Vaughn's Magic days numbered
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espn article on Vaughn’s imminent firing
Too bad. And too bad he got his first head coaching gig with such a poor organization like the Magic. I don’t know if the guy is good head coaching material or not, but they have tried rebuilding with very poor talent, either from the draft or free agency.
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Orlando has one of the 3 worse rosters if not the worst in the NBA. Vaughn has done as well as anyone can under the circumstances. I would love to see him spend some time at KU working with the guards while Collison works with the bigs…I can dream…:)
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@JayHawkFanToo and @icthawkfan316
Vaughn will probably get another call to coach, if things break right for him on his next assistant job.
And yes it would be good to seem him around KU again, but I have never heard if he has any relationship with Self.
He would certainly get our young perimeter players’ attentions given his career in the L and having been a head coach.
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Popovich and Self are longtime friends from the time they were both assistants at KU under Larry Brown and Popovich has been Vaughn’s mentor in the NBA, so I would think that by extension, and as former Jayhawks, they know each other well. Jaque is still young at 39, so he could be considered a potentially successor to Coach Self down the road. Having said that NBA coaches tend to stay in the NBA.
Vaughn is arguably one of the top 3 PGs at KU all-time and he also played PG in the NBA and he could really teach the younger players how to play the position. Vaughn and Collison are two of the more fundamentally sound players at their positions.
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I forgot Vaughn and Pop.
Pop would be a good referencce.
Vaughn staying in the NBA is a smart career move. He now has a niche as a guy that can run teams on hold at the bottom, while management tends problems outside the game. The NBA always has 5-10 teams like this, because so much NBA ownership reputedly comes from shady backgrounds. 5-10 teams are always on custodial care. These teams change caretaker coaches every three years for PR sizzle that has nothing to do with coaching performance. Frankly, with 3 years experience as a caretaker and Pop as a reference, he could have another NBA head job next season–two season wait at most. Working for a franchise trying to win would take longer. He would have raise a custodial care team to .500 first.
But if he wants to come to college ball he has to hurry. It takes 5 years to build a recruiting book and he has to start from scratch… JV is too long ago from CA to have name value there. CA is full of names and full of no names that have been building books. And his time at KU is kind of in the shadows because of Roy-to-Bill regime change and because he was not a native son like Hoiberg. Norm and Kurtis are old enough they might take him as their trainees and pass their “books” to him after a few years. Snacks seems in some limbo. He was supposed to deliver Chi but except for the struggling Alexander Self is probably wondering where are the Recruits? On the other hand, JV’s lack of recruiting chops wouldn’t solve that problem.
And Self always has to think politics. So far Self has wisely avoided creating any beach heads for the never dead Roy-Dean axis of power in KU politics. He has wisely always chosen either Okie Ballers with fealty solely to him, or Danny. The exception was Danny, with ties to LB, who had no enduring political power at KU, and who could not be a threat to replace him during his time on staff.
Vaughn is a risk to any college HC that hires him, BECAUSE Vaughn HAS been an NBA head coach. hiring him puts a guy in position to be used against you if you have a falling out with an AD that didn’t hire you in the first place.
So: unless Self WANTS to leave, and doesn’t want one of his OKIE BALLER pals, or Danny, to get the job, hiring Vaughn would solve no problems for Self.
And Vaughn would be giving up his NBA niche to spend 5 years learning to recruit.
Collision makes more sense in certain ways, because he hasn’t been an HC and big men coaches of his pedigree are hard to find. But Collison might have to start out washing jocks like Danny did, because of his lack of recruiting chops and experience. Collison definitely would NOT fill a recruiting gap for a few years and SELF NEEDS OADS NOW.
Also the African American assistant coaches network’s reputed rising influence over recruiting increasingly makes hiring African American assistant coaches appear to be a preference for access advantages to certain individual players and to certain shoe brand leaning players. Collison would not seem to fit the profile, as a candidate for membership in this network, though one can always hope the pigmention related Criteria are receding.
So back to Vaughn.
Vaughn’s best KU angle would be if Self wants to do Pop a favor, which Self has been observed to do not infrequently. Professional curtesy. But putting someone obviously in line for the HC chair would be a pretty big favor to do for a coach like Self, who has a lot of loyalty to his current assistants, and who has appeared already to groom one such replacement in Manning.
The variable that is hardest to estimate is Vaughn’s SHOECO clout. It appears improbable that any head coach in waiting would be hired now at an elite, OAD driven program without him creating fit with at least one brand.
