Maybe It's Not Howland or The Players ... ?

Offered me nothing. Sorry.

means nothing.

Showing up at a bunch of games means nothing.

Knowing how to evaluate talent and how to form close relationships with players is the key.

Didn’t John Wooden say something about activity?

Is giving anyone a sense of security about anything.

so, isn’t he in Izzo’s league, at least in that respect?

Trying to imagine CBH managing NBA size egos…I think that combination would last all of one week.

it’s a gross overstatement to suggest that NBA players are by definition “prima donnas.”

I mean, do you consider even one Bruin currently in the NBA a “prima donna?”

Do you consider even one player on the Lakers right now a "prima donna?’

So, I think it’s sort of besides the point if the issue is dealing with “prima donnas.” No coach likes to deal with “prima donnas.”

But you do have to deal with great players who are ultra competitive to the point of being borderline obsessives. That’s where I’d stick a guy like Kobe Bryant. He doesn’t require special treatment — he just has ridiculously high standards and is unforgiving of those who don’t compete at his level.

But, why do I think Howland would make a great NBA coach?

In no particular order:

1 – I don’t think he loves recruiting, not like a Calipari or a Williams. I perceive him as someone who recruits because he must — but he’d rather just do the coaching.

2 – Speaking of the coaching, I perceive him as obsessive about preparation. That’s the number one quality an NBA coach has to have — the ability to prepare. Howland is simply great at breaking down film, of preparing practices, of noticing the little details that make a team win. In the NBA, instead of having to spend half your time looking at tape of high school players, you spend your time looking at film of opponents and yourself. I don’t think anything would be more suited to Howland than a situation where preparation was paramount.

3 – In the NBA, you don’t have to worry about your players liking you and all that because you’re worried about them going pro. It doesn’t work that way. You can work them hard and as long as their checks clear, they have to take it.

4 – Howland is a great defensive coach. That plays well in the NBA. He might need an OC assistant coach on his bench, but then again, the NBA lets you have as many assistant coaches as you want.

5 – Howland is also a good game coach. That’s a plus in the NBA.

Would he have to make adjustments? Of course. Playing 82 games with less time to practice between games necessitates changes in approach. But I don’t think these changes are insurmountable — they would just require planning.

The disconnect for me and those who think Howland could not coach in the NBA is at the point where people start to suggest that NBA players are uncoachable prima donnas. This is an unwinnable argument both ways. If you dislike the NBA and NBA players, I won’t be able to convince you that NBA players aren’t by and large uncoachable prima donnas. And you won’t be able to convince me that they are.

(For the record — obviously there are prima donnas in the NBA. There are prima donnas in college basketball, too. The league isn’t void of difficult personalities, there just aren’t as many as some suggest.)

To me, the biggest challenge Howland would face is working with a GM who basically puts the team together. Using the Lakers just as an example, Howland’s greatest challenge would be working with Mitch Kupchak and the owners who pick the players not dealing with Kope and the team. The biggest loss of control is in putting the roster together.

Look, NBA players want to do two things: Make lots of money and win lots of games. If Howland’s coaching won games, they’d buy into anything he’d want to do. Mostly I think Howland is a superior preparer, practice coach and game coach and that’s what it takes to win in the pros. I think he’s an ambivalent recruiter and stripped of that responsibility he’d do very well.

All that said (and remember, you asked) I’d bet anything he isn’t going to the pros.

AI is one of the most misunderstood players in NBA history.

Too much to go into, but I’ll say this:

No one — I mean no one — ever worked harder in games than Allen Iverson. He almost led the 76ers to a title single handedly. He was barely 6 feet tall and a buck sixty and he took a tremendous beating night in and night out. For anyone to question his effort was simply laughable.

Yes, he was apparently casual about practice at times. But that’s because he had nothing left for practice. And it was unfathomable to him that someone would call him out for being late to practice (and imply he wasn’t trying). I’m not condoning AI missing practice. I’ll be clear: he was wrong. But the subsequent assumption that he was a lazy player or a player who didn’t work hard was and is ludicrous.

And AI has great respect for Larry Brown — who was the Sixers coach at the time of the practice incident.