For the record, the National Basketball Association has already seen the spectacle of a Coach of the Year awardee fired just after taking home the Red Auerbach Trophy. The singular distinction belongs to George Karl, whose newly minted status as the best of the best on the bench in 2013 was followed by his unceremonious dumping by the Nuggets. He deserved the regular-season honor, having led the blue and gold to 57 wins and homecourt advantage to start the playoffs. Whether he also deserved to then be bounced from the hot seat — even after losing in the first round without injured star Danilo Gallinari — is another matter altogether.
To be sure, the Nuggets’ “What Have You Done For Me Lately” consideration of Karl’s position is nothing new. Every single year, franchise owners bankrolling outrageous payrolls expect their bench tacticians to squeeze the most out of those who wear their jersey. And “most” invariably means constant improvement, not a steep decline when the matches truly matter. Which, in a nutshell, is why Dwane Casey may yet find his own standing with the Raptors in question following their second straight zero-four elimination at the hands of the Cavaliers, never mind the sterling work he did en route.
Certainly, what Casey accomplished for the Raptors heading into their 2017-2018 campaign wasn’t easy. He sought to take apart the star-centric system that hitherto generated for them modest successes and then put up a new one that emphasized the importance of ball movement for a deeper rotation. In other words, he willingly took a step back in order to be given the opportunity to move two steps ahead. And, for the most part, it worked; they claimed the top seed in the East on the strength of a net rating that crowded the league elite. Even as their competitiveness continued to be spearheaded by All-Stars DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, they employed a bench whose productivity had no equal.
There was just one problem, however: They had too much of a history against the Cavaliers, whose pitfalls prior to the conference semifinals served only to ramp up the pressure on them to deliver. Their traditional foils were down and close to out; they just had to strike the knockout blow. Instead, they found themselves giving in to ghosts of playoffs past and — after snatching defeat from the throes of victory in Game One — essentially surrendering to the inevitable. In the end, it didn’t matter that their opponents were actually outscored by a whopping 40 points in the previous series against the Pacers, and that advanced analytics had them winning handily. It mattered only that longtime tormentor LeBron James was on the other side.
In combing through all the What Ifs and Could Have Beens, the Raptors are right to wonder if starting over won’t ultimately prep them for success. They’re very, very good as presently constructed, but because they so happen to be toiling in the James Era, they have to be great. Anything less will simply be an exercise in futility. And it doesn’t help that their increasing desperation during the best-of-seven affair may well have broken their trust with DeRozan. True, Game Three became a humdinger because Casey bravely chose to bench their erstwhile leader over the last 14 minutes and 16 seconds of the contest. On the other hand, nothing prevented him from employing offense-defense substitution patterns and turning to their primary scorer during crucial sequences.
That Casey didn’t even think of calling on DeRozan even while designing after-timeout plays under pressure speaks volumes of his reactionary style. He went with the group that got the Raptors close in the crunch, the evident mismatches notwithstanding. And, no doubt, he will be called to account for it; until now, for instance, fans remain baffled as to why, out of a full timeout with 57.9 ticks remaining in the fourth quarter, he tapped reserve guard Fred VanVleet to take a contest 34-foot shot from an unimaginative inbounds sequence. They were down by just three, and with the shot clock down to five, he could have gone to — or even merely involved — either of his All-Stars. Instead, he went with a substitute who had previously missed six of eight field-goal attempts, including five of six from three-point territory.
So, yes, Casey can rest easy knowing he worked extremely hard to be the Coach of the Year favorite. And, no, he won’t be able to do so knowing he also flubbed his chance. No one will care that the series was actually just three points from being a two-all affair instead of one more sound shellacking. Instead, what will be etched in the minds of all and sundry is the part they were given in the midst of James’ march to greatness. And if he winds up being the latest victim, he can find small mercy in the fact that he won’t be the last.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994.