Appearances are the ShoeCos stable the talent. Agents working through agent runners and summer game coaches appear to broker the talent to D1 coaches based on relationships, need and coinciding shoe contracts. Exceptions prove the rule.
So: how would adidas view Vaughn?
Alternatively, how would George Raveling and Nike view Vaughn?
And how would the major agents handling the bulk of OAD/TAD talent view Vaughn?
Would any of them view Vaughn as a link to player placement in the NBA with the Nelson-Popavich-Brown-Johnson mafia? With endorsement business, etc.?
The point here is that If the OAD distribution system favors Vaughn as a KU head coach in waiting, I.e., if it would supply him players, it wouldn’t matter if Vaughn had no recruiting book and no recruiting experience. The OADs appear to come because they are given a short list of acceptable options, and sometimes the agents clump them at one program for reasons yet to be determined. .
For the glue recruits, Vaughn would just hire some assistants with books.
Whatever, a Vaughn, Collison, hire would surprise me, even though I would welcome both for the actual basketball teaching savvy they could bring.
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@jaybate-1.0 Im a big fan of Sherron coming back to KU in some way shape or form. No pun intended. He seemed to look good the other night at the KSU game. I think he might still be trying to play ball somewhere? But if he wants to, I am sure Coach Self will let him come back to Lawrence. Also a big fan of Danny coming back to Lawrence when Self retires.
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“Orlando has one of the 3 worse rosters if not the worst in the NBA. Vaughn has done as well as anyone can under the circumstances.”
True… but the NBA is just another side of corporate America… and when things don’t go right, people above look for someone below to blame, because you know they won’t be accountable themselves.
I’m dreaming with you… would love to see him back in Lawrence. He’d make a great assistant for a few years, then have the right resume to land a big time college coaching position!
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I believe I ended my original post with the phrase…I can dream…
This is NOT and essay on shoecos or recruiting, my emphasis was on the coaching aspects and who knows the PG position and has links to KU better than Vaughn? He is one of the brighter athletes to graduate from KU, and while maybe he did not have the physical side to be a NBA starter/star, he is/was as sound a player at that position as they come and he also has coaching experience. Same situation with Collison; while he might not have the tools to be a NBA superstar, his amazing technique. overall game soundness and leadership have kept him in the League for long time as a valuable component of the teams he has played and made him a wealthy man. I cannot think of anyone else that I would pick to coach the bigs…this is not to say that either has an interest in coaching college, but if they do, I would certainly hope KU is an option. Remember that Danny had no real links to Coach Self either and was a long time removed from KU; it worked out pretty well for both sides, wouldn’t you say?
Like I said…I can dream…
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I would also say this to the current discussion: hiring former players has worked out pretty well for Duke. They aren’t having any problems recruiting, and Coach K’s coaching tree is growing and is definitely more impressive than Self’s. Obviously K has many years on Self, but cultivating something like that would definitely enhance Self’s legacy.
I like the idea of Vaughn or Sherron, or Aaron Miles even, being brought in as a guard coach.
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What is something is that we don’t have a single coach with Kansas Jayhawks roots.
We’ve had all that talent, many going on to be great coaches… and now we have none under our own tent.
We just experienced what can happen in football when an alumnus gets involved. Bam!
I think this is important. It isn’t about the politics… it is all about having guys that bleed crimson/blue.
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Everyone on Duke’s coaching staff is a Duke graduate, even Jeff Capel who was very good player at Duke but a below average HC in college. Many assistants have gone to become Head Coaches but only a few have been very successful so far. KU on the other hand only has Bechard, director of basketball Operation as the only KU graduate.
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I see your point, but I am not absolutely confident you see mine.
Recruiting is a significant factor in any assistant coach hiring, whether dreamed about, or seriously contemplated, from my POV. And of course I cannot help but value my POV as highly as you value yours.
Given my POV, shoecos, agents, agent runners and summer game coaches are potentially a significant factor in any assistant coach’s access to recruits, especially as recruiting has appeared to evolve recently. And so a prospective assistant coach’s possible connections to shoecos, agents, agent runners, and summer game coaches, as well as to traditional high school coaches, is of interest to me in any thread about the potential of prospective assistant coaches being contemplated (or just dreamed about). These factors seem totally relevant to a discourse about hiring, or dreaming about hiring, an assistant. So: yes, JV’s possible relation to shoecoes, agents, agent runners, and summer game coaches is not only a part of the discourse, IMHO, but perhaps even approaching crucial in the near future when JV might be (at least in our speculations, possibly considered for the KU staff.
