Heard is giving the Wizards the old-school treatment

Sporting News, The, Nov 8, 1999 by Dave D'Alessandro

Gar Heard calls himself an old-school guy. He believes rookies should carry the bags of veterans. Heard also benches people, regardless of their reputations or the size of their contracts. He rarely raises his voice. Heard, the first-year coach of the Washington Wizards, treats players like professionals, unless they deserve otherwise. He coddles no one. Here's his one departure from the old school: He doesn't believe in fines; he believes in benchings. Guys make too much to care about fines, he says. Burying them gets their attention.

You 40-somethings remember Heard from his playing days when he manned the power forward spot like he was a sentry at a palace, watching the backs of stars such as Randy Smith and Paul Westphal. He was a player's player, the kind that Jack Ramsay or John MacLeod knew they could always depend on, and Heard went about his job with an unflashy gameness--tough, smart, determined, prepared and intimidating.

How all this translates into coaching ability is not something you can easily predict. To begin with, the Wizards team he takes over this season is one of those nondescript clubs that has had neither direction nor success in the last two decades. And it looks like this year, Washington is one in a multitude of Eastern bubble teams--you know, seventh or eighth place isn't out of the question if things break right, but 11th or 12th wouldn't surprise you, either.

Gar Heard's job is to surprise you. He's not going to do anything radical with this team, but there have been small signs in his first month on the job that he has a good feel for how to push this team forward. Heard has started by laying down the law and making it clear that the Wizards will depend this year only on dependable players.

Heard came down hard on Rod Strickland last week, suspending him for a game because of an unexcused absence from practice, and Heard let the rest of the team know that he "can't let one guy, I don't care who he is, interfere with what we're doing on the court."

Heard announced that playing time will be determined solely by commitment, declaring that "guys can't go by what they did last year; that's not going to get them on this team this year." The message got through to second-year center Jahidi White, who has played his way into Heard's rotation this year. It didn't get through to Randell Jackson, who was in last year's rotation. He was cut.

Old-school methods. Maybe it works.

What Heard needs most, however, is a fast start. It is the only way he'll get the message across to injured players such as Mitch Richmond, Isaac Austin and Aaron Williams, that they had better push themselves to get back or they'll be left behind. Not surprisingly, the improvements shown by White, Richard Hamilton and Michael Smith in the preseason have expedited the returns of the other three.

And with a full contingent, Heard has enough talent to be competitive. We have our doubts about his backcourt starters--Strickland and Richmond are 34--but we have no doubts that their head coach has the juice to pull the plug on them if he deems it necessary. It would be a rare thing for anyone in Washington to rattle the cages of the team's two stars, but Heard seems to know that this franchise needs a serious shake and that should be applauded.

At first, we thought owner Abe Pollin made a mistake in not hiring Isiah Thomas or Doc Rivers when their names came up last spring. Perhaps Pollin thought he couldn't afford them; perhaps he felt their dynamic personalities would overshadow that of his consigliere, Wes Unseld.

We thought Thomas or Rivers would have been able to lend some presence and vitality to a moribund franchise, if not draw a few free agents to D.C. Sure, neither had head coaching experience, but both had Dennis Rodman as a teammate, which makes them eminently qualified to formulate chemistry lessons when necessary. Besides, Rivers and Thomas had to start somewhere, and Washington needed a fresh start in the worst way, judging by the evaporating interest in its team (last we heard, they've lost more than 1,000 of the 8,000 season-ticket holders they had a year ago).

Now we're not so sure anymore. It seems just as well that Pollin chose Heard, who was well-schooled under Larry Brown in his assistant coaching stints in Indiana and Philly. Moreover, it is gratifying that Pollin knows nothing is more disheartening than seeing someone give his life to the game as Heard has without getting a chance to become a head coach--if that, in fact, played into the owner's reasoning.

But it is especially encouraging that Heard has decided to go retro. The Wizards are stuck in an tired, old pattern, so now they must be subjected to old-school values. Maybe it works.

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