Category: Sports

Purdue University president Mitch Daniels writes to Condolezza Rice:

That invitation to speak on our campus still stands, but I see that you’ll be a little too busy this spring, now that you’ve accepted yet another “service opportunity” as chair of the new commission tasked by the NCAA to help it reform college basketball. You’ve always been a sucker for a good cause; and if ever a cause qualified, this one does.

When the FBI revealed its findings about the corrupt connections among shoe companies, agents, a few big-time college programs and coaches, and the Amateur Athletic Union or AAU (the first “A” increasingly looks like a misnomer), no one near the sport was shocked. The existence of this part of the cesspool has been in plain view for years. Those in a position to stop the scandals spawned by the “one-and-done” era — in which many top-tier players were required to enroll in college for one year before bolting for the NBA — have been either powerless to do so or actively interested in perpetuating the status quo.

When it was discovered that, at what we’ve always considered an academically admirable school, championships had been won by teams loaded with players who took completely phony classes, most of us were sincerely shocked. We were stunned again when, after years of cogitation, the NCAA delivered a penalty of . . . nothing. It was a final confession of futility, confirming the necessity of this special commission, if any meaningful change is going to happen from the collegiate end.

If the NCAA is impotent to stop the abuses, the NBA is all but an unindicted co-conspirator. The current arrangement works out beautifully for the league: It gets a free minor league player development system, a massively televised showcase for its next round of stars, and one less argument with a players union that prefers to limit, through its ineligible-until-age-19 rule, the number of competitors for the few hundred NBA roster spots. The league has every incentive to keep dragging its feet, so the most promising avenue for reform is to make the college game inhospitable to NBA exploitation and the rotten collusion that the one-and-done world fosters.

As for solutions, one can start by observing that almost no change could make things worse. I don’t pretend to know the single best answer, but it’s not hard to list a number of possibilities.

We could require a “year of readiness,” meaning that freshmen could practice but not play while they became acclimated to college life. This was the NCAA rule for many decades, and it makes great sense unless a “student” really has no intention of pursuing a real education.

Or the NCAA could simply use the rule already in effect for baseball, which gives young aspirants a choice between going professional straight from high school or entering college and staying a minimum of three years. Either of these approaches separates those seriously interested in higher education from those forced by the current system to pretend they are.

Another idea would be to allow players to depart early for the NBA, but the scholarships they received would be required to remain vacant for the balance of their four-year terms. Coaches who want to chase that next championship with full-time players masquerading as students could do so, but the following few seasons might be tough with rosters filled with walk-ons.

I’m convinced the college game would be more, not less popular, if a handful of would-be pretend students, whose names fans barely get a chance to know, instead went straight from high school to some sort of professional league. Doing so would certainly bring more parity and fairness to the college game. The play would still be amazingly athletic — most of us fans would not be able to tell the difference — and schools with genuine academic and conduct standards would no longer be at such a competitive disadvantage.

It’s startling how concentrated the phenomenon is. In the past five years, 45 percent of all “five-star” recruits, and 58 percent of all one-and-dones, have gone to just five schools. Our entire 14-member Big Ten conference, by contrast, has had 9.2 percent of the first category and 6.4 percent of the latter, collectively. One could tell conferences like ours that if we don’t like today’s situation, we can just establish our own rules, but unilateral disarmament never seems like a good idea.

It troubles me to give up on my friends and neighbors at the NCAA, but when the FBI beats you to a monstrously obvious problem in your own backyard, you’re clearly never going to fix it on your own.

So thanks for serving, Condi, and best of luck. If you thought Iranian sanctions or North Korean nukes were hard problems, wait until you try this one. And take your time about that invitation. Go save us from ourselves.

This is probably not a surprise, reported by the WIAA:

The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association Board of Control voted in opposition to the most recent plan to address competitive equity and approved a number of coaches’ committee recommendations and other action items at its January meeting today.

The Board voted 6-5 against a basketball “Rural/Urban” competitive equity plan initiated by the Board. The proposal sought to place schools in Divisions 3, 4 and 5 by enrollment and by U.S. Census data with classification codes based on proximity to urban areas.

I posted about this yesterday. If the Rural/Urban plan is dead (and that’s debatable), and irrespective of the merits of the plan, one wonders if the next step will be to simply classify private schools (and maybe charter schools) into their own class(es) for state basketball.

Meanwhile, The Post~Crescent in Appleton reports:

Coaches throughout the Fox Valley could be seen with folded white towels on their shoulders Tuesday evening.

The gesture was in clear support of basketball coach John Mielke, who resigned Sunday morning as Appleton East boys coach following a confrontation with an East parent at a local bar Friday night.

Mielke’s sudden resignation sent shock waves through the basketball communities in the Fox Valley. A groundswell of support for Mielke was evident on social media throughout Monday and Tuesday as players, coaches and fans voiced their backing of Mielke.

Mielke let his team know at a practice Sunday morning that he was stepping down as head coach.

Oshkosh North boys basketball head coach Brad Weber also showed support for Mielke on Tuesday. The Spartans defeated Appleton East 72-35 at East in the Patriots’ first game without Mielke as head coach. Assistant Steve Coenen is the acting head coach for the rest of the season.

“Shocking,” Weber said. “Because when you see the news, it hits you. But in today’s society when you think about it, probably not that shocking.” …

Appleton East graduate and former University of Wisconsin basketball player Dave Mader shared his thoughts on Twitter: “I had a chance to help out for a short time with Coach Mielke. He cared deeply about the players. He was a friend and mentor to numerous coaches. He loves the game of basketball and is an extraordinary human being. It was a privilege to work with Coach Mielke.

Mielke resigned — and you’ll notice the high school basketball season is far from over — after a group fo East parents reportedly had a confrontation with him at a bar following East’s loss to Appleton West, the P~C reports:

Mielke resigned two days after an encounter at a local bar on Friday where he was approached by a parent of an Appleton East basketball player. According to sources, the parent said he was representing the thoughts of many families and questioned Mielke’s coaching tactics, repeatedly calling the team’s play “embarrassing.”

