Indiana has given
the head coaching job to Mike Davis on an interim basis, according to
Davis. Essentially the plan is to conduct a search after the season for a
new coach, but he has a year to audition for the job, which is a goodly amount
of time to make an impression. His first job is to keep the players, and it
looks like he'll keep everyone with the possible exception of Dane Fife, and
actually Fife may reconsider now that Davis will be the coach.
After that, he has to deal with his former boss, who has a history of trouble
when former assistants do well (see Krzyzewski, Alford). How will he react
to Davis taking his job? It's hard to say. We could see him saying good, the
players will be happy, or else Mike, you stabbed me in the back.
His next job is trickier - getting everyone in off the ledge. There are a lot
of IU fans who are freaked by this whole turn of events. People are
swearing to not give the University money and demanding that Brand be fired and
so forth. Not a very happy situation. It would be even tougher for an
outsider to come in right now and deal with that, so Indiana made the smart move
on at least two levels.
Now, as the cliche goes, the healing begins. Or at least it should, anyway.
File this under why the Mavericks have foundered for years: Mavs owner Mark
Cuban wants to hire
Bob Knight as a consultant. Obviously the idea is to take advantage of
his knowledge, but a) this is the owner who tried to have Dennis Rodman as a roommate,
and b) what if you tell Knight no? There's not a long history of that sort of
thing. Our guess is that that relationship wouldn't last much longer than
Knight's first piece of rejected advice. He's a guy who has a strong need
to be in charge, not to whisper advice to the chief. That's part of the
reason why Isiah
Thomas' idea of hiring Knight as an assistant, as his "Tex
Winters," isn't too smooth.
Still, it's probably nice to know people are interested.