Bobcats To Hire Steve Clifford As Their Next Head Coach

[WCDYNASTY]

Bobcats To Hire Steve Clifford
May 27 at 5:13pm CST By Zach Links

The Bobcats are set to hire Steve Clifford as their next head coach, league sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports (on Twitter). The Lakers assistant will receive a three-year, $6MM deal with a team option on the third year, according to Sam Amick of USA Today.

The longtime assistant came to L.A. under head coach Mike Brown. Clifford spent most of the last decade working for Jeff and Stan Van Gundy as a defensive specialist before joining up with Brown and the Lakers. He'll now be charged with turning around a woeful Bobcats franchise that is coming off of a 21-61 campaign.

Clifford was also in the mix for the vacant Bucks job. With Clifford out of the running in Milwaukee, the Bucks search will now focus on Larry Drew and Kelvin Sampson, tweets Wojnarowski. Each candidate has second interviews coming up this week.

The Bobcats fired Mike Dunlap last month following just one year at the helm in Charlotte. The former St. John's assistant coach managed to improve upon the club's dreadful .106 winning percentage but rubbed people in the front office the wrong way and found himself at odds with veteran guard Ben Gordon.

SOURCE:
http://www.hoopsrumors.com/2013/05/bobcats-to-hire-steve-clifford.html

[DEEP3CL]

Props to Coach Clifford. I'm glad these guys can move on and not be punished for being token/ marginalized coaches on MDA's staff. That was clear to me and I noticed it even before I read Person's stuff.

[AI]

Great opportunity for him. But this just clears room so MDA can hire another one of his dumb assistants.

[GSForever]

Great opportunity for him. But this just clears room so MDA can hire another one of his dumb assistants.

Nothing against Clifford but Jordan is the worst owner ever!

[Kilroy]

Anybody else notice that all the 'Defensive Specialist' coaches are all leaving the building?

Maybe it was their fault our D sucked, but I'd say we need to replace them with other defensive coaches.

[Slava]

Anything is an upgrade from Mike Dunlap but wish Clifford well, he's done his time with other teams' benches, so its time he got his shot. I wonder when Brian Shaw will get his opportunity if even Jordan a triangle disciple himself is not willing to give a shot.

[Gek]

Anybody else notice that all the 'Defensive Specialist' coaches are all leaving the building?

Maybe it was their fault our D sucked, but I'd say we need to replace them with other defensive coaches.

From the interview with Chuck, it seemed like D'Antoni just didn't let them do their jobs... or are team is just that bad defensively without a healthy Dwight.

[Kilroy]

That's what scares me.
Maybe the FO said; "You have to start focusing on Defense, either listen to the Defensive coaches you have or bring in some you will listen to."

We'll see... I don't think we're going to be able to make any huge modifications personnel wise this off season. Maybe a role-player or 2 here and there, and we might lose MWP and Clark...
And if that's the case, we just don't seem to have a team that can dominate the offensive side of the court without a much better effort on defense. I think we need to focus on slowing it down and locking it down. That's usually what older teams do. And we're still going to be an old team... Especially if Kobe doesn't come back 100%.

[denimourson]

Anybody else notice that all the 'Defensive Specialist' coaches are all leaving the building?

Maybe it was their fault our D sucked, but I'd say we need to replace them with other defensive coaches.

To be fair all those coaches beside MDA brother(DDA) are of the previous regimen under Mike Brown so it would make sense that they would leave and I wouldn't classify Eddie Jordan as a defensive coach as he was brought in to teach the Princeton offense under Brown.

[Speedlot]

Who?