I said earlier that my thoughts on the firing of Eddie Jordan were scattered and to be honest, they still are, but I feel the need to say something so rather than try to collect them all into some garbled nonsense, here are those scattered thoughts in their raw form.
- It's kind of funny because I was actually planning on laying out why Eddie Jordan wouldn't be fired in the Knicks recap, but as I was typing it up, I lost my draft and when I re-typed it, I decided to skip that part. The main point of my argument was going to be that Ernie Grunfeld would not have spent all that money in the off-season to keep the core of the team together long term just to get rid of the coach less than a month into the season with 2/5ths of the starting lineup out. Today is another fine example of my gut instinct failing me.
- Another thing that I've learned in my life is that Kevin Broom is a far smarter man than I can ever hope to be. I would highly recommend checking out his thoughts on the issue.
- While I'm not sold on the timing of the decision, ultimately I agree with the move. I don't think that the team tuned Eddie out by any means, but it was clear that he wasnt getting what he used to out of his talent. Unless your name is Phil Jackson, Gregg Poppovich, or Jerry Sloan it's going to happen at some point or another. That's the reality of life as an NBA coach.
- It's been pretty clear this season that Antawn Jamison is not happy with certain people in the locker room. My fear is now that Eddie Jordan is gone that Antawn is going to start going nuclear on those people now that a man has lost his job. His comments after today's practice do nothing to dissuade this fear of mine:
An agitated Jamison (and he's almost never agitated) when asked by a TV talking head whether Jordan "deserved it" : "Next question."
Was he shocked: "I was shocked. Why would I not be shocked?"
Reporter: "Because the team is 1-10 sometimes that happens when a team is 1-10."
Jamison: "The team is 1-10, not the coaching staff. Next question."More Jamison: "As players you take the responsibility for going out there and getting the job done and we didn't get it done. Unfortunately they got rid of coach and we have to take it from there."
- Speaking of Jamison, it was kind of odd to see him rocking an Undrcrwn O-Face tee today after practice. Somehow I get the feeling when he put on that shirt this morning and thought about change that he wasn't thinking about a change at head coach.
- According to Ernie, Ed Tapscott will be the interim head coach for the rest of the season. I'll take Ernie at his word that that's the case, but I'm with Ziller in thinking that Ed Tapscott won't be the long term solution as coach. I liked what he had to say during the press conference today, but it doesn't take much of coaching pedigree to identify the issues with this team right now. Until I see otherwise, there's nothing that I see that would lead me to believe that he'll be anything more than a caretaker for Grunfeld until he finds a long-term solution.
- As for who I'd like to see take the reigns long term, I'm probably crazy, but I'd really like to see Avery Johnson get the job. I know he lost his team near the end of his tenure, but I'm pretty sure he's aware of that. Why not give him a chance to show that he's learned from those mistakes? If he can overcome that, there's not a lot in his coaching ability left to criticize. But that's just my two cents. The other two names that I've heard tossed around a lot (Flip Saunders and Tom Thibodeau) would also be nice selections, in my opinion.
- As he rides off into the sunset in that 2008 Mercedes Benz Silver GL with black leather interior, I've got a lot of good memories from the Eddie Jordan era. It may not have ended the way that anyone wanted, but I think when we look back at this era years from now, we'll look back at this era fondly. I think UM put it best:
He was never able to get this team over the hump, but he’ll be remembered more for the good he did for this franchise. He’s a good man, a solid coach and a great Washingtonian, but it was time to move in a new direction.