I was excited by the idea of it. I still am.
Regarding Danny, perhaps I failed to make this point clear: the difference between Danny and JV is that Danny had never coached before he signed on as a jock washer starting from the bottom up for Self. That made Danny not a threat to replace Self if had Self had a few bad seasons.
D1 Head coaches hiring former NBA Head Coaches as top assistants is a recipe for emboldening an AD to scapegoat the D1 Head Coach and replace him with the assistant with NBA head coaching experience, if problems arise. This is just job strategy 101.
I agree with you whole heartedly that Danny worked out great. I was a ring leader in hoping for Danny to be hired. And JV and Collison would IMHO be good gets, too.
But again IMHO each one faces preventative constraints to being hired that Danny did not face back at the time he was hired.
If we can find a way to overcome the constraints, it would be great to have them around, wouldn’t it?
If it were the case that JV had advantageous connections with the shoecos, agents, agent runners, and summer game coaches that would enable him to overcome his lack of a recruiting book and sign a bunch of OAD/TADs, it would make it much easier to fit him in on the staff, wouldn’t it?!
If it were the case, this might migrate from dreaming to serious speculation. And I would like that.
In any case, I respect your dreams and did not mean to trample on them. Rock Chalk!
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Nobody has mentioned this former Jayhawk that has coaching in his blood but what about Kirk? His dad was his coach growing up. I think he could teach our guards a thing or two.
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Kirk would be super. Any time a coach is a better shooter than his players its a good thing. Keeps them challenged.
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What do these 4 players have in common: Collison, Hinrich, Reed and Frankmap? They were all sons of basketball coaches and they all came with fundamentals well beyond those of the average freshman player and they had careers at KU (except Frankamp, of course) that exceeded expectations. I believe all of them have coaching in their genes and they all would or maybe will actually make good coaches.
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The knock in Vaughn in the NBA is that he hasn’t really put any creative sets in on either offense or defense to free up his players. He has some solid pieces on that roster (Oladipo, Harris and Vucevic are all nice players), but hasn’t done much to show that he can be the guy as the team improves.
@jaybate-1.0 is right that there are always several caretaker coaches in the NBA. The key for those guys is to show that they can work with a poor roster and show some creative wrinkles to get their best 2 or 3 players involved to show that once the roster improves, they should be retained. JV has not done that. For example, Orlando has a very young, very athletic roster, but opened the season playing at a slow pace. Management had to push him to start playing at a faster pace to take advantage of the athleticism of the roster and hide the fact that he doesn’t have a lot of offensive talent to use in the half court. He tried to play like he was the Spurs without the Spurs roster. Why not push the pace with quick, athletic players?
The most important skill for an NBA coach is the ability to adapt to the talent he has. You can’t decide to run up and down the court if you have Shaq, just like you shouldn’t slow it down if you have vintage Steve Nash.
I think he will get another chance because he has gotten his feet wet now and has dealt with a roster that was not top notch. Hopefully he has learned to adapt to his players’ strengths and will have more success in his second shot. He may need to take a try in the D-League to get some more game management experience.
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@jaybate-1.0 Self has ultimate job security at KU now. I doubt he hires people based on if they can or cannot dethrone him as a head coach.
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I see your point but it is unrelated to mine. My post was solely about coaching and NOT about recruiting, endorsements; “jock washing,” shoecos or succession…just old fashioned coaching and I still think that Vaughn and Collison would be awesome.
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@JayHawkFanToo I read this thread. I don’t understand. Are you saying that @jaybate-1.0 should not discuss the topics raised, and should not expand the thought process beyond simply, “Wow, I’d love to have Collison and Vaughn coaching at KU”? It seems as though he was trying to engage a thoughtful discussion with you.
What is the point of your last post? We know your initial post was “NOT” about the items you listed. @jaybate-1.0 simply took it to a different level. That does happen sometimes.
@jaybate-1.0’s point is exactly related to yours. It simply challenges it a bit, and discusses items that might affect the realistic possibility of it occurring, which is furthering the discussion. Maybe I’m missing something here …
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Imagine you are a top tier HS pg and your HS coach lets you know that someone is waiting outside the locker room to meet you:
SC: “Hello ----, my name is Sherron Collins and I’m an assistant basketball coach at the University of Kansas. Can I speak with you for a minute?”
I’m thinking Sherron could become a recruiting monster! Here is a guy that won’t let off the gas!