Several other East parents were nearby but did not address Mielke, according to others in the bar.

Sources said the parent told Mielke that some of the players on the team no longer wanted to play for him and indicated that Mielke “yelled at their kids too much” during practices and games. …

Multiple people in the bar at the time confirmed the series of events to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. And several players attending Sunday’s practice confirmed Mielke’s comments to the team.

One wonders if these parents are going to intervene for their children when they have problems in college or in the workplace too. One also wonders whether this particular interfering parent knows the definition of the word “embarrassing.”

Travis Wilson of the Wisconsin Sports Network analyzes today’s expected vote on high school basketball postseason divisions:

At Wednesday’s Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association Board of Control meeting in Stevens Point, the group is expected to vote on passage of the controversial Rural/Urban plan for boys and girls basketball divisional placement.

The issue of competitive equity has been a hot-button issue amongst schools, coaches, and fans for more than a decade, going back to the merger of the WIAA and the private schools that previously competed in the Wisconsin Independent Schools Athletic Association, a joining that took place beginning in the 2000 season.

Brought to the forefront by a member petition that placed a private school Multiplier on the Annual Meeting agenda in the 2014 season, there were several proposals that ultimately failed over the course of several years.

The current Rural/Urban proposal was first brought forward by the Board of Control at its June 2017 meeting, with discussion and feedback obtained over several months and at the fall Area Meetings.

At the Board’s December meeting, the original proposal was revised to be less punitive on schools that met the Urban definition.

To view the details of the Rural/Urban Competitive Equity Plan, please click here.

WSN provided an analysis of the revised Rural/Urban Plan last month, which can be found here.

There have been considerable discussions around the revised plan amongst school leaders, but despite significant challenges and issues, I feel there is a strong chance that the proposal will pass at Wednesday’s meeting.

OBJECTIONS TO WIAA RURAL/URBAN PLAN

The revised Rural/Urban Plan has received strong objections from the schools that would stand to be impacted by the proposal. 18 of those schools co-signed a letter sent to the WIAA Board of Control earlier this month outlining their objections.

One of the most significant objections is around the lack of supporting data for the plan. The impacted schools point out, and the WIAA admits, that there was no comparative data used to examine whether schools in urban settings experience more success than those that fall under the rural classification.

In the impacted schools’ letter to the Board of Control, they highlight an exchange between WIAA Associate Director Deb Hauser and Saint Mary Catholic Athletic Director Adam Bates. Bates asked Hauser if there was any data that showed the schools being moved up under the plan would improve the perceived competitive equity imbalance.

Hauser responded that the plan addresses perceived disadvantages between rural and urban schools, involving proximity to potential students and potential training opportunities.

The letter introduced data that showed that 72% of the impacted programs have not made a state tournament appearance since the move to five divisions in 2011.

There have been 29 programs (boys and girls combined) that have won multiple state championships since the WIAA-WISAA merger in 2000, however only two of them would move up under this plan: Aquinas and Newman Catholic.

Analysis by WSN’s Mark Miller showed that over the last ten years, the boys basketball programs that would move up under the plan had a combined playoff winning percentage of 61%. Similar analysis done by the impacted schools showed the girls programs that would move up have a combined playoff winning percentage of just 57%.

Many have also questioned why the plan only moves up teams that normally fall into Division 4 and Division 5, and not those that may fall in Division 3 or Division 2.

A number of school administrators at last fall’s Area Meetings wondered whether the plan could be perceived as racist, since many of the impacted schools are in the Milwaukee area with high numbers of African-American students. Said Milwaukee Academy of Science CEO Anthony McHenry, “I fear that race is at the core of this plan. If not, why basketball, the sport which requires the least amount of resources for participation. Hopefully, I am wrong, but I have not heard an argument that indicates there is a real problem to solve.”

There is a feeling among many people who would otherwise support some kind of divisional adjustment that the plan targets the “wrong” schools. The teams that have drawn the most complaints over the years in regards to not being “fair” have been Dominican, Racine St. Catherine’s, Destiny, Assumption, Newman Catholic, Young Coggs Prep, Regis, Edgewood, Heritage Christian and Aquinas. To a lesser extent, schools such as Catholic Central, Green Bay NEW Lutheran, Wisconsin Lutheran, McDonell Central, Columbus Catholic, Xavier, Sheboygan Lutheran, Racine Lutheran, Milwaukee Academy of Science, The Prairie School, Lourdes Academy, and Kenosha St. Joseph have also drawn criticism from both school personnel and fans.

However, of that first group of ten, only Aquinas, Destiny, Regis, Newman Catholic, and Young Coggs would move up. The primary teams receiving the largest complaints, Dominican and St. Cat’s, would not be impacted at all. Of the 12 teams in the “lesser” group, several would not move at all in the plan.

Many opponents of the Rural/Urban proposal question why it is only being applied to basketball, when data has shown that private schools, who are really the ones targeted by the plan, win as much or more in other sports like soccer and volleyball. There is a feeling that this is being done to avoid a full membership vote on the plan, which would be required if it was to apply to all sports. The membership has already voted down three other competitive equity proposals: the Multiplier, Reducer, and Success Factor.

It is expected that if this plan passes, a version of it will soon make its way to other sports on a sport-by-sport basis as well.

However, there are question about whether such a move, or even applying the Rural/Urban plan to just basketball, would pass legal challenges. The idea that the proposal should be presented to the entire membership for a vote was voiced by several administrators at the fall meetings. The WIAA has even consulted its legal advisors on the subject, and it is not clear if the Association would withstand legal scrutiny on the issue. Impacted schools or students could challenge whether the proposal is needed to pass a membership vote rather than a Board of Control vote, or challenge that the WIAA is a state actor and thus in violation of equal protection laws.

