Recycling: Good For The Environment, Bad For Basketball

In the midst of Global Climate Change, we, as a civilization need to change our ways. And in the midst of the most intriguing NBA season of the past decade, the Association needs to follow suit. While "reduce, reuse, recycle" is a great mantra for saving the environment, it almost never works in basketball terms. That's why I simply don't understand what's going on right now on the NBA's constantly whirling coaching carousel.

The top two names out there are Phoenix Suns coach Mike D'Antoni and recently axed Mavericks coach Avery Johnson. The Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks are clamoring to get their hands on one of these guys and I just don't get it. Both guys had a wealth of talent at their disposal this season and obviously someone wasn't happy with the results. Why hire them to coach your team - which won't have the same talent level - when they couldn't get the job done somewhere else? I mean, if your goal is to win a lot of regular season games then choke in the playoffs and to never play defense, D'Antoni and Johnson are your guys. They're the basketball equivalent of that one friend we all have who seems to always get to third base on the first date but can never close the deal.

To that end, it looks like Rick Carlisle will be introduced as Dallas' next head coach sometime within the next week. Yes, that's the same Rick Carlisle who was fired by both the Pistons and the Pacers because of friction with management. But I'm sure Mark Cuban's micromanaging won't rub him the wrong way.

The NBA recycles trash coaches more than any other league. It's ridiculous. I mean what makes anyone think P.J. Carlesimo deserves to coach the Seattle Sonics. He coached the Trail Blazers and the Warriors for three years each, and didn't get past the first round of the playoffs once. Naturally he's the guy who'll lead the Sonics to glory.

Scott Skiles took what looked to be a fantastic situation developing in Chicago and somehow screwed it up. The Bulls were 49-33 last year and looked poised for a breakout season ... Skiles was fired after just 25 games this year. Some people claim the players quit on him or that there was so much friction between the younger players and the coaching staff that it caused an unworkable situation, but isn't it the job of the head coach to manage that type of situation and sort through it? Apparently the Milwaukee Bucks don't think so, because they just hired him to lead their middling franchise. Oh and in case you forgot, he was also fired by the Suns in 2002, after three years as head coach.

I mean was anyone in Charlotte thinking "Thank God we got Larry Brown, it's all smooth sailing now"? That's assuming there are any Bobcats fans left. If there are, I'm sure all five of them think it was another in a series of brilliant moves by Michael Jordan that started with his first comeback in Washington.

The mentality of NBA execs is truly astounding. You rarely see any upward mobility for coaches. As opposed to college basketball, where you have "hot assistants" and "up and coming coaches" from the mid-major ranks who inherit jobs or get their chance to move up, you rarely see top assistants get their chance in the NBA. I can understand not bringing in a college coach to run your team, since there's been plenty of evidence that the transition is rarely a smooth one. But if certain coaches simply can't get it done, why not try some new blood? Maybe a new mind will have a new perspective on things. Rather than grabbing someone's discarded trash and using it as your own, why not do something bold and different?

To be fair, the Knicks may actually be looking at Mark Jackson rather than D'Antoni or Johnson, and Bulls GM John Paxson is interested in interviewing Celtics assistant Tom Thibodeau, but it's almost a certainty that D'Antoni and Johnson will have jobs next season. If not, someone will hire them sometime down the road.

It's no wonder the NBA needed a huge season like this one to bring back its popularity. With so many average-at-best coaches swapping cities, you're going to get average-at-best basketball.

So to all the NBA execs out there who think another retread is a good idea, here's An Inconvenient Truth for you: You're morons.