Nate not sure he wants to be our Head Coach??

[thecampster]

13 hours ago, Blunt91 said:

     I don't know if anyone has already touched on this in another thread.  I briefly searched the other threads but did not see any thing on this.  I found this little nugget over on HoopsHype.com

 

While McMillan is the team’s “interim’’ head coach, sources made it abundantly clear Hawks management would love to remove the interim title. However, sources also said the 56-year-old McMillan has some reservations whether he wants to be the permanent head coach and may prefer some other role in the organization. Money won’t factor into McMillan’s decision as he is financially set, sources said.

8 hours ago – via Woelfel's Press Box

 

Supes or Campster have you heard anything on this Topic?

 

 

I am being very, very careful here. What I know on the subject is mildly speculative. It is one of the more closely guarded secrets out there in Hawkdom.

Nate's apprehension has nothing to do with the team, the city, the players or management. The firing of LP did not sit well with him. He would like a little more control over his future, his legacy. Nate is looking for less than total control, but more than a little input on personnel, assistant hires, team direction. What he wants is a seat at the table and its tricky business to get those assurances without looking like a Diva or a control freak. Nate is looking for a situation, not a job. As I understand it, he also doesn't want a contract negotiation interfering with the season. again, as I understand it, the agreement is he can hold on to the interim title as long as he wants until they come to an agreement. One of the assurances I'm told he wants is an out clause, freedom to take another job without restriction. Nate wants to be able to control his own fate, his own destiny. Consider this 40% grapevine, 60% speculation. I'm told he loves the city.

 

 

[RandomFan]

33 minutes ago, thecampster said:

I am being very, very careful here. What I know on the subject is mildly speculative. It is one of the more closely guarded secrets out there in Hawkdom.

Nate's apprehension has nothing to do with the team, the city, the players or management. The firing of LP did not sit well with him. He would like a little more control over his future, his legacy. Nate is looking for less than total control, but more than a little input on personnel, assistant hires, team direction. What he wants is a seat at the table and its tricky business to get those assurances without looking like a Diva or a control freak. Nate is looking for a situation, not a job. As I understand it, he also doesn't want a contract negotiation interfering with the season. again, as I understand it, the agreement is he can hold on to the interim title as long as he wants until they come to an agreement. One of the assurances I'm told he wants is an out clause, freedom to take another job without restriction. Nate wants to be able to control his own fate, his own destiny. Consider this 40% grapevine, 60% speculation. I'm told he loves the city.

 

 

Makes complete sense through this lens, then. If true, it's definitely difficult to sit down and hash those details out in the middle of the season while your focus should be 100% on the daily operations and coaching of the team. And the farther we keep going into the postseason, the more leverage Nate is going to end up with to get what he wants. As long as he and Travis get along and see things similarly, hopefully none of that will be a hindrance to a deal. 

[gHost83]

12 hours ago, GameTime said:

@gHost83

LP have anything to do with this?

Everything. . 

f*** you LP!

[Carmine]

Nate is happy here, he coming back.

[sturt]

One interpretation of what campster shared above is that McM wants to talk about a Popovich kind of role, no?

Hmmm... sounds like what the last guy eventually was able to negotiate... sooooo.... wonder how that's going over.

[marco102]

2 hours ago, thecampster said:

I am being very, very careful here. What I know on the subject is mildly speculative. It is one of the more closely guarded secrets out there in Hawkdom.

Nate's apprehension has nothing to do with the team, the city, the players or management. The firing of LP did not sit well with him. He would like a little more control over his future, his legacy. Nate is looking for less than total control, but more than a little input on personnel, assistant hires, team direction. What he wants is a seat at the table and its tricky business to get those assurances without looking like a Diva or a control freak. Nate is looking for a situation, not a job. As I understand it, he also doesn't want a contract negotiation interfering with the season. again, as I understand it, the agreement is he can hold on to the interim title as long as he wants until they come to an agreement. One of the assurances I'm told he wants is an out clause, freedom to take another job without restriction. Nate wants to be able to control his own fate, his own destiny. Consider this 40% grapevine, 60% speculation. I'm told he loves the city.

 

 

Personnel and coaching staff? One thing he doesn't need to do is revert back to his Indiana system or change his assistants. I'm all for adding to what we have, but the assistants seem to be doing pretty darn great.

 

[AHF]

My prediction:  Nate will be back and Schlenk will be firmly the general manager (unlike Budcox era).  Nate is earning more respect now than he ever did when losing first round series after first round series.  And I don't blame him for those losses because he didn't have the horses but his legacy is going to be driven by what he does with the Hawks in combination with his cumulative wins over his career.  

This is a mutually advantageous situation for the Hawks, the players and Nate.   

[thecampster]

1 minute ago, marco102 said:

Personnel and coaching staff? One thing he doesn't need to do is revert back to his Indiana system or change his assistants. I'm all for adding to what we have, but the assistants seem to be doing pretty darn great.

 

input, not total control

[Jdawgflow]

5 hours ago, thecampster said:

input, not total control

If you were to guess, how do you think this will all shake out?