PREDICTION

Despite the significant objections to the proposal, the fact it doesn’t address many of the “problem” schools, and the potential legal battles that could follow, I believe there is a very strong chance that the WIAA Board of Control will vote to implement the Rural/Urban plan at Wednesday’s meeting.

There is and has been a sense among many administrators that, “Something needs to be done.” While this plan has plenty of holes, it is something to address competitive equity, and for some, that’s enough.

Several plans have already been voted down by the membership, suggesting that perhaps other future competitive equity proposals would face difficulty getting passed by the entire membership. By making this a sport-specific plan, it only needs to gain support from a majority of the 11-person WIAA Board of Control rather than a majority of 507 schools. At the December Board of Control meeting, there seemed to be a sense from several Board members that the adjusted proposal was more palatable because it impacted less teams, was less punitive than the original, and would be seen as a “win” for the members who have loudly asked for competitive equity relief over the years.

The Board of Control could vote to approve the plan as presented, to reject it altogether, or modify it in some fashion. The group could also vote to add it to the Annual Meeting agenda for consideration by the entire membership.

While I think the most likely outcome is the board passes the plan as presented, there could be a chance that due to the possible legal challenges and uncertainty around the proposal, they may look to send the question to the entire membership instead.

My prediction is that if this does not pass, the next proposal will be to create separate tournament divisions for private schools, and perhaps charter schools as well.

Forbes, of all sources, writes about the vacant Bucks coaching position:

There could be as many as 10 coaching openings this coming off-season in the NBA, and one of the better ones became vacant on Monday when the Milwaukee Bucks fired Jason Kidd.

Despite having one of the game’s top young players in Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks are among the NBA’s biggest underachievers this season. Through 45 games Kidd’s record was a disappointing 23-22, with the Bucks clinging to the eighth and final playoff spot in the East. Their dismal performances under Kidd as they lost seven of their last 11 games outweighed his once-close relationship with co-owner Marc Lasry.

According to industry sources, among the potential coaches Lasry and co-owner Wes Edens could look at to replace Kidd are former Memphis head coach Dave Fizdale; former Knicks and Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy; former New Orleans coach Monty Williams; former Louisville coach Rick Pitino; and current G-League minor-league coach Jerry Stackhouse, who is seen as a future coach in the NBA.

It might not be the plum job as advertised, even with Antetokounmpo’s potential as a future MVP candidate. All candidates will want to investigate who’s in command in terms of determining the roster, as the Bucks are known to have more than one chef in the kitchen. In addition, Lasry and Edens, who purchased the team for $550 million in April, 2014, are not always on the same page, sources told Forbes.com. Overall, the Bucks are not viewed as dysfunctional, like some other NBA franchises, but they have a reputation for not being in lock-step. It’s been apparent from their clumsy and protracted GM search of last June and the Kidd firing that they have not followed the Spurs’ model, although that’s one of professional sports’ top-run franchises, with Lasry telling me he closely studied the five-time champs’ inner workings and wanted to emulate them when running the Bucks. Whomever takes the job will likely want to know who’s calling the shots on personnel. In the meantime, Kidd’s interim replacement is his top assistant, Joe Prunty.

For his three-plus seasons coaching Milwaukee, Kidd had a major say in player moves. The Bucks made a bold trade early in the season to shore up their point guard position, acquiring Phoenix’s Eric Bledsoe after the Suns fired Earl Watson three games into the season. But even with Bledsoe they’ve been unable to compete with the top teams in either conference. Their record against Top 10 teams is 7-11, and it’s only 10-15 against teams headed for the playoffs.

This is another bad exit for Kidd. He landed in Milwaukee in 2015 after he tried and failed to unseat then-Brooklyn Nets GM Billy King by adding King’s personnel decision-making  duties to his coaching job. With long-time friend Lasry in his corner, he guided the Bucks to two playoff seasons, including last spring when the team lost to the Toronto Raptors in the first round of the playoffs.

Expectations were high for this season — several experts felt the Bucks could finish in the top four in the East after acquiring Bledsoe — but the Bucks have been plagued by poor overall defense, a suspect interior and an offense that is one of the NBA’s worst in three-point makes and three-point accuracy. While he was a Hall of Famer as a player and the ultimate coach on the court, his coaching had also come under scrutiny after some bad losses. Plus, sources say, his relationship with Lasry soured.

Even with their problems, the Bucks, who will be moving into a new $524 million arena next season, have one major asset for prospective coaches: Antetokounmpo is a immensely talented 23-year-old who stands 6-11, moves like a guard, and is averaging nearly 30 points per game. Now viewed as a Top 10 player, he’s the kind of player a franchise can build around to make a run at a title. He’s already among the team’s all-time leaders in triple-doubles. Maybe the best news for the next coach: He’s signed for the next three seasons, as part of his four-year, $100-million contract he agreed to in 2016. Unlike many brand-consumed stars, he’s a rare bird: He likes playing in one of the NBA’s outposts.

The Ringer adds:

Jason Kidd simply ran out of time. On Monday, the Bucks head coach was fired, the latest casualty of the increased expectations surrounding the franchise. Giannis Antetokounmpo is now a legitimate superstar, but the rest of the team has not kept pace. There was a massive shake-up in their front office over the summer, and they traded for Eric Bledsoe in the first month of the season after a disastrous start. Things haven’t been much better since: Milwaukee is hanging onto the no. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference with a 23–22 record, a far cry from the leap the Bucks seemed poised to take after last season. Outside of a deadline trade that might soon come, the only other change they could make was firing their coach.

Milwaukee has been a one-man team this season. Giannis is leading the Bucks in per-game scoring (28.2), rebounds (10.1), and assists (4.6), and is second on the team in steals (1.5) and blocks (1.3). Their net rating plummets from plus-3.7 with him on the floor to minus-11.6 without him. The final straw came in a 116–94 loss to Philadelphia on Saturday, which Giannis sat out with a sore knee. The Bucks looked helpless, especially in the fourth quarter, when they were outscored by 18 points. Kidd could not come up with any answers.

