Even amid Sprewell firestorm, it was basketball and basketball only for Carlesimo

November 22, 12:49 PMGolden State Warriors ExaminerMatt Steinmetz

Previous Next

3 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Golden State Warriors Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

P.J. Carlesimo: Fired by OKC Thunder 

P.J. Carlesimo was fired by the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday, and let’s face it: It’s the last NBA head coaching job he’ll ever have.

It’s a credit to him he wound up with a third NBA coaching stint after Portland and Golden State. Most of those years in San Antonio as Gregg Popovich’s assistant, conventional wisdom had his NBA head coaching days over.

Tough not to weigh in on Carlesimo, whom I covered for the Contra Costa Times during his tenure as Warriors coach.

Of course, he’ll always be remembered for the Latrell Sprewell choking incident, which is really too bad. ...

I’ll never forget walking into the Warriors practice facility on Nov. 30, 1997, and first noticing the abrasions on Carlesimo’s neck.

Looking back, the two- or three-minute conversation that ensued with him _ which occurred less than an hour after Sprewell’s attack and return _ epitomized Carlesimo as a coach.

First off, Carlesimo was standing in his usual post-practice media spot, ready to do his post-practice media interview thing.

Just like it was another regular, old practice day at 1011 Broadway.

It’s clear now that the Warriors’ plan at that point was to try to get through the media availability session as if nothing had happened.

And Carlesimo was fully prepared to do that _ and did do it in fact _ even though all hell had broken loose less than an hour before … two times, I might add.

As I approached, it was hard not to notice his neck.

I rubbed my hand on my neck and said to Carlesimo: “You need to borrow a new razor?”

“No comment,” he responded, smiling awkwardly.

There were only two or three of us who walked into the gym that day after practice, and we had no idea what had just gone down ... yet.

“Seriously,” I said. “You cut yourself shaving … what happened there?”

“No comment,” he said again.

Those two answers were so strange, so kind-of uncalled for and out of place that it was right then and there I knew something had happened and began pursuing things.

But that was vintage Carlesimo, a whole coach and nothing but the coach so help him God.

He was resolute in his ability to not acknowledge or downplay any non-basketball issues, no matter what.

He hadn't acknoweldged any issues with Sprewell in the two months before that day and he wasn't going to do it 45 minutes after Sprewell had physically attacked him twice, either.

And if Carlesimo ever had to talk about non-basketball basketball stuff, like the impact of a player's injury, or locker-room issue or whether or not his star player wanted to kill him (as Sprewell threatened), he was going to ignore it or minimize it or downplay it, regardless.

Before the incident itself, there had been all kinds of stuff that had happened between Sprewell and Carlesimo. The choking was the last and most serious confrontation, but there had been plenty of verbal ones before.

Some were written; some weren't.

But never once did Carlesimo bad-mouth Sprewell or say he was tough to coach or criticize him in the media. Never said it was a struggle to coach him or his relationship with Sprewell was any different from his relationship with any other player.

Carlesimo never even took a shot at Sprewell AFTER the incident.

Why? Two reasons.

First and foremost, because part of being a coach was that old cliché about keeping things “in-house,” and if that was part of being a coach, then Carlesimo was going to take it to the nth degree.

Reason No. 2 is because Carlesimo is a good person at his core ... even if he used to call us in the media back then "Dumb (expletives)."

When my oldest daughter, Josie, turned one, Carlesimo got her Warriors' pajamas. Of course he didn't go into the team store and pick it out himself, but he's the only coach who ever even thought to do something like that.

Tells you something good about him.

When he was in Golden State, Carlesimo was 99 percent X’s and O’s and blitzing the screen-and-roll and winning the rebound battle and settling into a halfcourt set at a deliberate pace.

But that hard-core focus on basketball and basketball only coupled with an inattention to some of the other more cerebral, intellectual and emotional parts of coaching were, to me, his greatest shortcoming as coach.

Carlesimo's unwillingness or inability to absorb, understand and incorporate outside stuff into the basketball arena was a minus. As was his inflexibility when it came to defensive strategies.

In his two years here, that is.

A couple years ago I approached Carlesimo in San Antonio and apologized to him for the way I reported during the Sprewell period.

In hindsight, I didn't think I had been fair to Carlesimo and told him as much. I said I was sorry.

In a typical Carlesimo response, he never even acknowledged there was a bias. Or that he knew about any bias. Or that any kind of bias or not didn't matter. Or that I had anything to be sorry about. Or that I should ever even worry about it.

There was nothing about that being a tough period or a crazy time or even an unfortunate incident.

There wouldn't be any of that.

Vintage Carlesimo: Basketball only.

Good luck to him.