How do I say goodbye to what we had?
The good times that made us laugh
Outweigh the bad.
I thought we'd get to see forever
But forever's gone away
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.
I don't know where this road
Is going to lead
All I know is where we've been
And what we've been through.
If we get to see tomorrow
I hope it's worth all the wait
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.
....Okay, that's about enough of that song. I find it interesting
that the words of the song fits perfectly to how most Raptor fans are feeling today after the "semi-shocker" that was when Bryan Colangelo decided that it was necessary to relieve Sam Mitchell of his duties as the coach of our beloved basketball team.It's hard
to say goodbye because we have all fallen in love with Mitchell's character and his coaching style. Now we are left to wonder what the future holds with the new bench boss; Jay Triano. I must be honest with you all. I saw this coming and I am pretty sure that a good number of people also knew his days were numbered. If I may tap into the feelings of fans in this great city of ours, I would say that the sadness is not because we thought it's a bad move that Mitchell got fired but rather because we liked his honesty and sound bites. I always look forward to watching Raptors T.V the morning after a game to see him surrounded by media scrums, picking on them, making fun of them and their sometimes ridiculous questions. Sam Mitchell was not a bad coach but he was not good enough for this team. He needed to be fired for his own personal growth as an NBA coach.When I heard the news yesterday, I was in my class and my initial reaction was....YES!
!!. Yes because I love my Raptors more than the person coaching them. Like the Cliche goes, "nothing personal, it's just business." A couple of good friends kept texting me while my class was going on and I replied every time simply because this was an important issue that needed to be bantered about. My friend Zu really liked Sam and he felt that it was basically a knee-jerk reaction to the loss in Denver that resulted in his firing. I responded that even though Sam was a good coach, he was not an X and O's type of coach. Aside from high and low pick and rolls that consisted of the majority of his play calling, it was evident that he was being out-smarted by most other coaches on both the offensive and defensive end. Sam had no set defensive schemes and after five years it just seemed as though he wasn't going to be able to make the right defensive adjustments; from a game to game basis.I got home from my class around 10:30 pm and the first thing I did was make a call to another good friend. Howell (or as I'll refer to him in future postings: A-Ho) was the other one that had been texting me and actually called a couple of times when I was in class. Now, it's important that I mention that A-Ho is a crazed Raptor fan just like I am. We were on the phone until almost midnight. Naturally we started with the Mitchell firing and then we talked about Stephon Marbury and how it would be a good thing if Colangelo made a move to get him. If and when he gets his buyout from the Knicks.
There is one topic that A-Ho and I talked about but not in great length. It was the fact that Colangelo probably had in mind to fire Mitchell when he came over from the Pheonix Suns. Colangelo couldn't fire Sam after he was honored with the Coach of the Year award for the 2006-2007 season and thus he rewarded Sam with a 4 year contract. This eased the media pressure on Colangelo that kept questioning if he planned on bringing in another coach that he personally selected. The new contract for Mitchell made it seem that his job was safe but the truth is that coaches get fired all the time. It does not matter if a coach signed a lucrative mutli-year contract because as soon as the team starts to struggle and in the Raptors case; underachieve. The first person that gets made as the scape goat is the coach. I think it's a PR move by most GM's. It's an attempt to put out a small fire before it becomes a forrest fire. GM's make moves like this to make it seem that they are not sitting on their hands while the team is potentially tanking the season. I think Colangelo partially did this but also thought it was the perfect opportunity to make the change he wanted to make from the day he got the gig in Toronto. The unfortunate thing is that we won't know if this is a great move until we find out whom Colangelo will replace Jay Triano with. Triano will be the interim coach for the rest of this season.
IMPORTANT NOTE: CONGRATULATIONS TO JAY TRIANO FOR BECOMING THE FIRST CANADIAN BORN NBA HEAD COACH. I HOPE THIS WILL OPEN MANY OTHER COACHING OPPORTUNITIES IN THE NBA. KUDOS AND WELL DESERVED!!!
My parting statement on this is that even though Sam Mitchell was not the right coach, he was the "right-now" coach. The team is currently 8-9 and have seen their best post rebounder and defender miss five of the last seven games because of an injury. Even though Mitchell had his coaching shortcomings, he was not an incompetent bench boss and by all accounts he still had the ears and trust of the players. Colangelo is one of the best GM's in the game and I am sure that this is not the last of the moves he will be making this season.
NBA tidbit for ya'll: With all the economic down turn that is going on right now, it is amazing that NBAstore.com has just reported a 70 percent increase in sales from last year at this point of the season. I guess this is a nice transition into my MVP-DS voting......
..........according to reports, the main reason behind the seventy percent increase in overall sales is the actual sales of Chris Paul jerseys. Wow!!!
My MVP-DS is shorter because of the Mitchell firing. Here are my votes for the last six games that were played in the association:
Chris Paul gets a vote. He deserves one just for carrying the NBA in merchandising sales but the real reason is because he has been playing a phenomenal brand of basketball in the past six games. He is five games away from breaking the league record of consecutive games with a steal.
Lebron James gets back into the votes here. His team went 6-0 during the voting stretch and his numbers were simply out of this world. It's almost as if LBJ read my last blog entry because he has averaged a blocked shot in 5 of the last 6 games. Keep it up King James!!!
Dwayne Wade stays on course here by carrying a team that does not deserve to be 10-9. His stats are still outstanding and his team went 3-3 in the last six games. Including victories in Pheonix, Golden State and Utah.
Kobe Bryant finally gets on here. He deserves it because he is finally trusting his team mates and he is sacrificing his stats in order to get more wins and hopefully a championship. His stats aren't bad either. His 25ppg places him in the fourth spot in league scoring.
Vote totals:
Chris Paul - 3 votes
Dwayne Wade - 3 votes
Chris Bosh - 2 votes
Lebron James - 2 vote
Dwight Howard - 1 vote
Kobe Bryant - 1 votes
Sportacularly yours,
The Vicarious Athlete
One of you're better posts minus the Boys II Men lyrics but I get the point. Sam was a defeated man since they lost a few after starting 3-0. His sideline mannerisms were annoying to me as a fan and must have really bugged the players. Zoo should know that there is no room for emotional connections in sports between fans and players and also fans and coaches. My fav Mitchell moment was an interview he did with Nam from MuchMusic back in the day. He was driving somewhere with her and just ripping on her hair for no reason. Classic Sam.
ReplyDeleteA Ho Out
*A-Ho, you actually pointed something out with regards to Sam Mitchells mannerisms. My cousin, Richard from Calgary and I had a long discussion about Sams lack of enthusiasism on the bench. I totally disagree with you both. I think that Sam had to temper down his antics in order not to become the overbearing coach that his players later tunes out. I remember him in his first couple of seasons when he was constantly getting up and being animated on the sidelines. Eventually players tend to tune out coaches that do all the yelling and "body language coaching" a la Avery Johnson.
ReplyDelete*I remember that interview with Nam. It was hilarious!!! What ever happened to Nam? I had a crush on her.
*One of my better post because you were mentioned in it?!?!? :)