Once a hot-seat fixture, Mitchell oversees Raptors rise

	Sam Mitchell guided the Raptors to the first division title in their 12-year history. Harry How/Getty Images

Also in this column
• Scout's Take: Watch out for Houston
• Previewing some stretch-run games
• Recognizing the season's best, worst
• One regrettable Jerry West signing

For all of the hype surrounding this year's draft, more immediate, and experienced, help appears available in one of the better free-agent classes in years.

Need a point guard with championship experience? How about Chauncey Billups? Have a gaping hole at shooting guard? Vince Carter wouldn't be a bad fit. A small forward with 3-point range? Rashard Lewis would be tough to beat.

The free-agent shelf even has a current division-winning coach available, no buyout necessary -- just a willingness to believe Toronto's Sam Mitchell can do for your team what he has done for the Raptors this season. That should be simple enough regarding a coach who helped transform a 27-win embarrassment into the probable No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. But as the Raptors have learned in his three years on the bench, nothing about Sam Mitchell is simple.

Tales of Mitchell's tough-love approach permeated the team and coverage of the team. If Mitchell wasn't reported to be getting into trainer's-room showdowns with Vince Carter, then he was exchanging heated words with Rafer Alston in the locker room at halftime.

"When I first got [to Toronto] I did hear a lot of stories about the past dysfunction, so much that I wanted to tune it out," Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo said in a phone interview this week. "I didn't want to talk about the past anymore; I wanted only to focus on the future."

That was a future many observers assumed didn't include a coach who not only didn't seem to have his players' support, but also had produced a 60-104 mark in his first two seasons. But Colangelo, who had proved his vision went beyond the conventional in Phoenix by helping usher in a European-influenced style of play with coach Mike D'Antoni, wasn't hired last March to do the expected in Toronto.

"There was an immediate expectation that I was going to let Sam go," Colangelo said. "But I really did believe that Sam deserved an opportunity to, No. 1, establish a relationship with the new guy -- me -- and, No. 2, participate in putting the team together. I've always been a consensus guy. I've always looked to the coaches, personnel directors and assistant GM and factored in all of that analysis and evaluation and experience, and made decisions based on that input.

"Once there was some clarity to the draft picture with the No. 1 pick, once there was some clarity in free agency in terms of how much money we had, a plan started to fall into place and how you're going to carry out that plan, and Sam was a part of that all along. He deserved a chance to succeed or fail with the group that we put together, that he's helped put together."

It's a group that is significantly different than the one that took the floor at the Air Canada Centre last season. Nine new players were brought in, from top overall pick Andrea Bargnani to point guard T.J. Ford to overseas free-agent import Anthony Parker.

And though a 2-8 start portended a chemistry experiment too daunting to see through in one season, Mitchell kept mixing his lineups without regard to reputation.

"As coaches, we make sure that we're fair to everybody," Mitchell said. "We don't have international players or American players; we've got NBA players. We don't have a distinction between where you're from. I'm from Columbus, Georgia. Chris Bosh, from Dallas, Texas, doesn't know what a Columbus, Georgia, looks like. As far as Chris Bosh is concerned, I'm from a different country.

"With the makeup of our team, the key is making everybody accountable. I ask the question at the beginning of every season: 'Who wants to win? Everybody raises their hands. OK, now what sacrifices are you willing to make? Are you willing to not play a game or two and still come to practice the next day and work hard and still cheer for your teammates and keep the right attitude? To their credit, when our players say they want to win, they've proven it."