[thecampster]

1 hour ago, Jdawgflow said:

If you were to guess, how do you think this will all shake out?

If Nate were to leave and be a head coach and find his ideal situation elsewhere, it would be a PR nightmare here. He has an excellent relationship with the players, is well respected by players around the league and after this season has credential capital to burn. At this point, the Hawks pretty much have to give him everything he wants. Barring some disaster, he'll be the coach here next year. 99.234% sure of that.

[Jdawgflow]

4 hours ago, thecampster said:

If Nate were to leave and be a head coach and find his ideal situation elsewhere, it would be a PR nightmare here. He has an excellent relationship with the players, is well respected by players around the league and after this season has credential capital to burn. At this point, the Hawks pretty much have to give him everything he wants. Barring some disaster, he'll be the coach here next year. 99.234% sure of that.

You think TS would give up control?

[sturt]

It's been said by someone here that ostensibly has an informed contact that LP had significant input in draft picks at minimum.

Conjecture here is simply that McM was so sideswiped by his IND experience that he's still a bit paranoid, no doubt having replayed that whole episode multiple times in his head and assessing what he could have done to avoid having to go through that.

And. Whatever he's come up with is probably what he'll ask of Ressler/Schlenk.

To my mind, fwiw, I'd want something in my contract that, if it were decided to make a change at head coach, obligates the team to transition me into a front office position that essentially equates to assistant GM or better. The thrust of that being that, if I'm McM, I know that they know they can't just totally get rid of me on a whim, which has the ripple effect of establishing that my opinions will necessarily hold some gravity.

[Blunt91]

     Unless Nate was just trying to "buy time" to make a decision, looks like he has already agreed in some fashion to become the Head Coach permanently.

Hawks CEO Steve Koonin hinted after Atlanta’s road win over the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals that the team will be dropping McMillan’s interim tag following its playoff run. “Nate asked – one of the conditions of taking the job is we do this after the season concludes,” Koonin said on 92.9 The Game’s “Dukes & Bell” on Wednesday. “I’m so pleased on June 23 (that) our season’s not over. It is for 26 other teams; it’s not over for us. So, everything good happens to people who deserve it and will happen in time.”

5 hours ago – via Andrew Joe Potter @ The Score

 

 

 

    

[Sothron]

I would be shocked if he's not back. He is definitely coming back as coach.  He finally has a real superstar to coach up for once with a team custom built around said superstar. We have literally the most ideal situation in all of the NBA. 

[RandomFan]

Portions of the article: 

https://theathletic.com/2672143/2021/06/24/schultz-hawks-nate-mcmillan-says-he-has-changed-from-fiery-old-nate-and-adapted/?source=emp_shared_article

Not every moment since Nate McMillan has taken over as the Hawks’ interim coach has been serene. There have been times when he did a slow burn about a poor defensive effort or a blown lead, and his first instinct was to morph into “Old Nate,” or “Hurricane Nate,” the coach who would blow through a locker room and leave no ear un-singed.

“There was one game when we were really stinking up the joint, and I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but I was surprised by the way he reacted,” general manager Travis Schlenk said. “But he’s changed. I even told him, ‘I don’t think I would’ve handled that as well as you.’ He said, ‘That was the old Nate. You can’t do that anymore.'”

The Hawks have gone through a remarkable transformation under McMillan, and that would not have been possible if McMillan himself was not transformed.

 

“This group in Atlanta is such a young group, and the player who you envision leading this team, Trae (Young), is a really young player. I have kids, and I’m coaching younger guys. The shouting, the yelling, the negativity, it just doesn’t work anymore. So I’ve adapted. I changed in Indiana, and I’ve changed even more this year. And because of the schedules this past year, you know, I was a guy who believed in practice, and I believed in shootarounds, and really the last couple of years the teams have gone away from shooting because of the workload and analytics telling you that you can’t work these guys that hard. That was tough for me.”

 

There’s a difference between a turnaround and a complete transformation. In the words of Solomon Hill, McMillan should be credited for “breathing confidence into us.”

The first thing McMillan did was the most important: He built relationships. He earned the trust of Young, which Pierce had long ago lost and couldn’t recover. McMillan told Young not to change his game, stay aggressive and take over any game any time he wanted. But the coach also stressed Young needed to cut down on turnovers. Young quickly evolved into more of an on-court leader, taking fewer unnecessary logo 3-pointers and getting teammates involved.

“He tells me that if there’s a couple of possessions in the game, that I can win anything,” Young said. “Whenever you have a coach that believes in you and tells you that all of the time, it really gives you confidence. He’s taught me a lot.”

Kevin Huerter said the Hawks have become “a little more organized” under McMillan, who slowed the game down and provided more structure to the half-court offense. “Guys know what their roles are. He runs specific plays for guys’ shots in specific areas, and that’s helped a lot of guys.”

That’s the strange thing about this: McMillan is still labeled as “old school” and more disciplined than Pierce. But the players like McMillan. They respect McMillan.

