The big news this week in the league. We got some tea. Now, we got some things happening.
We got some butts that are hot, and the butts that are hot finally, now get the boot. Nate McMillan fired in Atlanta. So I have a history with Nate. He coached the Blazers for a really long time. I had to watch those ugly offenses for I don't even know how many years.
It was too many.
They walked the ball up the court like you had to walk it to half court. That was his mandate, and that was just what they did. Had one of the slowest paces in the NBA. But what happened to Atlanta, Let's talk about that, because that's what's important, and it's not, in my opinion, Nate's fault. In fact, I think he has adapted much better than new NBA that I thought.
He would ever would. Yeah, is you got stuck with Trey Young. That's what it is. He got stuck in Atlanta.
He had a really incredible run based around some luck and some help and some skill, and they went to the Eastern Conference finals, which they never were ever going to do again.
And then they hired him.
They hired an interim head coach that maybe was gonna work with Trey Young.
Maybe not.
And we talked about this before Atlanta fired one of the most respected NBA executives in the league in Travis Slank, and they brought in the owner's twenty year old son. That's a little, as my mom would say, a little nepatis at work. And so what you thought, what you thought they weren't gonna fire Nate McMillan. Come on, now, this firing is no shock. But what I did think was surprising is that they have been trying to push Nate McMillan out the door, encouraging him.
To resign on his own for weeks now.
And Nate was like, nah, dog, you're gonna have to You're gonna have to put me into the guillotine and show the world that you asked me yourself. I am not about to do you the pleasure where it's like a mutual parting of ways. I am exposing the dysfunction in this franchise. Go ahead, fire me after you just fired Lloyd Pierce two years ago.
Do it again.
Show the rest of the world what's going on. Show the quinn Snyders of the world, what kind of organization you are, And you kind of get a sense of what happened from John Collins because John Collins said, uh, yeah, Nate would have been a good coach, a great coach for a quote more mature team. And so people want to read that as older, and I don't. I don't think that means older. I think that means more mature. You know, like how there's old souls and young souls, Like I believe Trey Young.
Is a young soul.
I think he's gonna be thirty five doing this bullshit. I think we can pretty definitively say now the Trey Young he is a coach killer. He could be considered a certified coach killer. He has a shift in his back pocket at all times. And you know what, he's killed more coaches at this stage is in the NBA than Hall of Fame coach killers have so far. He is now working on his third head coach interim and
then a new one. And he's going to be a coach killer from now and to the end of his career unless unless something drastic happens.
I don't know. So look at his track record.
He's now had two coaches fired in three years, both that he had personal conflict with Right his team has gotten progressively worse since the surprise run to the Eastern Conference Finals. He had beef with Nate this year, and everybody knew that. Anonymous sources within the Hawks claim that the majority of players actually sided with Nate in their season long dispute.
And so you usually.
Don't see players side with management over a teammate.
So what does that mean?
That means that uh, Trey Young is unpopular with coaches and unpopular with teammates.
Not a great combo.
So the question is who is the new regime that twenty seven year old nick wrestler and his best friend Landry Fields are tasked with trying to keep this shit from sinking? And who are these people? Let's look at the crop of candidates. We've got some that we need to discuss.
Quinn Snyder.
Quinn Snyder there are working on having discussions as we speak. And Quinn Snyder, as you know, former coach of the Utah Jazz. And so at first glance, this might seem.
Like a perfect fit.
Trey Young is his new donovan, Mitchell Cappella and John Collins can play like Rudy Gobert except for less lobbs in Utah, obviously because Donovan Mitchell wasn't giving any to Rudy Gobert. But where Mike Conley was. That team was first in the West. That team had a historically good offense. I think they were the number one overall offense in the league. They had shooters surrounding their guards.
But let's be clear, number one, that Utah team was not a success.
That team style does not benefit in the modern NBA. This is a wing driven league, not a guard driven league anymore. And this is not going to work in one of the most dysfunctional places in the NBA, which is Atlanta. I do not think that Quinn Snyder will want to build a team around Trey Young and his bullshit. And I do not think he will build a team that cohesively works with Trey Young.
Not because he's a bad coach.
He's a good coach, Not because he can't make the roster work and the skill sets on the team work. But this guy, Quinn Snyder rumored And you may say, oh, this is not important, this is not an important fact.
I think it is.
Quinn Snyder is rumored to be the type of coach that has seating charts on his bus, has a very strict style of leadership, close to what Lloyd Pierce and Nate McMillan had. Do you believe that Trey Young will like someone who has seating charts on the bus?
I do not think he will respond well to that.
This has rebuild written all over it, and if Quinn Snyder is smart, he will stay all the way away. Moving on to Charles Lee. Charles Lee, well respected Buck's assistant. He's gonna get a job soon.
This could be it, This might be it. It's known as a player's coach.
He's worked really well with superstars, which is very important on this Atlanta Hawks team. He's an ego manager Giannis Drew, Chris Middleton, so he knows how to do that. And let's be real, like, this is probably the best fit for a very thankless job.
Is going to be fired in two years at best.
He's going to be on the payroll at the same time as Nate and Lloyd are and probably whoever follows him as a successor.
So so why not, Charles Lee? Why not gotta start somewhere.
Next up is Jordi Fernandez, Jordy Fernandez shows you how far the Kings have come. Assistant for the Sacramento Kings.
Finally get in some love.
I don't think I've seen a team try to poach and assist it off the Kings in my lifetime. So that just shows you how good nobody's like, Hey, how do I get a little of that juice that the Sacramento Kings have? How do I steal a little piece.
