NBA Rumors: Latest on Coaching Searches and Free-Agent Talks Across the League
The Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers are embroiled in one of the most entertaining playoff series of this decade, but their series serves as little more than a curiosity for most of the NBA.
The San Antonio Spurs are the only team rightfully invested in the outcome. For the other 27 franchises, the offseason has begun, leaving the on-court happenings as a secondary concern until camp opens in the fall. Instead, those squads now in their offseasons are concerned with a bevy of decisions that could fundamentally alter their team's future.
Four franchises—the Los Angeles Clippers, Philadelphia 76ers, Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks—don't have a coach. An innumerable amount of teams don't know which of their free agents will return, who they'll be taking in the NBA draft or whether they'll be able to scrounge up enough cap space to be major players in free agency.
That uncertainty only leads to one thing around the NBA—rumors, and tons of them. Smokescreens about potential draft picks, faux free-agency talks and the lofted big-name savior coach will all be heard in the coming weeks. Coaching rumors are the likeliest to live or die fastest, as every team will want to have its leader in place before draft night.
Then again, when Donald Sterling is involved, this could last until next February.
With that in mind, let's take look at all the latest rumblings around the league, highlighting coaching and free-agency talks.
Clippers' Short List Includes Byron Scott, Jeff Van Gundy?
We're closing in on the two-week mark since the Clippers fired Vinny Del Negro, but it seems the team is nowhere near finding its next head coach. With an endless source of innuendo and rumors surrounding almost every top name on the market, it seems like Los Angeles is no closer to making a hire than it was after moving on from Del Negro.
We only know for sure that it won't be Phil Jackson. When asked about the Clippers' vacancy, the legendary coach said all he needed in four words, per ESPN's Arash Markazi:
Other than that, just about every big-name coach on the market has been linked with the job. Now, just when you thought the list couldn't get any bigger, it seems the Clippers' front office has reached out to two other notable names.
Recent reports from Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski and ESPN's Chris Broussard have linked ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy and former Cleveland Cavaliers coach Byron Scott, respectively, to the vacancy.
Both reports were clear that Los Angeles is still bafflingly in the preliminary stages of its search. Clippers' management, specifically vice president of basketball operations Gary Sacks, has called both candidates' camps to gauge their interest in the job with the impetus for Sacks to send a list back to owner Donald Sterling.
Why the process hasn't really revved up until now is anyone's guess, although it is the Clippers. Both Van Gundy and Scott are interesting names should they become finalists for the position.
The 51-year-old Van Gundy has been working with ESPN as a broadcaster since being fired by the Houston Rockets in 2007 but has long been a coveted free-agent coaching target. A no-nonsense, defense-first coach, Van Gundy made the postseason in nine of his full 10 seasons at the helm in Houston and with the New York Knicks.
Van Gundy's most notable accomplishment was taking the eighth-seeded Knicks to the NBA Finals in 1998-99's lockout-shortened campaign.
Odds are that Van Gundy and Chris Paul's leadership style would be a good match—and we know how much power Paul wields in this situation.
Paul's history with Scott, his coach with the New Orleans Hornets from 2005-09, could also play a factor. Even after Scott was fired by the Hornets, the two stayed close, which can't be lost on Clippers brass.
Bucks Management "Split" on New Coach?
The Milwaukee Bucks' coaching search has little in common with the one out in Los Angeles.
Milwaukee isn't targeting headline-makers and the team is down to just two candidates at this point—Rockets assistant Kelvin Sampson and former Hawks coach Larry Drew.
Sampson and Drew have long been linked to the gig as favorites, and all accounts are that certain sects of team brass are smitten with both.
One problem: Bucks brass cannot come to a consensus and an internal rift is growing as a result. According to Gery Woelfel of The Journal Times, there is a "split" within the organization after Drew and Sampson came to Wisconsin for an interview this week:
The 55-year-old Drew spent three seasons in Atlanta, finishing with a 128-102 overall record en route to making the playoffs in each campaign. He was not retained after the season, as GM Danny Ferry's push to revamp the organization continued with the hiring of well-respected Spurs assistant Mark Budenholzer.
Freed by Atlanta for the first time since 2004—he was an assistant under Mike Woodson before being named head coach—Drew could be reinvigorated by the change in scenery.
From a personal point of view, Sampson is the more interesting name. His only head-coaching experience at the NBA level came on an interim basis when Houston Rockets head man Kevin McHale took a leave, but Sampson has had success everywhere he has been.
The 57-year-old Sampson built a top-flight program at the University of Oklahoma from mostly rubble and looked to be en route to saving Indiana's program before NCAA violations led to an abrupt end to his collegiate career.
Now more than a half-decade removed from his dismissal at Indiana, Sampson's second career as an NBA assistant has been fruitful. He's been an opportunist, and his stint with the Rockets' high-octane offense this season, should have been a fun learning experience.
Either way, whoever Milwaukee chooses will have his work cut out for him. The Bucks are heading into an offseason with uncertainty throughout their backcourt, as Brandon Jennings, Monta Ellis and J.J. Redick are all set to hit the free-agent market.
I'd choose Sampson, but this might already be a gig destined for failure.
D-12 "Wide Open" to Mavericks?
You're already tired of the Dwight Howard nonsense, as am I, but let's just start the numbing process.
We're in store for a torturous season two of "Dwightmare," the only program on television that makes the third season of The Killing look even remotely appealing.
Howard is going to embark on his cross-country beauty contest, the one he wanted to do so badly last summer. That would have happened had Howard not opted for his final year of his deal with the Magic—one of the most unexplained events in NBA history.
But I digress. Dwight owns the summer, we're just basking in the glow of his hot sun—and hoping he makes a decision within seconds of the opening of free agency.
Until the official beginning of the free-agent period, though, the rumors about his possible destination will swirl. We already know the major players—the Lakers, Mavericks, Rockets and Hawks—with other teams like the Nets hanging around just in case someone wants to posit a half-baked theory on how Brook Lopez for D-12 "would really be super fair, you guys."
The number of teams chasing Howard is ultimately irrelevant. Which teams he's actually considering is what's important, even with a list so minuscule.
While much can change in the coming weeks—as is wont to happen with Howard—the latest news seems to bode well for the Dallas Mavericks. According to HOOPSWORLD's Bill Ingram, the 27-year-old center is "wide open" to joining Dirk Nowitzki in the great state of Texas:
Though pairing with Nowitzki, who turns 35 in June, seems like a strange long-term decision, the former MVP and the Mavericks have made it clear that they'll to whatever it takes to create a Big Three. Nowitzki is on record as saying he plans on taking a massive pay cut whenever his contract expires at the end of next season, one almost certainly predicated on landing some costars.
Just don't expect anything about this process to be smooth. Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski reported on Thursday that the Houston Rockets are pushing hard to trade Thomas Robinson to free up enough cap room to sign Howard to a long-term deal.
In other words, D-12 might be "wide open" to Dallas, but this saga is a long way from being over.
Sigh.
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