Sports Column

McMillan needs to settle on a style

On Sports

By dwight jaynes

The Portland Tribune, Nov 30, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (25 Reader comments)

It’s time to talk about the job of coaching a basketball team. Specifically, the job that Nate McMillan is, or is not, doing with the Trail Blazers.

It’s considered the coach’s function to organize a team so the collective talent becomes greater than the sum of the parts. This isn’t supposed to look like five guys who randomly show up at a park for a pickup game and play together for the first time.

The idea is for the coach to set up an offensive strategy that allows players to end up at places on the court where they have a chance to achieve optimum success.

Then there must be a defensive philosophy that provides assistance to individual players in preventing the other team from scoring. Even if your team has few or no outstanding individual defenders, it’s possible – through organization, schemes and effort – to play passable team defense.

Plus, the coach is responsible for the conduct of the team and its attitude toward the game and its fans.

Are these things happening with the Blazers?

Well, that last part is well-covered. This is a fine group of people who seem to be disciplined in their behaviors, if not their play on the court.

The on-the-court stuff is the problem. McMillan seems to struggle with how he wants to approach the game and its various philosophies. He can’t decide if he wants to run or not. He seems unsettled about his choice of roles for various players. To a degree, I think his uncertainty has spread to his players, who often don’t appear to know their roles.

And that’s not even the worst of it.

What’s of more concern is that the team isn’t showing much evidence of being well-coached at either end of the floor.

Martell Webster is emerging as an offensive weapon. Are there plays being run to ensure he’ll get plenty of shots from the spots on the floor where he’s effective?

Is the coach doing anything to lessen the load on Brandon Roy, who always seems to have to play one-on-one (or one-on-three) to get his shots?

Is LaMarcus Aldridge ever getting the ball on his way to the basket? Is he ever going to go to the basket?

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