It hasn’t been for lack of trying. Kidd made several changes to their starting lineup this season, and he has played 14 different players more than 100 minutes. He even dialed back the aggressive defensive schemes that have been his trademark as a head coach, both in Milwaukee and Brooklyn. Kidd loved to blitz pick-and-rolls and force offenses to execute under intense ball pressure, but there were diminishing returns to his unorthodox style. After finishing with the no. 2 defense in his first year as the Bucks head coach, they have not been ranked above no. 19 in the three years since.

Interim head coach Joe Prunty has to figure out some way to stabilize their defense. Milwaukee has the no. 25 defense in the NBA this season, and the underlying numbers suggest that something is fundamentally broken. The Bucks are no. 3 in opponent 3-point field goal percentage (38.1), no. 2 in the percentage of corner 3s (24.1) allowed, and no. 1 in the percentage of shots (32.5) at the rim allowed. Letting opposing teams take the most efficient shots on the floor is a recipe for disaster.

Milwaukee has the personnel to be at least respectable on that side of the ball. The Bucks are one of the longest and most athletic teams in the NBA, with John Henson at center, Giannis and Khris Middleton on the wings, and Bledsoe and Malcolm Brogdon in the backcourt. There aren’t many obvious weak spots for offenses to attack. The easiest solution might be a more conservative style of defense that discourages gambling and protects the rim and 3-point line at all costs. There’s no reason to have so many physically gifted players playing out of position when they should be able to keep their men in front of them.

Prunty has to figure out a new identity quickly. Jabari Parker is expected back from a torn ACL at some point in the next few weeks, and integrating him will require major changes. He’s an elite scorer who averaged 20.1 points on 49 percent shooting in 51 games last season, but he wasn’t much of a defensive player even before the injury. The worst-case scenario is what happened in Cleveland when Isaiah Thomas returned to the lineup. Adding a poor defender to an unstable defensive foundation can cause the whole thing to collapse.

Milwaukee might end up trading for a more traditional defensive anchor like DeAndre Jordan, as it has long been linked to the Clippers center. The problem is that that would probably mean moving future picks and promising young players like Brogdon and Thon Maker. It would be hard for a small-market franchise to give up players on cost-controlled contracts when its payroll is set to explode. Parker will be a restricted free agent this summer. Bledsoe will be a free agent after next season, and Middleton will likely waive his player option for the 2019–20 season and join him on the open market.

Bucks GM Jon Horst, who took over the job this summer, has a lot of big decisions to make. Giannis won’t be a free agent until after the 2020–21 season, but an NBA team lucky enough to have a player of his caliber is always on the clock. Keeping this group together will be incredibly expensive, and Horst needs a better idea of how good they can be before he commits. If he pays Bledsoe, Middleton, and Parker, he will not have any flexibility to build around Giannis going forward. The rest of the league will be watching what he does closely.

Few of the available head-coaching candidates will be willing to join a team midseason, so Prunty is probably safe for now. To have any chance of removing the interim tag, he would need to win at least one playoff series, if not two, which is possible considering how wide open the East is. If Prunty doesn’t keep the job, the obvious candidate is David Fizdale, who built deep relationships with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade as an assistant in Miami and modernized the Memphis offense before losing a power struggle with Marc Gasol. It will be a comprehensive search, and the Bucks will have their pick of candidates. The opportunity to coach a superstar like Giannis doesn’t come around often.

Kidd was hired in 2014 to shepherd a young team along, and both Giannis and Parker blossomed under his direction. However, there is a big difference between developing individual players and maximizing a roster. Firing a coach can be the next step in the growth process of a franchise. The Bulls fired Doug Collins before they hired Phil Jackson. The Warriors fired Mark Jackson before they hired Steve Kerr. Of course, getting rid of the last guy is the easy part. Who the Bucks hire now is the most important decision the franchise has made since it drafted Giannis. Milwaukee doesn’t have much time to get this right.

The Sporting News provides this list:

Sam Cassell

Cassell has plenty of NBA experience as both a player and coach. He played for eight teams over the course of his career, including the Bucks, and he has served as an assistant coach with the Wizards and Clippers. Cassell has shown the ability to relate and connect with his players. For example, he played an instrumental role in getting Paul Pierce to sign with the Wizards during his time in Washington. Don’t be surprised if Milwaukee’s front office gives him a call.

David Fizdale

After being fired by the Grizzlies earlier this season, Fizdale is an obvious choice. He carried the “Grit’N’Grind” style of the old Grizzlies forward and helped push them toward the future with changes to their offensive style. There might be some hesitation with Fizdale given how his relationship with star center Marc Gasol went south, as the Bucks don’t want to give Giannis Antetokounmpo any reason to think about leaving down the road. But Fizdale also has plenty of big-name guys in his corner, so this could be a nice fit.

Tony Bennett

Is Bennett finally ready to make the jump from college to pro? Virginia is once again near the top of the college polls, and Bennett’s stock may never be higher with multiple NBA teams making changes this season. He also has a Wisconsin connection — Bennett played at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay for his father, Dick, who championed the pack-line defense. Let’s see if he wants to go home.

Mark Jackson

Look, joke about Jackson’s tenure with the Warriors all you want and how he seems to sneak in those little comments when he’s broadcasting a Golden State game for ESPN. But he did help establish a new winning culture for the Warriors and lay the groundwork for Steve Kerr to build upon (Kerr has given Jackson credit specifically for the strength of the defense). He might be ready to take off the headset and return to the sidelines.

Monty Williams

As the head coach in New Orleans, Williams finished 173-221 overall with the Hornets/Pelicans, making two playoff appearances, including a first-round exit in 2015 to the eventual champion Warriors. Williams then joined the Thunder staff but left the bench in the middle of the season after the tragic death of his wife, Ingrid. He has since served as the vice president of basketball operations for the Spurs, but early reports already indicate he could be a frontrunner for the Bucks job.

