From TSN.ca:
Sam Mitchell was fired as head coach of the
Toronto Raptors on Wednesday, a day after the team suffered the fifth
worst defeat in franchise history, a 132-93 loss to the Denver Nuggets.Raptors President and General Manager Bryan Colangelo called it a “difficult but necessary step the franchise must take.”
“It’s safe to say that after the debacle that we all witnessed last
night against Denver - a 39-point loss - not to mention several other
incidents this early season where we gave up double-digit leads or had
mental breakdowns with respect to the effort on the court,” Colangelo
said in a conference call. ”You come to a point where you realize some
of the things you want to see out on the court are not taking place.”In an exclusive interview with TSN, Mitchell spoke ‘Up Front’ with
Michael Landsberg on ‘Off the Record’ after the firing, and was asked
if he was surprised by the move.“When you have tough games and the expectations are high, and you’re
not meeting those expectations, then you can be subject to something
like this happening,” Mitchell told OTR. “It’s not about being shocked
or not shocked. It’s unfortunate that it happened, but these things
happen.”Landsberg asked Mitchell if he felt 17 games was a fair amount of time for the coach to put his stamp on the Raptors’ team.
“I don’t want to get into what’s fair or not fair,” Mitchell
replied. “I learned a long time ago that the world’s not fair and life
isn’t always fair. I had a great run. I have nothing but respect for
the people at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. I have a lot to be
thankful for. They gave me an opportunity to have a career in
coaching, which is something I always wanted to do after I played.”“It’s a disappointment that I wasn’t going to get a chance to finish
what I started, but I feel like I accomplished a lot of good things
there. I think the players that played for me all got better. Even
the players who moved on to other teams have gotten better, so instead
of looking back at the disappointing part of it, I want to look back at
all the good things that happened.”Mitchell also told OTR he did not want to get into particulars about
whether or not he knew his job was on the line prior to being fired.He did say that he had a chance to talk to a few of the players
before leaving, but that he wanted to move on to avoid being a
distraction.“I felt like the best thing I could do was, once the decision is
made, you need to get on out of there so those guys can move forward
and continue to try to do the things that they need to do.”“You get a sense when people are being heard, or disregarded,”
Colangelo said about Mitchell’s relationship with the team. “I have to
say Sam has always had a relationship with the players…There comes a
time when you feel that the best way to improve a situation is to make
a change at the top and a change in the voice.”Mitchell did offer some gracious parting words to the city that has
watched the ups and downs of the Raptors’ squad since he took the helm
in 2004.“I’d like to thank all the fans in Toronto, who always treated me
well and supported me,” Mitchell told Landsberg. “It’s a great city
and a great sports town and I wish them well.”“We appreciate all that Sam has done for the organization, applaud
him for his successes and wish him nothing but the best with his future
in basketball,” Colangelo added in a statement.TSN basketball analyst Jack Armstrong weighed in on the Mitchell firing on Wednesday.
“I’m a little surprised,” Armstrong said. “When you talk about
today’s economic times and all those types of things, you have to say,
‘Boy, this is a big commitment by MLSE…they have high expectations
for this team’”.“I think some of it always goes on the shoulder of the coach.
You’ve got to get guys to carry out things,” Armstrong said. ”Quite
frankly, this team has not been good enough defensively and there have
been some issues late in the games in terms of clock managements and
strategy…but there are personnel issues as well.”In the interim, Canadian assistant coach Jay Triano will assume the
position of head coach. Triano, the longest-serving member of the
coaching staff, becomes the first Canadian-born head coach in NBA
history. Colangelo said that Triano would likely stay on as coach for
the rest of the season. The remainder of the coaching staff will
continue with the organization.“It’s a little bittersweet,” Triano said in a conference call.
“Sam…gave me the opportunity to work with him, and was great to work
with. When you’re together for three-and-a-half years, as well as being
coaches you become friends, so it’s a little bittersweet that way. But
it’s an opportunity and I look forward to moving forward and seeing
what we can do with this basketball team.”Triano got a ringing endorsement from the Raptors’ former head coach.
“I think Jay will do fine,” Mitchell told TSN upon landing at
Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. ”Jay is a basketball guy,
he’s a good friend and I’m glad that somebody on the staff is getting
the opportunity and I think Jay will do fine.”Armstrong also had kind words for Triano, saying, “He’s a capable
strategist, he’s a good motivator, he communicates well with his
players and, most importantly, he’s a good man. It’s not easy being
an interim coach, but the onus right now is on the players.”“I have a lot of respect for Jay’s basketball acumen,” Colangelo
said earlier. “He will be a fresh voice for the players to listen to.”The Raptors are off to a disappointing 8-9 start to the season, and
have suffered back-to-back defeats on their current road trip - the
Denver game, as well as Sunday’s 112-99 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.“It comes down to an entire body of work that you study,” he added.
