Gotta say i agree with Buck on this one. Seems like its either retreads or newbies who get the head coaching jobs, not medium or longtime assistants.
Buck Harvey: A bee gets passed over: S.A. lessons
By Buck Harvey
LOS ANGELES ? The ?h? in his last name is silent, and the rest of him doesn?t say much, either. Doc Rivers doesn?t let his assistants talk to the media.
But Tom Thibodeau can still respond today. Maybe with arms outstretched, maybe with a roll of the eyes.
After all, this is his time. His defense has the Celtics within two games of a title, and he deserved a chance to talk to the Chicago Bulls.
Instead, the usual happened Monday, with the Bulls offering their head-coaching position to someone who has never coached on any level. That?s the way this business is, and Thibodeau learned these lessons long ago.
In San Antonio.
Others share his story, such as a current Spurs assistant. Mike Budenholzer has been Gregg Popovich?s external hard-drive for a decade, and it?s a good life. Budenholzer says that often.
But as effective as Budenholzer has been, he?s still seen as Thibodeau is ? as a faceless worker bee without the punch to lead a locker room. Besides, how can a franchise sell someone no one knows?
Steve Kerr knew about Budenholzer. He knew, for example, Budenholzer told the Spurs? huddle exactly what the Knicks would run on their last possession in the 1999 Finals.
So Kerr brought Budenholzer to Phoenix last week for an interview, and the Suns were thoroughly impressed. ?He threw us for a loop,? one Phoenix executive said.
Not enough to hire him, of course, but Budenholzer understands the dance. Worker bees are never the first choice. Jeff Van Gundy, for example, needed Pat Riley to leave New York to get his chance.
Just doing the work isn?t enough. And where this became so clear to Thibodeau ? where he learned all such lessons ? came when he arrived in San Antonio in 1992.
Lesson No. 1 was Jerry Tarkanian. He had never coached in the NBA before, and he needed some help from Thibodeau with the nuances of the game. Tark once famously asked someone on press row how to call a 20-second timeout.
Tark would get fired early that season, and following him was Lesson No. 2. John Lucas had never coached in the NBA or in college.
Lucas was the energetic showman, and he did a lot with those Spurs. But Lucas wasn?t much for details. Sometimes, he would pretend to write on a clipboard during timeouts, exaggerating his movements for the crowd ? when players later confided he wasn?t writing at all.
Thibodeau was the one who had the clipboard info, and he was good at it. He followed Lucas to Philadelphia, and that?s where Thibodeau met a teenager named Kobe Bryant.
Now Bryant smiles at the memory. ?He has inside information on what I like to do,? Bryant said last week, ?because he taught me most of the stuff.?
Thibodeau has kept on teaching. For 18 years he?s been an NBA assistant, and in 15 of those years, his defenses have ranked in the top 10. Last year, working for Van Gundy in Houston, the Rockets were No. 1 in defensive field-goal percentage.
Now the Celtics are No. 1. Now Thibodeau plugs Kevin Garnett into his system, and years of watching tape and shifting locker-room dynamics has brought him to a professional zenith. Kendrick Perkins told the Boston Globe, for example, that Thibodeau is ?the best thing that has happened to us.?
Van Gundy goes further. Asked about Thibodeau as a potential head coach, Van Gundy told a reporter: ?It?s come down to someone willing to take a chance. And when they do, it will be a home run.?
Monday was a whiff. Instead of waiting a week to talk to Thibodeau, the Bulls moved on ex-Spurs guard Vinny Del Negro.
Del Negro has never coached at any level. Coincidentally, he also arrived in San Antonio in 1992, and he was never a leader in those Spurs locker rooms, as Rivers was, nor was he seen as a workaholic. He preferred to tinker with his golf game.
But Del Negro climbed above Thibodeau because, well, he looks like a basketball coach.
That?s another reason Thibodeau should be speechless.