Jerry Stackhouse

“Stack” spent 19 seasons as a player in the NBA, and he has made a name for himself as a coach in a hurry. The 43-year-old is the head coach of the Raptors 905, the NBA G-League affiliate of the Raptors, and it’s not an opportunity he takes lightly.

“Anybody that knows me knows that I’ve got a lot of pride and I’m confident in what I do,” Stackhouse told NBA.com last year. “This is what I do. This isn’t a fluke. I’ve been working at this thing for a while. A lot of people just see it now.”

While Stackhouse is a bit behind the curve compared to other candidates, he brings undeniable energy and a desire to improve each day.

Adrian Griffin

Following nearly a decade as a player, Griffin has served as an assistant coach in Milwaukee, Chicago, Orlando and currently Oklahoma City. He has a habit of building relationships with those around him. He’s a guy who has made an impact at every stop but doesn’t need to take credit for individual or team success. Griffin is also a defensive-minded coach, having spent time under Tom Thibodeau with the Bulls, and that’s absolutely something the Bucks could use, as they own the sixth-worst defensive rating in the NBA.

Jim Boylen

Boylen has been coaching for more than three decades now, starting back in 1987 as an assistant with Michigan State and currently serving as the associate head coach for the Bulls. Boylen knows what it takes to win, having been part of title teams with both the Rockets in 1994 and 1995 and the Spurs in 2014. The young Bucks could use some championship experience.

Rex Kalamian

Another coach with plenty of years under his belt, Kalamian has been on the Raptors’ staff since 2015 under head coach Dwane Casey. Kalamian focuses primarily on Toronto’s defense, and to his credit, the Raptors hold the sixth-best defensive rating in the league. Casey has relied on Kalamian and the rest of his assistants throughout the season, and with the Raptors second in the East behind only the Celtics, Kalamian’s resume is looking pretty good.

Desmond Mason

Longshot alert! Mason enjoyed the highest-scoring season of his NBA career with the Bucks in 2004-05 (17.2 points per game) and became known for his high-flying throwdowns above the rim. The former Oklahoma State star expressed interest in coaching the Cowboys in 2016 and even created a checklist for the program. What would his master plan for the Bucks look like?

When you compare Mason to the rest of the candidates, though, he isn’t nearly as appealing. Still fun to imagine!

My own preference in such matters is to find someone from a premier organization, as when the Packers hired Mike Holmgren from the 49ers, Wisconsin hired Barry Alvarez from Notre Dame (after Iowa). The NBA’s premier organization is the San Antonio Spurs. Anyone available there?

Seth Wickersham:

THE PROBLEM WITH living your life under the spotlight is that the camera captures only the public eruption, not the months of silent anger. On Dec. 3, when the New England Patriots played the Buffalo Bills, Tom Brady walked to the sideline after throwing late and behind receiver Brandin Cooks on third down, ending a first-quarter drive. Brady was angrier and more irritable than usual, as has often been the case this season in the eyes of some Patriots players and staff. As he unsnapped his chinstrap, Brady passed offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels on the sideline.

“He was wide open,” McDaniels said to Brady, referring to Cooks.

Brady kept walking, and glaring at McDaniels, so the coach repeated: “We had him open.”

Brady snapped, pivoting to McDaniels and yelling at him, “I got it!” Everyone within earshot, including head coach Bill Belichick, turned to watch as Brady screamed. He removed his helmet, and as a Patriots staffer held him back — and with McDaniels’ father and legendary high school coach in Ohio, Thom, in the stands behind the bench — capped off the exchange by yelling, “F— you!”

Video of the scene went viral, with many rationalizing it as a symptom of Brady’s legendary competitiveness. Brady would later apologize to McDaniels, who dismissed the incident to reporters as “part of what makes him great.” After all, many in the Patriots’ building knew that Brady’s explosion wasn’t really about McDaniels. It wasn’t about Cooks. And it wasn’t about the Bills game. It was about the culmination of months of significant behind-the-scenes frustrations. For almost two decades, Belichick has managed to subvert the egos of his best player, his boss and himself for the good of the team, yielding historic results. This year, though, the dynamics have been different.

THE PATRIOTS ARE in uncharted territory. They haven’t just won games and titles. They’ve won at an unprecedented rate and over an unprecedented span, which makes the feelings of entitlement creeping inside Gillette Stadium unprecedented as well. The Patriots, in the only statement anyone associated with the team would make on the record for this story, responded to specific questions by saying that there are “several inaccuracies and multiple examples given that absolutely did not occur,” though they declined to go into detail. But according to interviews with more than a dozen New England staffers, executives, players and league sources with knowledge of the team’s inner workings, the three most powerful people in the franchise — Belichick, Brady and owner Robert Kraft — have had serious disagreements. They differ on Brady’s trainer, body coach and business partner Alex Guerrero; over the team’s long-term plans at quarterback; over Belichick’s bracing coaching style; and most of all, over who will be the last man standing. Those interviewed describe a palpable sense in the building that this might be the last year together for this group.

Brady, Belichick and Kraft have raised expectations and possibilities so high that virtually no other team in the Super Bowl era could truly comprehend what it’s like to be them. Brady and Belichick weren’t only pushing the boundaries of what a team could accomplish. They also were challenging basic understandings of how a group of high achievers escape the usual pulls of ego and pride. For 17 years, the Patriots have withstood everything the NFL and opponents could throw their way, knowing that if they were united, nobody could touch them. Now they’re threatening to come undone the only way possible: from within.

