(the hottest ticket since McGovern/Eagleton)
As Tavares once sang, “It only takes a minute….” to end up on the shit list of Portland’s Nate McMillan’. From the Oregonian’s Jason Quick.
If Nate McMillan has a proverbial doghouse, the Trail Blazers coach says it is vacant — even if it appears that his star player, Zach Randolph, is doing everything possible to take up residence.
On Oct. 10, Randolph was kicked out of a practice for loafing. Two days later, he was late to the team’s morning shootaround — a pregame practice in which the team goes over its plan for that night’s game — resulting in Randolph losing his starting role for the night. Then, last Wednesday, Randolph was late again to the team’s morning shootaround, resulting in another benching.
“Pfft. He be all right, I guess,” Randolph said Friday in Spokane when asked what he thought of his coach. “I got kicked out of a practice, nothing I can do about that now. And I have been late — everybody be late at times. I just can’t be late anymore.”
“What came after the part where he said, ‘only one minute’?” McMillan asked.
Before it was relayed to him, McMillan finished the sentence himself.
“Late. Whether it was one minute or whatever, and the end of that was late,” McMillan said.
“See, what it comes down to is execution. If we are one second late in where we are supposed to be in a game, it costs you a basket, it costs you a game. Everything we do, really, is based on time, and that’s the discipline I hope we get.”