Honesty might help explain why O'Neill is working in Tucson instead of Canada. The Raptors only won 33 of their 82 games in his only season as an NBA head coach, four years ago, but their record only provides a half-truth to the way his time in Toronto came to a close.
The franchise was adrift. Vince Carter was on his way to being known for spending more of his time writhing on the floor than actually playing on it, and the front office had dissolved into a poisonous pool of dysfunction and back-stabbing.
One example arrived following a February stay in Phoenix, when someone within the organization leaked word to a beat reporter that O'Neill had exploded inside his hotel room. A $300 lamp was destroyed in the outburst, but only after the coach had received a telephone call explaining that swingman Jalen Rose had broken his left hand...
"I broke the lamp in Phoenix, I told everybody," O'Neill said with a chuckle over the weekend. "I don't know who was upset, or who instigated the whole article, nor does it matter. That's OK. Every organization, college or pro, has the wherewithal to hire and fire whoever they want and to go in whatever direction they want.
"It's just the way it is. I ended up getting fired. No hard feelings. I took my money and went on my way."
he's got a nice job coaching the arizona wildcats. this is a good piece from the Post