THE CRACKS FIRST revealed themselves in early September. The season had just started, and Guerrero was once again becoming an issue in the Patriots’ building, just weeks before the release of Brady’s first real book, “The TB12 Method.” It was more than a fitness and diet guide. For Brady, a self-described “loner” who always seemed most comfortable surrounded by family or on a football field, the book represented a move to extend his brand beyond the game — and beyond the Patriots. Until a few years ago, he seemed uninterested in ever doing so, content to be a father and husband and son and brother and transcendent quarterback, knowing there wasn’t time for much else.

Guerrero persuaded Brady to find time. The two men had worked together for years, with Guerrero having found a spot in Brady’s famously small group of advisers, eventually becoming a godfather to one of his sons. Guerrero has a history of controversial methods — in 2005, he paid a judgment to the Federal Trade Commission to settle allegations that he had claimed dietary supplements could help cure cancer — and he believed he had discovered a way to revolutionize how athletes train. In his book and in the building, Brady was offering opinions not only on training but also on lifestyle, writing that he envisioned a world populated with TB12 Sports Therapy Center franchises.

Few in the building had a problem with Brady’s method — mostly based on stretching with bands, eating lots of vegetables, drinking lots of water, getting lots of sleep and, most of all, achieving peak “pliability.” They did have a problem with what Brady and Guerrero promised the TB12 Method could do. They claimed it could absolve football of responsibility for injury: “When athletes get injured, they shouldn’t blame their sport,” Brady wrote. The method also was so consuming and unwavering in its rules and convictions that, while it helped some players, it felt “like a cult” to others, one Patriots staffer says. The way TB12 began to creep into Brady’s life worried people close to the QB, many of whom were suspicious of Guerrero. “Tom changed,” says a friend of Brady’s. “That’s where a lot of these problems started.”

Brady and Guerrero’s training beliefs introduced an unspoken pressure in the building, with players wondering where they should work out. In August, receiver Julian Edelman blew out his knee, costing him the season, and there was “hypersensitivity” among players, in the words of a Patriots coach, over who would take his place. New players felt the surest way to earn Brady’s trust was to join Rob Gronkowski, Danny Amendola and others by seeking advice from Guerrero at his TB12 clinic — and not team doctors, which Belichick preferred. Guerrero says he wasn’t pressuring players to adopt his approach. “Players have always decided to come or not come on their own,” he says now. But according to multiple sources, players openly discussed with Patriots coaches, staff and trusted advisers whether to follow Brady or the team, leaving them trapped: Do we risk alienating the NFL’s most powerful coach or risk alienating the NFL’s most powerful quarterback?

EARLY THIS SEASON, Belichick wanted to discuss all these issues with Brady.

Guerrero had been around the team for years, mostly as an unthreatening outsider who worked with former linebacker Willie McGinest and, starting in 2004, Brady. On the author page in his 2004 book, “In Balance for Life,” Guerrero says he received a degree in traditional Chinese medicine from the now-closed Samra University of Oriental Medicine in Los Angeles, and later opened a sports injury, rehabilitation and performance-enhancement center, also in Los Angeles. In 2013, Belichick had welcomed Guerrero into the New England fold, giving him free rein in the building and, sources with direct knowledge of the situation say, access to meetings in which medical records for Patriots players were discussed (Guerrero denies ever having seen any records). The coach figured that, because Guerrero had Brady’s best interests in mind, he probably had the Patriots’ best interests in mind too, and could be trusted. But Guerrero often would blame Patriots trainers for injuries, while offering few insightful opinions of his own, and Belichick quickly realized inviting him had been a mistake. And so in 2014, he eliminated Guerrero’s access to those meetings while keeping him on as a team consultant. That was the same year Brady and Guerrero decided to market their business as revolutionary; the same year that Brady began to speak unwaveringly about playing into his mid-40s; and the same year that Belichick drafted Jimmy Garoppolo out of Eastern Illinois — the first sign that Belichick was invested in a future that did not include the quarterback who had changed his life and legacy.

It was also the same year that the Patriots would go on a run toward their fourth Super Bowl win, altering the team dynamic in fundamental ways that would come to a head this fall. During their 10-year championship drought, Brady and Belichick had come up just short together and could only dive back into the redemptive power of work, trying to slim the margins between defeat and victory. In beating the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX, the two men drew strength from different touchstones. Belichick found virtue in his idea of the Patriot Way — the demanding, football-first culture with an emotionless pursuit of victory — and Brady found virtue in his Method, which he believed helped him thwart the inevitability of time, reinforcing his belief that he was still not on the downside of his career and deserving of a new contract. In 2016, Kraft and Brady’s agent, Don Yee, began negotiating a new deal; Belichick and other Patriots staff had to abruptly leave the NFL combine in Indianapolis to be part of the process. Brady’s two-year contract, with a $28 million signing bonus, was designed to set up 2018 as a key year, when the team could, in theory, look at a 41-year-old Brady and his $22 million cap hit and decide if it made sense to transition to Garoppolo.

A year later, after another Super Bowl win — the Brady-led, historic comeback from 28-3 to defeat the Atlanta Falcons — Brady’s stature in the organization had grown to the point that he was considered management. New players often address him as “sir.” As Brady gained power, so did Guerrero, who became an even more divisive force in the building. One player visited TB12 under what he perceived as pressure, and declined to allow Guerrero to massage his injured legs. Instead he asked to keep treatment limited to only his arm, out of fear that one of Guerrero’s famous deep-force muscle treatments would set back his recovery. The Boston Sports Journal would report on another player who was told by Patriots trainers to do squats but later instructed by Guerrero to not do them. Brady would tell teammates, “Bill’s answer to everything is to lift more weights” — a claim that many staffers and players felt was unfair, given the team’s dedication to soft-tissue science and a healthy diet.

And so after several such incidents, Belichick explained to Brady in early September that many younger players felt pressured to train at TB12 rather than with the team, and asked the quarterback what was going on. Brady said he didn’t know anything about any such pressure, according to people briefed on the exchange, and the two men left the meeting without any resolution.