“You look at all the circumstances that may have gone into our failures
and there comes a time when you can honestly say it is time to make a
coaching change, and that realization was met over a period now of a
couple of weeks, with finality of (Tuesday) night after the game.”Despite the Raptors’ slow start, power forward Chris Bosh has posted
MVP type numbers this season. He’s second in league scoring averaging
26.6 points per game. The six-year pro is also pulling down 10.3
rebounds per game.Mitchell was named the sixth head coach in Raptors history June 29,
2004. He posted a 156-189 (.452) record in his four-plus seasons at the
helm of the Raptors. He garnered the Red Auerbach Trophy as the NBA
Coach of the Year for the 2006-07 season. In May of 2007, he was
awarded a four-year, $12-million contract extension with the team.He also captured The Sporting News 2007 NBA Coach of the Year
honours in a vote among his head coaching peers. In January 2007,
Mitchell became only the second coach in Raptors history to earn
Eastern Conference Coach of the Month honours.Jay Triano is in his seventh season as a member of the Raptors’
coaching staff. He became the first Canadian born and Canadian trained
coach in the NBA when he served as an assistant coach to Lenny Wilkens
during the 2002-03 season.A native of Niagara Falls, Triano was the head coach of the Canadian
men’s national team from 1998-2004 posting a 52-42 (.553) record. He
led Canada to a semifinal berth in the 2003 FIBA Americas Olympic
Qualifying Tournament in Puerto Rico and to a 5-2 record, second best
to the United States, in the 2000 Olympics.Triano served as interim head coach for one game last season when
Mitchell was away for a personal family matter. The Raptors defeated
the Minnesota Timberwolves, 105-82, on February 10 at Air Canada
Centre.Triano’s first game as interim head coach will be Friday when the
Raptors visit the Utah Jazz. Game time is 10:30 ET. The game will be
broadcast live TSN and TSN HD.
From ESPN.com:
SEATTLE — Don Wakamatsu became the first Asian-American manager in major league baseball history when he was hired Wednesday by the Seattle Mariners.
The 14th manager in Mariners history, Wakamatsu was bench coach for the Oakland Athletics last season. Before that he spent five years with the Texas Rangers.
“When I started this process, there were some key attributes we were looking for,” Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik said in a statement. “We wanted energy, a passion and the skills to translate that passion to the players. We wanted leadership, a presence that could help us as we define the ‘Mariners Way’ to win. We wanted someone that both the community and the players could embrace. We wanted someone who sees the big picture and cares about the players and wants to win. Don embodies all of those traits.”
The 45-year-old was among a field of seven candidates interviewed by Zduriencik. None of the seven had previous major league managerial experience. The overwhelming fan favorite was former Seattle second baseman and current Chicago White Sox bench coach Joey Cora.
Wakamatsu will be the fifth manager in Seattle since the departure of Lou Piniella after the 2002 season. The Mariners have cycled through Bob Melvin, Mike Hargrove, John McLaren and Jim Riggleman since Piniella left, with none of the four approaching Piniella’s success.
Wakamatsu replaces Riggleman, who took over in June when McLaren was fired after a 25-47 start to a season in which the Mariners were expected to contend for the playoffs. Riggleman wasn’t even considered for the latest opening.
McLaren was on the job less than 12 months, after Hargrove quit suddenly in the middle of the 2007 season — the last time Seattle was winning.
The Mariners lost 101 games this season, their most since 1983, and became the first team to lose 100 with a $100 million payroll. Now they hope Wakamatsu can bring some stability and aid in the redevelopment of a franchise that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2001.
“This is something I’ve looked forward to for a long time,” Wakamatsu said in a statement. “It is a tremendous opportunity and I can’t wait to get going with Jack and his group as we start working on the 2009 team.”
A former catcher, Wakamatsu spent almost his entire playing career in the minors, except for 18 games with the White Sox in 1991. His final season in the minors was in 1996 as player-coach of the Mariners’ Double-A Port City farm team.
He managed four seasons in the minors but never higher than Double-A before joining the Rangers’ bench in 2003.
Wakamatsu, who was born in Hood River, Ore., says he knows only a little Japanese — always a consideration in Seattle, where All-Star Ichiro Suzuki is the franchise cornerstone — though it has improved recently with the A’s and Rangers.
