colangelo and Krzyzewski set out to show the U.S. could regain its preeminence without looking like an And 1 Mixtape.
The horror show had started in the 1994 Worlds at Toronto where the so-called “Dream Team II” with its Young Guns, put on an Ugly American Clinic. Bristling at comparisons to the Dream Team whose play they couldn’t begin to match, the Young Guns, notably Larry Johnson, Derrick Coleman and Shawn Kemp, showboated, rubbed it in opponents’ faces and talked trash.
That deal where the opposing teams wanted their pictures taken with the Dream Team? That ended at Toronto.
“I don’t know if vile is the right word or disgusting,” said Australia’s Andrew Gaze. “There should be at least some pleasure in playing the game, some dignity.”
Replied Johnson: “I didn’t come here to make friends. I’ve got enough friends.”
All it took was some leadership and all of that went away.
“I really do believe from everything I know from people I respect, the people in the world thought the American teams didn’t respect them,” says Colangelo. “Didn’t respect them as teams, as individuals, arrogant, that kind of thing. And that had to end….
“From those first meetings with players, I said, ‘Look, this is what people think of us. We have to change this. We have to come in with a whole new attitude. We have to show respect for our country, show respect for our team, show respect for our opponents. And anything less than that’s not going to fly.’”
Old foes like Gaze and Lithuania’s Sarunas Jasikevicius who had bristled at their old arrogance, noticed the difference.
“I think they’ve been outstanding, the way they’ve conducted themselves,” said Gaze, doing TV at Beijing. “They may be coming from a fairly low base from some of their predecessors in the way they’ve gone about it….
“I think they’ve really taken on the challenge, not only to resurrect the reputation of what goes on the court but what goes off the court.”
I’m pretty confident Spain would have beaten the 2000 U.S. team that night. (Of course, it would have beaten the 2004 team. Like, who didn’t?) The 1996 team with Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley might have been in trouble.
Unfortunately for the game, which gains immeasurably from real drama in the Olympics – even if it doesn’t go over so well in the U.S. – FIBA is about to change things again.
By 2012 in London, the conical lane will be gone and the three-point line will have been moved back from it’s present 20-6, one foot longer than the college line to 22-2.
Insiders say FIBA is doing it to get one set of rules worldwide, in the sure knowledge the NBA won’t be changing its rules. The international rules evened things out, minimizing the impact of all that U.S. athleticism, enhancing the importance of the international teams’ shooting prowess.
Not only isn’t anything broken, it was really getting interesting, so why are they trying to fix it?
Anyway, there’s no doubt the U.S. is back. For how long remains to be seen.
You don’t normally like to see your roster go belly up in the Finals which, even that far along, suggests a fundamental problem. Take the Lakers. The Celtics just did.
It’s not good to discover you’re not tough enough, especially up front since no one is likely to be inclined to send you one of their tough big men. Nor would the draft be of much use, even if they were in it, which the Lakers almost aren’t, with only one pick at No. 58. However, this is an extraordinary case with the Lakers expecting seven-foot, 275-pound, 20-year-old Andrew Bynum expected back next fall.
Bynum, who missed the second half of the season, had been breaking out in his third season, looking so impressive that Kobe Bryant, who had excoriated Laker management, demanding to be traded, changed his mind about the whole thing.
If this was embarrassing – Bryant also railed at the Lakers for not trading Bynum for Jason Kidd – Kobe is now on board in a big way (“He’s a legitimate, 7-1, long-wing-span, natural shot blocker so add Andrew, it takes us to another level defensively.”)
Hurt on Jan. 13, Bynum was expected back in March but wound up undergoing arthroscopic surgery and missing the rest of the season. With Pau Gasol arriving to take his place – another piece of good luck for the Lakers who wouldn’t have been pursuing the deal with Memphis if Bynum hadn’t been hurt – the Lakers were never sure how good they were.
They certainly weren’t physical and or imposing defensively. On the other hand, their offense was so good – – they were 34-8 with Gasol in the lineup going into the Finals – there didn’t seem to be anyone better, or close.
It was almost as if they were on a lark. They would be better next season but in the meantime, why not try to take advantage of the opportunity at hand?
They wound up running into the Celtics, who looked out on their feet after going seven, seven and six games deeps in the three first rounds, but seemed quite refreshed in the Finals.
Bryant, who had smoke coming out of his ears in the interview room after their Game 6 loss in Boston, was over it by the time he talked to Laker beat writers three days later after his exit interview with head coach Phil Jackson.
“I’m comfortable with what we have,” Bryant said. “Whatever Mitch [Kupchak, Laker GM] decides to do, he decides to do. It’s more of a relaxing summer for me because I know we have an opportunity to win. It’s exciting.”
With Bynum’s rehab now progressing, the Lakers do have one decision to make with Andrew up for an extension at or near the maximum-salary.
Nevertheless, the Lakers can let it play out according to their own comfort level.
They could extend him this summer (unlikely), wait to see how he holds up in training camp and sign him before the opener (possible) or wait until after the season, when he’ll be a restricted free agent and they can match any offers (also possible).
Aside from that, the Lakers just have to make the pieces fit with Bynum at center and Gasol moving to power forward.
That would move Lamar Odom to small forward… if he ever gets there.
At the moment, there’s speculation the 6-10 Odom will be shopped for a more small forward who’s a better outside shooter.
(That means, forget those Shawn Marion rumors. Like Odom, shooting from the outside is the worst thing Marion does.)
(As for those Richard Jefferson rumors, shooting isn’t what RJ does best, either.)
In what could be viewed as a preview of next season, Boston’s Kevin Garnett roamed off Odom in the Finals, just as the Lakers did with Rajon Rondo, giving Lamar any outside shot he wanted.
Odom faded, Garnett helped jam up the high-powered Laker offense inside and that was that.
Jackson wanted a small forward who could shoot and space the floor badly enough to start the inconsistent Vlade Radmanovic while labeling him “my favorite Martian.”
Beyond the question of how Odom will fit in the new configuration, he has one year left on his contract at $14.1 million and wants an extension. Meanwhile, the Lakers have financial issues. These don’t threaten the franchise, which probably grossed $175 million last season, but they’re issues, anyway.
As a result of the Gasol trade, Jerry Buss is looking at an additional $90 million in additional salary and luxury tax over the last three years of Pau’s contract – which was the reason Memphis got so few offers – unless the Lakers get some money off their cap.
With trade-Lamar stories all over the local papers, an irate Kupchak said the team hasn’t even had those discussions yet. However, Odom was originally in the package going to Memphis for Gasol, until Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley took him out, opting to lesser players and more savings.
And the Lakers will be holding those talks soon, with only one problem position, small forward.
Jackson, who wants to get tougher – and has never minded getting loonier – loves Sacramento’s Ron Artest, who just happened to be hanging this postseason, even going to Boston for Game 6.
Artest has tried to get himself traded to either Los Angeles team for years and can opt out of the last year at $7.4 million on his Sacramento contract. However, with the Kings unlikely to do a sign-and-trade unless they get Bryant, Bynum or Gasol, Artest could only get the Lakers’ $5.4 million veteran’s exception.
Of course, with Artest and Jackson, anything’s possible from Ron-Ron in purple and gold to a peaceful summer in Lakerdom.
What did they do with the beach, Toto?
Pretend you’re Mark Cuban.