Belichick felt the need to permanently clarify Guerrero’s role, drawing sharp boundaries. After the brief discussion with Brady, Belichick emailed Guerrero to let him know that while he was welcome to work with any players who sought out TB12, he was no longer permitted access to the sideline or all of the team headquarters because he wasn’t an employee of the Patriots (a point that Belichick would resoundingly make clear when reporters asked about Guerrero).

An email designed to solve problems only created more of them. Guerrero texted some of the Patriots players who were clients and specified, he says now, “that I would need to treat them at the TB12 Sports Therapy Center.” But several players told staffers and coaches that Guerrero gave them the impression that Belichick would no longer allow them to work with him. In the view of many Patriots, it was an example of Guerrero trying to split the organization by turning players against Belichick. All of this happened as Brady, serving as TB12’s test case, continued to reiterate publicly and privately his goal of playing into his mid-40s. In October, he again explained to Kraft and Belichick his plans to play a few more years. The question was whether Brady had earned long-term security from the Patriots, or if he would finish his career somewhere else.

BELICHICK HAS FAMOUSLY staked his entire career on the idea that long-term security doesn’t exist in the NFL. Fear, paranoia, the irrelevance of yesterday and tomorrow, and acceptance of Belichick as the ultimate authority are as much a part of the Patriot Way as selflessness and sacrifice. For years, Brady stood as the perfect model for Belichick’s system, a future Hall of Famer who could withstand tough and biting coaching. Brady always knew the hits were coming during Monday morning film sessions — “The quarterback at Foxborough High could make that throw,” Belichick often would say after replaying a Brady misfire — but he could take it, secure not only in the knowledge of his singular impact on Belichick’s career but also in the theater of it all, that the coach was doing it in part to send a message that nobody was above criticism. “Tommy is fine with it,” his father, Tom Brady Sr., said years ago over dinner in San Mateo, California. “He’s the perfect foil for it.”

Brady is less fine with it this year. People close to him believe that it started after last year’s playoff win over the Houston Texans, in which Brady completed only 18 of 38 passes and threw two interceptions. Belichick lit into him in front of the entire team in a way nobody had ever seen, ripping Brady for carelessness with the ball. “This will get us beat,” he told the team after replaying a Brady interception. “We were lucky to get away with a win.”

The criticism has continued this year, as Brady has been hit a lot and battled various injuries. Atypically, he has missed a lot of practices and, in the team’s private evaluations, is showing the slippage of a 40-year-old quarterback even as he is contending for MVP and is as deadly as ever with the game on the line. Injuries to his shoulder and Achilles have done more than undermine claims that the TB12 Method can help you play football virtually pain-free. Subtle changes have at times hampered the offense and affected the depth chart. On a fourth-quarter play against the Los Angeles Chargers, for instance, Brady had a clean pocket and a first read open deep, possibly for a touchdown. But Brady got rid of the ball quickly over the middle to receiver Chris Hogan, who had nowhere to run and was hit hard, injuring his shoulder. He missed all but one game of the rest of the season. “Tom was trying to get it out quick,” a Patriots staffer says. “As fragility has increased, nervousness has also increased.”

At the same time, as his age has increased, Brady has become an advocate of positive thinking. Belichick’s negativity and cynicism have gotten old, Brady has told other Patriots players and staff. He feels he has accomplished enough that he shouldn’t have to endure so much grief. Patriots staffers have noticed that, this year more than ever, he seems to volley between unwavering confidence and driving insecurity. Brady has noted to staff a few times this year that, no matter how many game-changing throws he makes, Belichick hasn’t awarded him Patriot of the Week all year.

Those who know Belichick and Brady well are amazed that they’ve co-existed this long, two ruthless and proud self-made men, both secure though still unfinished in their legacies, both loved and hated, both having received stiff penalties for cheating, both motivated by ego, humility and — as much as anything — doubt. Belichick is famously secretive, creating an entire system in which knowledge flows directly to him and only he decides how to deploy and exploit it. And Brady is famously unhelpful toward his backups — or, at least, a threat like Garoppolo. The two quarterbacks were friendly, but Brady — like Joe Montana to Steve Young and Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers — didn’t see it as his role to advise Garoppolo, even on matters as trivial as footwork, as nobody had helped him during his climb. Garoppolo played well in 2016, starting in place of the suspended Brady, and Belichick began to see Garoppolo as the final piece of his legacy, to walk away in a few years with the Patriots secure at quarterback. But after Garoppolo was knocked out of his second start because of a shoulder injury, he set up a visit at TB12. As he later told Patriots staffers, when he arrived, the door was locked. He knocked; nobody was there. He called TB12 trainers but nobody answered. He couldn’t believe it, Garoppolo told the staffers, and that night ended up visiting team trainers instead. Guerrero vehemently denies ever refusing to see any player, and Garoppolo was eventually treated at TB12 — but it was two weeks after he showed up for his original appointment, and only after a high-ranking Patriots staffer called TB12 to inquire why Garoppolo hadn’t been admitted.

Several times this past October, Brady met with Kraft to discuss playing longer. That same month, he also met with Belichick, who was skeptical of a long-term contract extension but was content to start Brady as long as he was the best quarterback. Belichick understood how much Brady had meant to the franchise, and had always insisted privately that he wouldn’t move on from Brady unless he could convince the coaching staff of it. But the reality was that no quarterback has ever played at a championship level into his 40s. The meeting ended in a “little blowup,” according to a source. Complicating matters was that Garoppolo would be a free agent at the end of this season. Complicating matters more was that Brady and Garoppolo share Yee as an agent.

