Nate McMillan has been dismissed.

[jayu70]

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[Jamaaliver]

Why didn't this happen a week ago, immediately following the Knicks loss?

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[Jamaaliver]

I do want to thank Nate for his 2+ years here.

He's a good man and a solid coach. Top-20 in wins all time, took 4 teams to the post season and 2 different franchises to the Conference Finals. His resume is solid...The team really just needs a new voice at this juncture.




The many faces of Nate McMillan.

Spoiler:

Just astonishing that he always seemed to have the same stern, embittered look on his face.

[Jamaaliver]

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[Jamaaliver]

Code: Select all

For now, Prunty will take over as interim coach for the second time in his career. After replacing Jason Kidd in 2018, Prunty was 21-16 in the regular season for the Bucks. They lost a seven-game series to the Boston Celtics in that opening-round of the playoffs.

[Geaux_Hawks]

I think Landry wasn't prepared to handle letting a coach go at the moment. Wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to settle the storm a tad bit and then start going towards his preferred direction.

[jayu70]

Why didn't this happen a week ago, immediately following the Knicks loss?

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With the Allstar game on tap...I would surmise that the NBA in particular would not like it to be a hot topic for discussion during the festivities.

[jayu70]

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[Jamaaliver]

Why didn't this happen a week ago, immediately following the Knicks loss?

With the Allstar game on tap...I would surmise that the NBA in particular would not like it to be a hot topic for discussion during the festivities.

Good call.

McMillan probably would’ve been fired days ago, but pro sports leagues generally frown upon signature celebrations like All-Star Games being upstaged by ugly things like firings, and Monday was a holiday. So the ax fell Tuesday night, on the eve of players returning to practice.

The Athletic

[POLI]

Why didn't this happen a week ago, immediately following the Knicks loss?

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Indeed.
There are decisions that should be taken well before.
If he was not handling the players well, if he was underachiving with tis roster, if he was against bringing new players (trades), then he had to go.
But a week ago would have been much better.
7-8 days with a new coach now is almost like another pre-season.
Now there are 2 days to prepare for the rest of the RS.

[HMFFL]

99-80 record in his 2.5 years.

Coaching since he was 36 years old, now 58, Nate has only had three seasons below .500, so that's very impressive. The third time with this season with us where he leaves a 29-30 record.

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[POLI]

99-80 record in his 2.5 years.

Coaching since he was 36 years old, now 58, Nate has only had three seasons below .500, so that's very impressive. The third time with this season with us where he leaves a 29-30 record.

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To me a similar case than the one of BDH: winning record and unable to take the next step here.
With BDH I thought it was his fault, but then he proved us wrong by winning a title elsewhere.

Well, the decision is taken and now we need to move forward.

McMillan has been unable to maximize the couple Young-Murray. I am beginning to think that it is almost impossible to pair Young with any other backcourt colleague, as his willingness to defend and pass the ball, set screens for others and see the play with minimum intervention are almost impossible for him.

At this point i firmly believe that the roster would be much better with a trade in which we get 2-3 good players for Young. As I know this is not going to happen, let's hope that the new coach is able to find ways to hide his weaknesses and maximize his strenghts, which are many.

[jayu70]

Rumors swirling across the interwebs as expected. I did hear about the rumored conflicts between Nate and his assistants early in the season last year.
It's not my rumor, so...grain of salt, but still interesting.

Earlier in the year I mentioned open conflict within the coaching staff as it pertained to young players, especially Jalen Johnson. After his very stat heavy year at College Park, the assistant coaches, other players expected heavy minutes from Jalen.

Nate's reliance on smaller lineups and not giving Jalen Gallo type minutes irked some, especially those who worked most closely with JJ.

You can hear in the pressers how they are repeating "someone who connects with the players" (John, Trae, Jalen, etc) and "someone good at developing talent".

One of things not yet said is a jealousy the team feels over other orgs developing young players while we play old school and let them rot on the bench. This is one of the things Ressler openly questioned (why don't our young guys play like X,Y,Z).

What I'm hearing is that this has been simmering privately for 3 weeks+ and the coaches were basically in pro-Nate vs pro-young guns camp and that the decision to start Saddiq Bey was effectively a big "FU" to the assistants propping up JJ. So too was the near DNP for JJ in his last game. There was some serious discontent in the Hawks locker room and it wasn't between Trae and Nate, but between Nate and 3 members of his staff.

A second point of contention was ball distribution and untimely substitution (something many members of this board have noticed). Nate's over-reliance on iso sets created two problems 1) DJ is not as good as Trae in the PnR game and is more of a chaos movement player. 2) Other teams learned from the Heat in last year's playoffs and were determined to trap Trae and get the ball out of his hands. On good authority, one of the more experienced coaches suggested off ball curl screens (opposing top of the key from the ball handler) and switch pin downs as ways to loosen up defenses and Nate insisted their guys "figure out how to beat this coverage and not to rely on gimmicks". As the season progressed, DJ's turnovers increased as he was forced to run sets that are not in his normal bag. Without clear outs or off ball motion, DJ was attacked very similarly to Trae.

The rumored Trae argued with Nate at practice that seemed to get covered up was actually Trae making the mistake of agreeing with a coach who openly disagreed with Nate.

The critique of Nate from the x's and o's coaches was his over reliance on 1v1 matchups on both offense and defense and insistence on players scrambling off blown coverages. Additionally, Nate's historical tendency and reputation as a hot head led to not only him not engaging officials and fighting openly for his players but limiting his assistants from barking at the refs as well. The players felt often as if they were playing against the refs which showed in their on court whining. Nate tried to limit this as well, limit trash talking. It was summed up to me as "he was taking the emotion out of basketball".



The delay in firing Nate was due to the team having a cooling off period and to evaluate their options. When after a few days they saw no way forward, the decision was made to let Nate go now.

[CP War Hawks]

^^^
Who ever wrote that had their pulse on the team. Good to hear the coaches had JJ's back. I think Prunty will do a decent job with the minutes for the younger guys.

[jayu70]

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[HMFFL]

Kevin Chouinard: Dejounte Murray: “As soon as I woke up and I had seen it, I immediately called him and had a great conversation with him because that is somebody that I respect as a man, as a father, as a basketball coach, and he was a former player. I respect what he did for the game. (1/2)

 

– via Twitter KLChouinard



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[Jamaaliver]

Rumors swirling across the interwebs as expected. I did hear about the rumored conflicts between Nate and his assistants early in the season last year.
It's not my rumor, so...grain of salt, but still interesting.

What I'm hearing is that this has been simmering privately for 3 weeks+ and the coaches were basically in pro-Nate vs pro-young guns camp and that the decision to start Saddiq Bey was effectively a big "FU" to the assistants propping up JJ. So too was the near DNP for JJ in his last game. There was some serious discontent in the Hawks locker room and it wasn't between Trae and Nate, but between Nate and 3 members of his staff.

The critique of Nate from the x's and o's coaches was his over reliance on 1v1 matchups on both offense and defense and insistence on players scrambling off blown coverages.

Thanks for sharing.

Do you have a link?
Is this a post from The Squawk?

[Jamaaliver]

Kevin Chouinard: Dejounte Murray: “As soon as I woke up and I had seen it, I immediately called him and had a great conversation with him because that is somebody that I respect as a man, as a father, as a basketball coach, and he was a former player. I respect what he did for the game. (1/2)

 

– via Twitter KLChouinard

DJM always seems to say the right thing in front of the media. Same with Collins.

They are the true leaders of this team…

[jayu70]

Full interview

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[Jamaaliver]

A former teammate actually defending Trae.

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