Of what the Kings are doing? Now? That is the case.
That is just another sign the Kings are on the rise. Other franchises trying to take a little bit of your pixie dust and try to reconfigure.
That magic on their team. He is a really great coach.
All that you need to know about him is that when he filled in for Mike Brown, the entire team rallied around him.
They celebrated him like it was Game seven of the Finals.
They had champagne, they had goggles, they were spraying them like it was the gatorade.
I mean, the whole thing screams respect.
Speaking of respect, Next up on this list of candidates is Kenny Atkinson. We know him from his brief time as the nets head coach before Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving killed him. Currently a Warriors assistant, he took the job for the Charlotte Hornets for like, I think eleven minutes, maybe twelve. He woke up out of a panic and said, oh, no, baby, I can't take this shop.
Oh no, oh no, no, no, I got to go.
I'm going back to the bay. My mom, my family, whoever he said was there. Oh, it's a business family decision, and we love Santa Cruz.
Whatever.
He is too smart to hitch his wagon to being on the verge of a glue factory. Kenny Atkinson knows what it's like to be on a team where you could be cut and discarded.
At any given time. Do you think he wants to do that?
No. I would be shocked if Kenny Atkinson even agrees to interview.
For this dick ass job.
This situation could be worse than the Hornet's job. At least the Hornets job, you know, is a rebuild. They think they're better than a rebuild. That's the crazy thing.
I think there are a lot of other jobs that Kenny Atkinson would be suited for.
Mitch Johnson, Miles Simon, just a couple of randoms that you gotta throw in there. Johnson is one of Papovitch's assistants to San Antonio, and I think it's like mandated anytime you have a new opening, you just have to interview a San Antonio Spurs assistant because.
I don't know why, that's just how it goes.
And then Miles Simons, who coaches the South Bay Lakers of the G League. I'm not even sure why his name is bringing up like the regular Lakers, I don't even think you would want to interview for the job in terms of those coaches, so I don't thin he has any shot.
And then we've got a dark horse people.
E may Youdoka, Come on down, Come on down, e may Udoka, dark horse. I would love nothing more than emy Udoka to get this job. There's not even any joke in that. I think he would be the best person for this job. I think he is the only coach who could fix this team defensively.
I think it would be phenomenal. He would destroy Trey Young in the media.
He would tell you everything that was going on, Like can you imagine when Trey Young didn't show up to the.
Game, what e may Udoka, what is said about him?
To the media and Trey Young'd be like, Oh, it's my personal business. I keep my private business to myself. No, no, baby. Now with e may Udoka, he knows what it's like to have his business down the street and this is all about the game right now. He would see the two practices of Trey Young not playing defense, doing his bullshit and not getting John Collins involved, just icing out teammates, and you know what, he would say it, Trey Young needs to pass the ball more, he needs to play
some defense. His demeanor is perfect for a young team. He won't get the job because politics, I guess, but it would be highly entertaining if he did. And also from the Hawk's perspective, And maybe they're not even thinking about this because I don't think they're particularly smart.
What do I know? Do we really trust you? May You don't.
Could just be in a city like Atlanta all the time, where there's like more strip clubs prey capital than anywhere else.
It's like it's popping in Atlanta.
The opportunities for mischief are high. The big question, though, is who does Trey Young prefer. I guess that's the only question worth asking at this point because Atlanta seems committed to keep Trey Young happy for God knows why, reasons.
You will never guest, though, who Trey Young wants. Just guess, just guess.
It's really funny if you had to guess the most funny place, the most funny coach that Trey Young would be clamoring for in the most subtweet thirteen year old boy kind of way.
Who would it be? Think about it? Think about it. Coach who has no idea what he's doing. Think about that. A coach who gives no.
Accountability to his players. A coach that does not run practices at all. A coach that wants you to throw up thirty footers.
With ten seconds into a shot clock. Max.
No, not d'antni. I know that's where you were going. How about d'antoni's next iteration, his next little robot? Steve Nash people, no.
Joke, No joke. Trey Young on the wake of how did he even get this jersey?
By the way, In the wake of Nate McMillan's firing, he posts a photo to his fucking Instagram with the Steve Nash jersey on an old school Phoenix suns. Steve Nash Jersey, and I don't even know what to say. First of all, the fact that he had that waiting to take that photo like an angsty girl right outside of Claire's is crazy. It's crazy, but it's also funny. I think there's no more perfect combination than those two.
It's kind of like, I don't know. He's on strike right now, Trey Young for personal reasons not coming to practices or games. But like he's perfect, He's perfect. Trey Young needs this kind of coach. Where wants this kind of coach. Steve not Nash is the substitute teacher of coaches, That's what he is. He's like shows up and he's like, so I'm reading this roll call? Is is John Collins here? Anybody's seen John Collins? Does John Collins still go to
the school. Yeah, we don't know either. We don't know either. What about client Client Kapila? It's client Kapila here. That's Steve Nash right before practice. He doesn't know who's who, where anybody's at. Remember when all that Harden shit was going down. He's like, I haven't even talked to James Harden.
Remember well the Kyrie thing went down. He's like, I haven't even spoke to Kyrie. People were like, do you not have their number? Or do they not call you back? Do they not answer? What is your deal? Steve Nash?
And now you got a twenty seven year old sign in checks down in Atlanta.
I honestly see this happening. I think it happens. I think it happens.
If it does, better believe I'm getting Hawk season tickets.
I might move to Atlanta. I might be a new Atlanta Hawks beat reporter. I need it. I need it. Those two together, peas and carrots