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Maybe you should re-read the thread. Jaybate Indicated that maybe I did not understand his point. I did. Mine was related only to coaching and nothing else. He is always free to post anything he wants, the same way you and I do, and and I don’t have a problem with that and in fact, he made some very valid points in reference to the “big picture” view of the position, but once again, mine had a very narrow scope…I would think that I can do that as well, right?
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@drgnslayr I love Sherron and nobody loved their time here more than him, but I’m not sure if all recruits would think a call from him would be positive??? Hopefully I’m wrong! Nice article about Collison at KU sports.
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…Boys will be boys…yada. yada. yada…
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@JayHawkFanToo I don’t need to re-read the thread. I’ve read. Once works for me.
You made the point up the thread that "This is NOT an essay on shoecos or recruiting … ’ @jaybate-1.0 then responded, not even implying that you were saying that. He was just extending the conversation. He even said at the end, “In any case, I respect your dreams and did not mean to trample on them.” Then you did it again in the post I was responding to, saying to @jaybate-1.0, “My post was solely about coaching and NOT about recruiting …” (again,capitalizing the “NOT” – I’m sure he saw it the first time).
If you can’t see how that comes across, there’s not much more to say.
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Whatever…
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I agree: Self is as close to ultimate job security as you can get, but things can change so very, very fast in a high stakes profession like coaching.
Look what happened to Roy Williams at UNC. He looked set for however long he wanted to coach, then out of no where comes an academic scandal that has to be carefully managed to keep him from being eaten alive in a PR sense by it…and he may still not be clear of it.
Look what happened to Rick Pitino at UL. He apparently had ultimate job security, then out of the blue some woman reputely started trying to black mail him, or something, and suddenly his private life was exposed and his future viability as a recruiter was suddenly uncertain.
Adolph Rupp once was thought to have ultimate job security. He had even survived a point shaving scandal once before. But then at the end he got embroiled in racial stuff and so on.
It once seemed unthinkable that Bob Knight would ever not be at Indiana.
Think about Self shortly after he got to KU. He had done nothing but reputedly run squeaky clean programs at ORU, Tulsa and Illinois, and then he comes to what was reputedly a squeaky clean program at KU and in quick succession KU is hit with infractions from Roy’s years, then Scalpinggate, then Realignmentgates I and II, then Lewgate, and then he got caught so short handed recruiting that he had play the 2012 season with Conner Teahan as his sixth man. He had no depth whatsoever. The whole season could have ended .500 had TRob, TT, and Withey not gone super nova. and EJ and Travis not been able to play through injuries.
There are a very small number of great coaches that can retire at the top of their games, rather than be run out, or caught up in scandal and be forced out.
Forrest Claire Allen, the father of all college basketball coaches, was reputedly unceremoniously dumped before he got to coach Wilt Chamberlain, only 4 years after his greatest national champion and only 3 years after a runner up team.
Denny Crum, one of the greats, reputedly got forced out at UL, because he had a 3 year slump, even with a top recruiting class coming in.
Eddie Sutton reputedly fell to the bottle at the end, after it seemed he had whipped his demons and was riding a high tide.
Hank Iba, arguably the coach with the most lasting influence on the game, spent his last years in ridicule and the goat of a reputedly dishonest call in an Olympic game.
Frank McGuire, one of the games greats, but a reputed rule breaker, who survived scandal at St. Johns, then peaked in 1957 at UNC to near legendary status, then was crushed again by scandal and run, then came back at South Carolina to build some good teams but never to achieve greatness again.
And maybe the most tragic coach of all, reputed straight shooter Clair Bee, of Long Island U, one of the game’s greatest coaches, got forced out when an investigation into point shaving scandals at St. Johns involving Frank McGuire revealed that some of Bee’s own players had been shaving points reputedly without his knowledge. Clair Bee had, like Bill Self, won 82% of his games and won championships. He had written a body of children’s sports books extolling sportsmanship and heroism and fair play, and without having done anything wrong, his career was ruined.
Jim Calhoun was apparently hounded out of the game for his reputed improprieties, despite winning big at the end.
Bob Knight was hounded out of Indiana probably for apparent good reason, and then went to mediocrity at Texas Tech and then finally quit mid season apparently to make sure his son would get a shot at head coaching the program that was apparently declining under him after first surging.
As I said, Roy Williams seems to be hanging on tenuously right now as the UNC bureaucracy has appeared to circle the wagons apparently to bureaucratically fire wall UNC AD from possible blowback from the academic scandal, though it is too soon tell anything for sure.