Collins said he was challenged by McMillan to be a better two-way player. “It brought a different dog and motor out of me (on defense),” Collins said. “I don’t have any qualms. I like to be coached. I’ve had the toughest of coaches. … I feel like just him being a former pro and having extensive coaching experience, you have to respect a guy like that right off the bat, and that respect brings a closeness in the player-coach relationship.”

Coaching is about more than schemes and decisions. Yes, there were tangible changes like drawing up plays for Bogdan Bogdanovic and Danilo Gallinari and better in-game decision-making. But if players tune out their head coach, which eventually is what happened under Pierce, the message is lost.

McMillan still gets tough at times. But he picks his spots, like when he delivered some choice words when the Hawks trailed by 17 points to Philadelphia in Game 4 of the second round. They’ve become tough and resilient, mirroring their coach in his playing days.

“The biggest difference is coaching — just being straight honest,” Hill said. “It’s nothing bad or negative against Lloyd. But everything is a relationship. Jamal Crawford said something the other day about the belief a coach can have in you that can change your career. Coach Mac is a guy I have tremendous respect for. That’s not to say I don’t have respect for anybody else. When you switch up things, some things click. He breathed confidence into us. He’s not just saying, believe, because we’re in the playoffs. He’s been saying that since he took over. He put that belief in us. To see it turn around, to see the games early on after he took over, it ignited something in us.”

He changed. They changed.

Edited June 25, 2021 by RandomFan

[Dnice]

I don't see him going anywhere, the longer they Hawks play, the other teams fill vacancies. 

[sturt]

Kirschner does some good work.

But his seeming chronic need to take every opportunity to somehow retaliate against LP is immature and gratuitous.

I get it. He felt showed-up by LP's response to his question last February that went viral on social media. But there's a professional way of reacting to that, and there's an unprofessional way. Leave it alone, young man. Your question was a valid question back then. Act like it. To keep poking at LP is, in actuality, to keep publicly doubting yourself as-if you have a crying obsession with promoting the idea of LP as flawed and inferior.

In other words, there was a way to write this very same story without the same prosecutorial edge/tone. And that would have been not only enlightening, but admirable. This is enlightening. Admirable, not so much.

 

(In case anyone forgot... )

 

[aali34]

1 hour ago, sturt said:

Kirschner does some good work.

But his seeming chronic need to take every opportunity to somehow retaliate against LP is immature and gratuitous.

I get it. He felt showed-up by LP's response to his question last February that went viral on social media. But there's a professional way of reacting to that, and there's an unprofessional way. Leave it alone, young man. Your question was a valid question back then. Act like it. To keep poking at LP is, in actuality, to keep publicly doubting yourself as-if you have a crying obsession with promoting the idea of LP as flawed and inferior.

In other words, there was a way to write this very same story without the same prosecutorial edge/tone. And that would have been not only enlightening, but admirable. This is enlightening. Admirable, not so much.

 

(In case anyone forgot... )

 

Kirschner seems like a guy who has ulterior motives.

I've said it looks like he views his current role as a Hawks beat writer as a stepping stone(nothing wrong with that). But you gotta respect your job and the people that make it possible. Can't get mad at players and coaches for not liking media if you keep punching down on a guy who lost his job.

I can see him making it to the big stage cause he's a bit grimy like alot of those ESPN and Fox Sports types. 

It's not like he got chewed out every interview. Sheesh.

[Jdawgflow]

6 minutes ago, aali34 said:

Kirschner seems like a guy who has ulterior motives.

I've said it looks like he views his current role as a Hawks beat writer as a stepping stone(nothing wrong with that). But you gotta respect your job and the people that make it possible. Can't get mad at players and coaches for not liking media if you keep punching down on a guy who lost his job.

I can see him making it to the big stage cause he's a bit grimy like alot of those ESPN and Fox Sports types. 

It's not like he got chewed out every interview. Sheesh.

Very good points.  I am not a Kirshner fan at all.  He is kind of skeezy and has no interest in our team.  And he goes out of his way to let everyone know.  I am also not an LP fan.  Hopefully we get a better Athletic Hawks writer soon.  Let Kirshner go cover his Knicks. 

[RandomFan]

5 hours ago, sturt said:

Kirschner does some good work.

But his seeming chronic need to take every opportunity to somehow retaliate against LP is immature and gratuitous.

I get it. He felt showed-up by LP's response to his question last February that went viral on social media. But there's a professional way of reacting to that, and there's an unprofessional way. Leave it alone, young man. Your question was a valid question back then. Act like it. To keep poking at LP is, in actuality, to keep publicly doubting yourself as-if you have a crying obsession with promoting the idea of LP as flawed and inferior.

In other words, there was a way to write this very same story without the same prosecutorial edge/tone. And that would have been not only enlightening, but admirable. This is enlightening. Admirable, not so much.

 

(In case anyone forgot... )

 

Are you talking about the article I posted a few comments before this response? The one written by Jeff Schultz, not Kirschner? 

Kirschner is fine, I've never understood the criticism of him. We're lucky to have him.

Some of you are too young to remember Michael freaking Cunningham as our beat writer and it shows.