Thursday, May 10, 2007

So, what qualifies as failure?

This last season Doc Rivers led the Celtics to the second-worst record in franchise history, oversaw a franchise-record 18 game losing streak, failed to implement anything like a coherent offensive scheme for yet another year, ran a team that played lousy defense most nights and failed to significantly develop any young player other than Al Jefferson.

So the team gives him an extension.

I'm really curious here: what would be grounds for getting fired?

When Pete Carroll was fired from the Patriots, Bob Kraft stood up at a semi-emotional press conference and spent the entire time talking about how much he admired Carroll as a person and as a coach. 80% of what came out of his mouth was positive things about Carroll. But he also said very clearly: this is a result-based, accountability business and the Patriots had put together three straight years of declining win totals. Kraft made it clear: if you don't deliver the results, you're gone.

The Celtics just finished their third straight year of declining win totals, with this last being a historic train wreck. Who is accountable? I gather the team doesn't consider the coach responsible for the team's performance, since they just extended him.

Here's an easy prediction: conspiracy theorists will say this was Doc's pre-arranged reward for throwing games this season and increasing the team's lottery chances. The sad thing is that this almost casts ownership in a better light than the alternative.

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