And on the list goes.
John Wooden went out on top and apparently on his own terms, though some say the specter of investigations into Sam Gilbert might have caused his departure.
Dean Smith went out on top and on his own terms.
Al Maguire went out on top on his terms.
But as the movie “Patton” says at the end, as Patton walks by the windmill “For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. . .A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.” - Attributed to George Patton
And General Patton died shortly and some now speculate about what caused his death.
I hope and pray a few times every season that Bill Self will be among the lucky ones that keeps building to a crescendo and goes out on top and on his terms. The man is so extraordinary. If anyone deserves to, it seems to me that he does.
But at one time, all of the coaches I mentioned above seemed so extraordinary, and seemed to deserve it.
Go, Bill, go!!!
I wish for you what none of KU’s other great coaches have gotten. A happy ending.
I wish it for the legacy, too.
Rock Chalk!!
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True…
And I’m thinking an even more powerful opening line (especially in Chicago):
“Hello ---- my name is Kirk Hinrich and I’m an assistant basketball coach at the University of Kansas. Can I speak with you for a minute?”
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Forest “Phog” Allen retired when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 and the legislature would not make an exemption. The topic was discussed in great detail in “Jayhawkers” the movie about Wilt Chamberlain that premiered in Lawrence last year.
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I haven’t seen that movie. I’m glad you brought it up.
I often find movies including biopics historically over simplified, or distorted for dramatic effect, or just plain inaccurate, don’t you?
Do you have some first hand knowledge of Allen’s departure that confirms the movie is reliable historical documentation of the dynamics of his departure.?
You sound like you must. You don’t seem like the kind of board rat that takes movies at face value as being historically accurate.
Please share with me what you know; this aspect of The Legacy has always made me wonder what really happened.
I just recall hearing from a few adults when I was young that Allen had made quite a few enemies in the university and outside it through his long tenure, and this lead to his departure. It always seemed odd to me that he signed Wilt assuming he would get a waiver to coach longer on a whim.
What do you know about the actual situation that leads you to believe the movie makers got it right? Even if they tried to get it right, movie makers often can’t know the truth, or distort it for dramatic construction, or what have you.
Anything you can share would be much appreciated.
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Obviously I have no first hand knowledge of what happened at the time since at the time I was new born and had no clue -or interest- in sports.
I have done a fair amount of reading on the subject and yes, he made some enemies at KU and in the state (what coach doesn’t), but his departure was ultimately due to reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70 (at the time) and the legislature would not pass a bill to exempt him from the law, something he lobbied heavily for, and back then, coaches did not bring the money or had the clout they do now.
When the movie came out last year there was a fair amount of discussion on several items but I don’t recall anyone questioning the specific parts about Allen. I personally think the movie was a fair effort to represent the events at the time, but poorly made and in the end, pretty much forgettable. Would I see it again? Maybe on TV or Netflix. Would I pay to see it gain? No. It does not mean that it misrepresented facts but simply that it was poorly made.
Don’t forget that AFH - at the time one of the bigger arenas in the country and still the largest in the State of Kansas - was dedicated in March of 1955 while he was still HC at KU and he continued to coach another year until his retirement at the end of the 1955-1956 season. Had he been in bad terms, the school could have easily named the Field House after Naismith but named it after Allen instead.
You can ask the same question every time a coach leaves a program. For example, how would you characterize Coach Roy Williams’ departure from KU? Was it friendly? Hostile? In between? I imagine if you asked 20 people you might get 20 different answers. I personally think that it something that was bound to happen sooner or later but I am not happy with the way it went down and or this I blame Dean Smith and not Coach Williams.
Again, I have no first hand knowledge of what transpired at the time but nothing I have read tells me it was vastly different than what I wrote.
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It wasn’t obvious to me about your age, or access to relevant information. But thanks for responding just the same. I guess I will have to keep looking.
(subsequent add)
Thanks for posting the unfortunate JV news below. And agreed, best of luck to JV. I am confident he will be coaching again soon.
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It is official, Jacque Vaughn has been fired by Orlando. Best of luck to Jayhawk Jacque in whatever he decides to do…
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When I think of a classy Jayhawk, I think of Jacque Vaughn!
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@JayHawkFanToo Sad to see a Jayhawk fired, its not cool. But, he was pretty much in a no win situation. Hope his next gig has a better upside to it! RCJH!
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Amen to that!!!