And complicating matters even more was that Belichick didn’t want to trade Garoppolo. He had passed on dealing him last spring, when Garoppolo was in high demand. In early September, Belichick did trade third-string quarterback Jacoby Brissett to the Colts for wide receiver Phillip Dorsett. “If we trade Jimmy, we’re the Cleveland Browns, with no succession plan,” one person inside the organization said earlier in the year. The Patriots repeatedly offered Garoppolo four-year contract extensions, in the $17 million to $18 million range annually that would go higher if and when he succeeded Brady. Garoppolo and Yee rejected the offers out of hand, for reasons that remain unclear, and the Patriots knew they couldn’t make any promises to Garoppolo about the timing of a transition at quarterback without it getting back to Brady.

Two weeks before the Nov. 1 trading deadline, Belichick met with Kraft to discuss the quarterback situation. According to staffers, the meeting ran long, lasting half the day and pushing back Belichick’s other meetings. The office was buzzing. The meeting ended with a clear mandate to Belichick: trade Garoppolo because he would not be in the team’s long-term plans, and then, once again, find the best quarterback in the draft and develop him. Belichick was furious and demoralized, according to friends. But in the end, he did what he asks of his players and coaches: He did his job. One morning in late October, Belichick texted San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and asked him to call. Belichick had long admired Kyle’s father, Mike, who not only had been one of the NFL’s smartest tacticians but had also personally defended Belichick to commissioner Roger Goodell during the Spygate scandal. At the combine this past February, Kyle, weeks into the 49ers job after being the offensive coordinator for the Falcons, met with Belichick for hours to learn from his team’s humiliating Super Bowl loss. Belichick believed that Garoppolo would excel under Shanahan, and when he and Shanahan connected on the phone, Belichick offered the quarterback for a second-rounder.

It was a steal, leaving Patriots staffers stunned and confused. Why would the game’s shrewdest long-term strategist trade two backup quarterbacks in a two-month span when his starter was 40 years old and banged up? And why did Belichick practically give away a quarterback whom the coaches saw as a potential top-10 player for much less than he could have gotten last spring? It made no sense. Belichick handled the trade as he always does, by not explaining it to the coaches and by burying them so deep in work that they didn’t have time to gossip. Most in the organization understood that it was an extreme case, with extreme personalities, but they felt that Belichick had earned the right to make football decisions. Belichick, having always subscribed to the philosophy that it’s time to go once an owner gets involved in football decisions, left the impression with some friends that the current dynamic was unsustainable.

Brady, though, seemed liberated. Kraft hugged Brady when he saw him that week, in full view of teammates. A few days later during practice, some players and staffers noticed that Brady seemed especially excited, hollering and cajoling. Brady was once again the team’s present and future. His new backup, Brian Hoyer, was a longtime friend and not a threat. The owner was in Brady’s corner. “He won,” a Patriots staffer says.

NOBODY IS BUDGING now. Kraft, Brady and Belichick were supposed to meet in late December to clear the air, but that never happened. It probably won’t until after the season. Those interviewed describe a lingering sadness around the team, as if coaches and staff know that the end might be near. Both McDaniels and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia are expected to become head coaches; other assistant coaches might leave to join their staffs or for college jobs, or even retire. The imminent exodus raises the question going forward: Is it possible that Belichick would rather walk away than try to rebuild the staff with a 41-year-old Brady and another year of Guerrero drama — all while trying to develop a new quarterback? Belichick being Belichick, those around him know nothing of his plans. He has always been a football genius, artfully letting situations play out. The looming uncertainty has taken a toll on everyone, even as the Patriots finished 13-3 and earned the top seed in the AFC playoffs. “Bill’s done a phenomenal job of holding the building together,” one Patriots official says.

Now 76 years old, Kraft ultimately will attempt to broker a solution. He has paid both Brady and Belichick tens of millions of dollars, won and lost some of the greatest games in NFL history with them, and has stood by both at their lowest moments. He apologized in front of a room of owners for Spygate. And he stood by Brady during Deflategate, even after he backed down and accepted the NFL’s penalty. Kraft did so even though many staffers in the building believed there was merit in the allegation, however absurd the case. The team quietly parted ways with both John Jastremski and Jim McNally, the equipment staffers accused of deflating footballs — they’ve never spoken publicly — and Belichick reorganized the equipment staff. Kraft has privately told associates he knew that he went too far in his attacks against the league. “I had to do it for the fans,” he has told confidants.

A fifth Super Bowl triumph healed some of those wounds, but there’s no guarantee that a sixth will fix the rest. Something has to change, that much everyone knows. Many Patriots players and staff believe that Brady is a good man who has a hard time saying no to Guerrero. They’ve noticed that he seems to be searching this year, as if reaching the pinnacle of his profession is as fleeting as it is rewarding, manifesting itself in outbursts like the one at McDaniels. Belichick seems to be grinding harder than ever, as if more than a sixth championship is at stake. Before the Patriots played the Steelers in December, he told players, “I brought you here for games like this.”

But Belichick also has taken a longer view, as though he sees pieces of his impact leaguewide. He’s preparing assistant coaches for job interviews elsewhere, which he didn’t always do in years past. He has taken pride in Garoppolo’s 5-0 record in San Francisco — and in the fact that Kraft has confessed to people in the building that trading Garoppolo might have been a mistake. He reset a toxic relationship with the Colts with the Brissett trade. He has even become good friends with Goodell. The two men had a long and private meeting during the off week after the regular season, when the commissioner visited Foxborough.

Belichick always had a vision for how, after more than four decades in the NFL, he wanted to walk away, beyond setting up the team at quarterback. He wanted his sons, Brian and Steve, both Patriots assistants, to be established in their football careers. And he wanted the winning to continue without him, to have a legacy of always having the best interests of the franchise in mind. Both Brady and Belichick have redefined how much influence a coach and quarterback can have on a team game. But this year has shown that the legacy of football’s greatest coach, like the game itself, is beyond his control.

The claim is that the letters NFL stand for “Not for Long,” although remember that Brady became the Patriots’ starting quarterback, and the Patriots won their first Super Bowl, in 2001.

How did the Patriots respond to this? Kings of Boston Sports reports:

Facebook Friend Kevin Binversie adds: