You might have been a bit disappointed by the perceived lack of movement surrounding the Trail Blazers' coaching search.
I know I had been surprised that the team had only recently begun interviewing candidates, having had almost no word from new general manager Neil Olshey about the proceedings until the revelation, last week, that he was going to be interviewing potential coaches during the Las Vegas Summer League.
Those interviews continue, with a long list of potential candidates having been reported by different media outlets. But the bigger news, to me, came when we learned just a few days ago that Olshey had, indeed, been toiling away on the coaching search all this time.
And not only had he gone to bat on the search, he was swinging for the fences.
Olshey revealed that he had traveled to Salt Lake City to pitch former Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan on the Blazers coaching gig. Olshey thought the 70-year-old Sloan would be a perfect fit for a Portland team that is clearly now in rebuilding mode, despite all that talk late last season about "reloading."
"I thought he would have been a great fit for the organization as far as teaching these guys how to be professionals, and lay a foundation from a work-ethic standpoint and teaching guys to play the right way," Olshey told reporters on Friday. "If it's not coach Sloan, we will find someone else who will adhere to those standards. Because that is what we are looking for: a teacher."
He made Sloan a formal offer, and the coach slept on it for a night before informing Olshey that the timing wasn't quite right for him to get back into basketball.
No matter, though; the good news here is that Olshey was going big and bold, and if you're a Trail Blazers fan, you've got to like that.
It would have been a big, big deal for Portland to get Sloan, who NBA commissioner David Stern once called "one of the greatest and most respected coaches in NBA history." He's third on the league's all-time wins list, having retired in 2011 with a 1,221-803 record.
The Blazers also reportedly talked to Phil Jackson about the coaching job -- perhaps the longest of longs shots -- but the 11-time NBA champion said he wasn't ready to return to coaching.
It goes without saying that whoever takes over as Portland's next coach will be a huge dropoff from either Sloan or Jackson, because now we're most likely looking at a current NBA assistant, such as Golden State's Michael Malone or Indiana's Brian Shaw.
That's OK, though. That's most likely what we were headed for all along, and in the rebuilding -- not reloading -- project that the Blazers are undergoing, a guy like Malone, or Shaw, or even current Blazers interim coach Kaleb Canales, could be the right fit.
But at the end of the day, you've got to like that Olshey took a shot at the end zone, swung for the fences and laid it all on the line to get Portland the best possible coach. That mentality should serve the Blazers, and their fans, well in the future.
Sources:
After Jerry Sloan says 'no, thanks,' Trail Blazers push ahead with coaching search
Blazers to begin interviewing coaches this week in Las Vegas
Report: Blazers eyed Jackson, Sloan for coach
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Adam Sparks has followed the Portland Trail Blazers since the early 1980s, and has written about the team as a freelancer since 2009.
