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Now & then

A familiar face sets up shop with the Sonics

By kerry eggers

The Portland Tribune, Jul 20, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (4 Reader comments)

Jed Jacobsohn / GETTY IMAGES

The acquisition of players like J.R. Rider (right) during P.J. Carlesimo’s run as Portland coach marked the beginning of the “Jail Blazers” era.

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Can it be? Can it really be a full decade since P.J. Carlesimo ended his three-year run as coach of the Trail Blazers?

“In some ways, it seems like yesterday,” says Carlesimo, the new coach of the Seattle SuperSonics. “In some ways, it seems like a long time ago.”

Seems like yesterday that Carlesimo was taking his charges through three successive winning seasons – then an annual tradition in the City of Roses – only to lose each time in the first round of the playoffs.

Seems like a long time ago, though, when you consider that Carlesimo has gone through one head coaching job (Golden State), 2 1/2 years in broadcasting, and a five-year stint as lead assistant in San Antonio, which stocked his jewelry chest with three championship rings.

Now Carlesimo is back in the Northwest, coaching against the Blazers for the rival Sonics.

“And how’s this for irony?” Carlesimo muses over lunch at the Palms Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. “When I interviewed for the Portland job, we did the interview at (Portland owner) Paul Allen’s home in Seattle. With (Sonic General Manager) Sam Presti, the first interview took place at Hotel Monaco in Portland.”

Life is much different for Carlesimo now than it was during his time in Portland, when he was a seemingly confirmed bachelor, a denizen of late-night eateries (Jake’s Famous Crawfish, Opus Too, Ringside Steakhouse, Brasserie Montmartre, Genoa, Bugatti’s Ristorante and Il Fornaio, to name a few) and the only NBA head coach with a full beard.

Carlesimo, 58, still wears the beard, though more neatly trimmed and now speckled more with gray than red.

And his family life is much different. Married for seven years to Carolyn, a sports psychologist, they have two young sons – Kyle, 5, and Casey, 2.

“Fatherhood is unbelievable,” Carlesimo says, “but so is being married.”

By the time P.J. met Carolyn at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, shortly after he became coach of the Warriors, marriage didn’t seem in the cards.

“I had always wanted to get married,” says Carlesimo, one of 10 children in his family. “But I’d gotten so old. I was 51 … if you’d asked me, I’d have said, ‘I want to, but I don’t think I ever will. I don’t think I’m ever going to meet the right one.’ I’d had only two serious relationships my whole life.”

Then came Carolyn.

“First day I met her, I thought she was the right one,” he says. “She was attractive, I liked her instantly … and I just knew.”

The Carlesimos have gone through a health scare. In May 2006, Carolyn was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After bouts with chemotherapy and radiation, she is at the one-year mark for being considered cancer-free.

“Five years is what we’re looking for,” Carlesimo says. “For me, going through it was a hopeless feeling. You can’t do anything. Carolyn tolerated the treatments better than most people would, but it was hard for her. She feels and looks great now, and we’re hoping it’s over. That’s all we can do.”

Aside from meeting his future wife, everything else about his time in the Bay Area was a big zero. Carlesimo was fired after 2 1/2 years of losing, but sports fans will always remember his tenure there for one reason – the strangling incident involving guard Latrell Sprewell, who went after his coach after a practice. Nine years later, it still haunts Carlesimo.

“I would prefer that it hadn’t happened and it wasn’t the case, but I’m resigned to it,” he says. “A day or two after it happened, we realized how big it was going to be. It just took off. Within a week, it was evident it was going to be there forever, when they said my name and Spree’s, that’s how people associate us. It was inevitable.”

In the years since, Carlesimo has run into Sprewell a couple of times. The meetings have been brief and cordial. Carlesimo would have it no other way.

Team shuffled during tenure

Times were much happier in Portland, where Carlesimo leapfrogged from head coach at Seton Hall to head coach of the Blazers in one swoop. Allen and interim General Manager Brad Greenberg had tried to hire Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski with a megamillion-dollar offer, and when that failed, they stayed in the college ranks to land Carlesimo.

“I didn’t enjoy Portland – I loved Portland,” says Carlesimo, who lived for a month in Allen’s KOIN Tower apartment, then bought one there, where he stayed for his three years with the Blazers. “I loved the people, it’s a beautiful city and a great part of the country. It was as far away from New Jersey as could be, but I was happy from the first day I was on the job.”

Carlesimo arrived in Portland during a transitional period, and over the next three years, GM Bob Whitsitt – hired shortly after Carlesimo – ushered out the old regime, getting rid of Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey and Buck Williams.

By the time Carlesimo left, only Cliff Robinson and Chris Dudley remained from his first Blazer team. On came the first remnants of the Jail Blazers, with the likes of Rod Strickland, Gary Trent, Dontonio Wingfield, J.R. Rider, Rasheed Wallace and Stacey Augmon.

But Carlesimo had talent, and he turned it into seasons with 44, 44 and 49 victories. In succession, though, his teams lost in the first round of the playoffs to Phoenix, Utah and the L.A. Lakers, spelling his doom.

Carlesimo heard rumors midway through his final season that he would be fired, but the Blazers finished the regular season on a roll, winning 20 of their final 25 games, including 11 in a row. After the Lakers won three of four in the playoff series, Carlesimo got his pink slip.

“I was bummed out,” he says. “There were all kinds of stuff that had happened. Later on, I found out (Whitsitt) had been looking at and talking with Mike (Dunleavy, his successor) at midseason.

“It was disappointing. We had different teams in each of my three years. Bob said we were going to turn everything over the first year, but we kind of did that all three years. We thought we were moving in the right direction (in 1996-97), that we were going to be back next year and get homecourt advantage in the first round (of the playoffs).”

He ‘learned a lot from Pop’

After his time with Golden State, Carlesimo spent the next 2 1/2 years in broadcasting, including a part-time TV analyst job with San Antonio. In 2002, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich asked Carlesimo if he was interested in returning to coaching. Carlesimo jumped at the opportunity, and it led to a glorious five years, with championships in 2003, ’05 and ’07.

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