He also understands management doesn’t expect this to be a long-term rebuilding project.
“In general, it’s a young team that maybe with some prodding we can win right away,” Wakamatsu said last week.
Here’s the latest from ESPN.com:
The shakeup promised by Detroit Pistons president Joe Dumars after last season’s Eastern Conference finals has materialized just two games into the new season.
The Pistons and the Nuggets have finalized a trade that sends guard Allen Iverson to Detroit and Pistons mainstays Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess to Denver.
“We just felt it was the right time to change our team,” Pistons president of basketball operations Joe Dumars told The Associated Press. “Iverson gives us a dimension that we haven’t had here and we really think it’s going to help us.”
The Pistons will introduce Iverson at a news conference Tuesday in Auburn Hills, Mich., at 3:30 p.m. ET. His debut with the Pistons might come Wednesday night in Toronto.
“He was very excited about the trade,” Iverson’s agent, Leon Rose, told the AP.
Young center Cheikh Samb, selected by the Los Angeles Lakers for the Pistons with the 51st overall pick in the 2006 draft, will also be going to Denver in the deal.
The Nuggets are expected to waive the 34-year-old McDyess, ESPN.com’s Chad Ford reports. McDyess has no interest in playing for any team other than the Pistons, meaning he could choose to retire or negotiate a contract buyout with Denver.
Billups is in the second season of a four-year contract worth a guaranteed $46 million with a $14 million team option for a fifth year. The Pistons kept McDyess off the free-agent market by giving him a $13.5 million, two-year contract extension, and they would love to have him back if the cost-cutting Nuggets buy out his contract.
Dumars put the entire Pistons roster on notice after they lost to Boston in the East finals, saying that there “are no sacred cows” on his team and vowing to consider trading anyone — even a major contributor to the Pistons’ 2004 title run like Billups — in addition to firing coach Flip Saunders and replacing Saunders with the untested Michael Curry.
The Pistons could not find a workable deal over the summer after talking with numerous teams — Denver included, according to NBA front-office sources — but it emerged then that Billups, MVP of the 2004 Finals, was the most likely Piston to be dealt.
With Denver’s desire to acquire a dependable point guard growing, Dumars moved quickly to finally consummate this deal with the Nuggets, who acquired Iverson from Philadelphia shortly before Christmas in 2006 but failed in two attempts to get out of the first round with a three-man core of Iverson, Carmelo Anthony and Marcus Camby.
Camby was jettisoned to the Los Angeles Clippers in a straight salary dump in July for luxury-tax purposes. After playing sparingly in the preseason, Iverson was stripped of his captaincy last week and averaged just over 13 shots per game as the Nuggets opened with a 1-2 mark.
The Nuggets will be hoping now that the homecoming Billups, a Denver native who starred collegiately at the University of Colorado, meshes better with Anthony, given that he’s more of a natural point guard than Iverson. Yet there is some risk for the Nuggets, since Billups is 32 and has three more seasons left on his deal after this one, with the four years totaling in excess of $50 million.
Both Billups and McDyess were Nuggets in the 1990s.
The Pistons, meanwhile, will undoubtedly contend that their risks are mitigated by the fact that Iverson, who turned 33 in June, is in the final year of his contract at $20.8 million.
Dumars loves to gamble on players who are reputed to possess as many minuses as pluses, as seen with the trade-deadline acquisition of Rasheed Wallace in 2004 which spurred Detroit to its first championship since Dumars was playing in 1990. If this gamble doesn’t work, swapping Billups for Iverson would give Detroit financial flexibility to pursue a more aggressive makeover next summer, with the highly regarded Rodney Stuckey staying put as the long-term cornerstone of the Pistons’ backcourt.
“Two teams had one common problem, or challenge,” Nuggets executive Mark Warkentien said, according to AP. “I think the Pistons looked at Stuckey and saw him as the point guard of tomorrow, and you have an All-Star in Chauncey who was in his way.
“We’re just thrilled with the way J.R. [Smith] is progressing and he had a Hall of Famer in front of him. You understand the motivation of both teams.”
Iverson brings considerable star power to Detroit. The 20th-leading scorer in NBA history was the league MVP in 2001 — four years after being the Rookie of the Year — and is a nine-time All-Star. He has averaged nearly 28 points for his career and has led the NBA in steals three times, tying a league record.
Philadelphia drafted Iverson No. 1 overall in 1996 out of Georgetown and he spent 11½ seasons with the franchise, leading it to the NBA finals in 2001. He was traded Dec. 19, 2006, to the Nuggets and helped them reach the playoffs twice.
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