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Where it stops nobody knows: the NBA's coaching carousel is spinning faster and faster. That means coaches must be adept at stepping on the ride at midseason and getting their teams to the playoffs

Sporting News, The, April 15, 2005 by Sean Deveney

For years, Mike Fratello said he did not want to come back to coaching in the middle of a season. There was little incentive to do so. Fratello had a good gig as a broadcaster and an established reputation as a coach, having won 572 regular-season games in 13 seasons. A coach who takes over during a season faces an unusual challenge: He must adjust his style, finding a happy medium between what the players have been taught and what he wants. And he does not have the benefit of training camp to drive home the changes. That was not an enticing mix for Fratello.

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Says Bulls coach Scott Skiles, who took over the Suns during the 1999-2000 season and did the same with the Bulls last season, "It depends on the philosophy of the guy who coached before you. If your philosophy is a lot different, that makes it tougher; you have to change everything. But if it is similar, that makes the transition easier."

There is little surprise Fratello made an exception when the Grizzlies called last Thanksgiving after Hubie Brown retired--Fratello's philosophy had been shaped by Brown for decades. Fratello was an assistant to Brown in Atlanta and again in New York. When he took over the Grizzlies, Fratello knew he would not need to revamp the playbook or reprogram the players.

Still, the Grizzlies have been a challenge. They were 5-11 when Fratello was hired on December 2. On the day he was introduced as the team's new coach, Fratello said he got some good advice about how to handle the transition: "I was told to lock my door for 30 days and never come out. So, for anyone who calls me, sorry if I don't get back to you." Basically, that is what Fratello did. The Grizzlies had 15 games in his first 27 days on the job, leaving time for just three practices.

Whatever Fratello did behind that locked door worked. He started by making obvious changes: tightening the team's defense, which had been focused on forcing turnovers with ball pressure, and scaling back the reliance on Brown's 10-man rotation. Instead, Fratello has emphasized toughness in the paint and has used more traditional rotations.

But Fratello still uses Brown's play calls, and he uses every player--partially because the Grizzlies have endured so many injuries. Memphis has used 19 starting lineups, none for more than 11 games, and the preferred starting five of Jason Williams, Mike Miller, Shane Battier, Pau Gasol and Lorenzen Wright has made just six starts. When Gasol was out for 23 games with a foot injury, Fratello went to unorthodox sources for post scoring--guard Bonzi Wells and small forward Battier. Now that Gasol has returned, the Grizzlies slowly are going back to him.

"There is a lot we have had to change as we go," Fratello says. "But I am hoping the players are more comfortable with what we want now."

The Grizzlies are 35-20 under Fratello and have vaulted back into the Western Conference's tough playoff picture. His defensive changes have driven the turnaround--the Grizzlies have allowed just 89.2 points per game after allowing 95.4 per game under brown. Thus, Fratello has done the one thing he did not think he'd ever do again, one of the toughest things to do in the NBA--take over a team midseason and still be successful.

Fratello is not alone, though. He is one of nine coaches who have taken over teams this season, and as we wind down to the playoffs, the performances of those coaches stand out as some of the most fascinating stories of the season. In fact, four to six of the new coaches figure to be guiding teams into the postseason--meaning at least a quarter of all playoff teams will be headed by a coach who has been on the job less than six months.

Historically, it has been a rare feat for coaches to take over teams during a season and still reach the playoffs. In the 1990s, it happened 14 times; in the '80s, eight times; in the '70s, five times; and in the '60s, three times. But the league has changed, and coaching jobs have gotten tougher to hold down. Last year, three teams--Boston, New York and New Jersey--reached the playoffs after in-season coaching changes.

This adds another degree of difficulty to a profession that has become increasingly pressure-packed. Four coaches (Hubie Brown, the Lakers' Rudy Tomjanovich, the Knicks' Lenny Wilkens and the Mavericks' Don Nelson) have resigned this season because of health or stress-related problems, and another, Pistons coach Larry Brown, considered the possibility of missing the rest of the season because of complications from hip surgery before returning last week. It should be mentioned that those coaches have an average age of nearly 63, an indication that the pressures of NBA coaching have made the job better suited to younger men.

"A lot of the fault lies with us, as teams," says one Western Conference general manager. "We're expecting coaches to take guys who are 18, 19 years old and teach them the fundamentals and make them better players. We expect them to be perfect with X's and O's. We expect them to find the right role for everyone. And we expect them to know all the other teams and what they do during games--and to win 50 games and go to the playoffs. Maybe that is too much."

Where it stops nobody knows: the NBA's coaching carousel is spinning faster and faster. That means coaches must be adept at stepping on the ride at midseason and getting their teams to the playoffs

Sporting News, The, April 15, 2005 by Sean Deveney

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