Wizop wrote:I always felt Bird fired Isiah after one phone call because Isiah took no responsibility for the prior year's issues even though he was clearly learning how to coach.
As I remember, that call took place while Isiah was travelling with a Larry Brown (I think) team. He was doing that to try to learn from one of the best. Bird wanted him to return immediately, and Isiah didn't want to do that.
That was always such a weird thing to me. Frankly, I thought from the day Bird came onboard, Isiah was going to be fired. There was a lot of dislike towards Isiah from Bird. Or put more honestly, Bird hated Isiah. It was very obvious.
One odd thing was, Isiah did not inherit the team he thought he would have when hired due to retirements, trades, etc. But the team improved its record over the time he was here. If you remember, he was the Eastern Conference All-Star coach because his team had the best record in the conference at the time.
It was also interesting that under Bird's hand picked coach (Carlisle) the team's record went down over his tenure, but Bird was happy with him until the end. That is not a knock on Rick, as he had to deal with a bunch of knuckleheads during his time here. Talented knuckleheads, but knuckleheads none the less.
I also remember Carlisle's last press conference when it was announced he was leaving. He looked and sounded like a man who had just had the weight of the world lifted off his shoulders. You could tell he was relieved of a huge burden.
