June 17, 2003

LENGTHY PROCESS INDICATIVE OF RAPTORS INABILITY TO FIND PERFECT COACH

      After weeks of interviewing, of asking hundreds of questions and seeking just as many referrals the Raptors have finally found the man to lead their team.  Former Detroit Pistons assistant coach Kevin O’Neill is the man tabbed to replace comatose Lenny and hopefully inject a soft squad with some adrenaline and enthusiasm.  But the seemingly endless number of candidates that roamed through the Raptor offices and the length of time it took to finally make the decision indicated that GM Glen Grunwald was unable to find the perfect candidate.  Instead he found the person he deemed to contain the most qualities on his final list—and Grunwald always makes a list.

       The Raptors were eager to maintain their tradition of hiring a cat after firing a mouse.  They look for a coach who is the antithesis of the person he is replacing.  Brendan Malone was an experienced coach who wanted to win, and was replaced by Darrell walker who was eager to please his boss Isaiah Thomas.  Butch Carter then came onto the scene filled with enough vim and vinegar to not only aggressively stoke his players but also aggressively agitate his bosses.  Lenny Wilkens was hired to calm the franchise down and return respect to the organization.  And now O’Neill comes aboard because he is an aggressive coach filled with fiery emotion.  Back and forth the Raptors go hoping one day to catch lightning in a bottle and trip over the perfect man.

       Grunwald insisted that, opposed to the previous hiring when Wilkens was his only candidate, this time he would be patient and scour basketball for the perfect man.  Because his pay structure was askew due to the lengthy and frivolous contracts handed out to Hakeem Olajuwon and Wilkens the Raptors could not pursue any experienced NBA coach.  They would demand the type of salary figure Wilkens was paid and the organization couldn’t afford to pay the same exorbitant sum for one man to coach as they were paying another not to coach.  And with the recent success NBA teams have had in hiring assistants and inexperienced coaches the waters were still enough and the ground firm for Grunwald to follow the same path. 

      Initially Grunwald was looking for an assistant with a playing pedigree—a coach like Byron Scott or Doc Rivers or Mo Cheeks that had experienced success as a player and could immediately command the respect of the players.  Although there are a number of former players on NBA benches there are very few that had the required success as a player and who are also ticketed to be successful head coaches.  The next area of selection for the Raptors were the young assistants with creative minds that were just waiting for an opportunity to show their abilities—like Denver’s Jeff Bzdelik and Golden State’s Eric Musselman.  The NBA game today is ever changing and the Raptors have seen first hand what can happen to a team led by a dinosaur.  They want a head man that can adapt, that can create, that can alter game plans, and can present different looks to confuse the opposition.  But that young man wasn’t available.

         Without a Scott or a Musselman available Grunwald had to look in other directions.  When the Pistons fired Rick Carlisle it would have been easy for Grunwald to snap him up since he holds a proper player pedigree as well as being a young and creative coach.  But the Butch Carter fiasco was still too fresh in Grunwald’s mind and with Carlisle’s difficulties dealing with upper management in Detroit an apparent cause in his dismissal Grunwald stayed very far away.

       So Grunwald made another list.  This time he listed former players that had some success in uniform and who were seemingly on the road to a head coaching position in the NBA.  Duane Casey and Sam Mitchell were two of the supposed finalists for the Raptor post.  And he made even another list--aging assistants with experience as a head coach on other levels.  O’Neill and Mike Woodson headed that list.  When Grunwald narrowed his search down to these four candidates he began to list the positives and negatives of each.  O’Neill had the most positives and the fewest negatives.  He wasn’t the perfect candidate but he was the best man available.

       With O’Neill the Raptors gain an experienced coach.  He has been a successful head coach at major U.S. universities, and has been a successful assistant with two solid NBA programs in Detroit, under Carlisle, and in New York, under Jeff Van Gundy.  He has been called a defensive wizard who was largely responsible for devising the strong Piston defensive scheme that allowed Ben Wallace to become the two-time league defensive player of the year.  In Toronto O’Neill will not have anyone who even closely resembles Wallace and he will be under immense pressure to turn around a defense that couldn’t cover on the perimeter and parted like the Red Sea on the interior.  He also is armed only with a two-year contract.  There is the perception that intense coaches, like O’Neill have a tendency to burn themselves out quickly and lose the attention of their players relatively soon.  Perhaps this is a reason why the Raptors were only willing to go two years—though I am certain they will revisit this depending on the success or failure of the team this upcoming season.

       The naming of the new head coach is the first of many decisions that Grunwald and his staff will have to make in order to turn around a moribund franchise.  A team that was tabbed as a favourite to contend for the Eastern Conference championship two years ago has fallen to the depths normally occupied by the league’s refuse.  This team needs a quick return to respectability to ensure that its tremendous fan base continues to flow through the turnstiles.  The draft is the next step and the player, or players, who come out of that event, will likely instigate future moves.  This team needs to fill at least three major holes on the court, but at least they have finally figured out who will be in charge.  O’Neill still walks and talks like an assistant—he will find that being the head man of a struggling NBA team will be an experience like no other.  He has turned around struggling college programs and helped turn around NBA teams.  This will be his greatest challenge.