AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2007 > July > 11
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Owner’s manual
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I heard the words come out of Billy Knight’s mouth loud and clear this afternoon. I heard what he said. And in the twisted world that has become the land of the Hawks since the ownership fiasco began (doesn’t it seem like this is always at the root of some drama?), it almost made sense.
I said almost.
I’m paraphrasing here with this explanation but it went along the lines of, “we’re in this most crucial of years for not only this regime but for the franchise and since a commitment was made to this coaching staff the organization expects a similar commitment from the coaches.”
But I’m stuck with a nasty feeling in my gut about this whole mess regarding Larry Drew and David Fizdale not being allowed to pursue jobs elsewhere as they enter the final (“Lame Duck”) year of their respective contracts with the Hawks.
Why allow other teams to court them if you weren’t going to allow them to leave? Considering the Hawks’ record the past three years, the fact that other teams are raiding your coaching staff is (in addition to being startling) an indicator of what type of value those coaches have around the league. Perhaps this whole thing is a sign of how much the Hawks value these two assistant coaches, and I truly believe that could be the case. This just isn’t how most of us would show people that you respect them and value what they bring to the organization.
And to those of us on the outside looking in this just appears to be one more instance of the Hawks operating without all the pages of the owner’s manual in place.
All that said, let’s make sure and be clear about a few very important details here:
The Hawks could have fired the entire staff at the end of this past season, allowing the organization and the coaches a chance for fresh starts all the way around. They chose not to, forcing the coaches into the uneasy position of going into a season with absolutely no job security and the possibility of being fired (whenever the organization sees fit) if things don’t go as well as they all hope. On the flip side, if the Hawks do what Toronto did last year under Sam Mitchell, and win their way to a new contract, all of this will be forgotten (well, to an extent).
This idea that these guys would be leaving for lateral positions, as one email I received last night suggested, is not entirely true. Drew’s departure to Sacramento would have been for the same position. But it would have allowed him to move closer to his family, which in my eyes trumps any other factor involved, for the first time in nearly a decade as an assistant coach. And Fizdale’s potential opportunity in Cleveland would have put him on a staff that won the Eastern Conference title and played for the NBA title. So those are both more than justifiable reasons for wanting to move on.
Another very plausible theory is that the Hawks are ultra-sensitive to the negative PR that could come with two prominent assistants leaving like this (jumping ship just before an extremely critical year). But that’s what you get when you send coaches into the final year of a deal without any job security. It’s the reason lots of coaches are fired or resign when placed in this position. I’m sure it’s one of the reasons Boston didn’t allow Doc Rivers to head into the 2007-08 season with something like this hanging over his head. The same goes for Isiah Thomas in New York.
I totally understand the stance the organization is trying to take here. They made a four-year commitment to these coaches when they hired them and have stuck by that, even when the masses were screaming for change. So I can see where they expect the same type of loyalty from the people they have under contract. It’s a rather noble stance to take in theory.
But it’s just not practical. Not when you apply it to the specific situations of each guy on the staff (which remarkably has remained in tact from the day they started). And it is certainly another break from the rest of the league in terms of normal operating procedures. But we should all be getting used to that by now.
