Weekly Countdown (cont.)

Until he delivers a championship to LeBron James and the Cavs, Mike Brown's coaching tactics will continue to be subject to criticism. Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images Ian Thomsen's Mailbag Ian Thomsen will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

• You mentioned in one of your previews that Cleveland coach Mike Brown has to deliver a title this year. He seems to be ripped by the media for his unimaginative offense, but you said he is pretty sharp. Do his players respect him? What makes him so special?
-- Gabe, Dayton, Ohio

His players defend for him, therefore they respect him. But most NBA coaches (except for the likes of Jerry Sloan) are going to be faced with questions of whether their players "respect" them until they win a championship. The perception of Doc Rivers changed drastically after his Celtics won the championship two years ago. People listen to him now as if he's Aristotle; but if he hadn't won the 2007-08 championship, then he would have been up against the same kind of win-or-else pressure Brown is facing.

There are four active coaches with championship rings: Rivers, Larry Brown, Gregg Popovich and Phil Jackson. Players accept Jackson's instruction as a matter of faith because he has won 10 championships and therefore knows what he's talking about it. Most of the league's ringless coaches, including proven winners such as Stan Van Gundy and Flip Saunders, are going to be second-guessed until they win a Finals. They know it and accept it.

• There were a lot of responses to Denver vice presient Mark Warkentien's proposal to introduce a mini-tournament for the No. 8 playoff spot.

What about a slight tweak: Non-playoff teams play a single-elimination tournament for the rights to the top pick? Take all of them and seed them according to record. This tournament could go on at the same time as the other one; you wouldn't have to extend the season. And there's no longer any incentive to have the worst record; in fact, you'd want the best record possible in order to have home court advantage in the loser's tournament. I think it could work.
-- Rob Mussig, Los Angeles

I don't think so. In one of those years when an elite talent is available as the No. 1 pick (equivalent to LeBron or Tim Duncan), the No. 8 playoff team will go in the tank in order to qualify for your postseason tournament -- then score the No. 1 pick by beating up the weaklings. Every team in the league would happily sacrifice the No. 8 spot in the playoffs in order to draft LeBron or Duncan.

I don't understand how this proposal would prevent teams from tanking? If the No. 15 team makes the playoffs with the worst record, it still receives the best chance at the No. 1 pick in the lottery. Making the playoffs in no way discourages a team from finishing with the worst record.
-- Jason Kaplan, New Windsor, N.Y.

I agree that teams would still be liable to tank the last month of the season (even though the lottery doesn't necessarily reward that behavior). But at least the worst teams and their fans would have something to anticipate over the otherwise dreary closing weeks of an otherwise lost season.

There is no brilliant way to lift the cynicism that hovers over teams while they try to improve their position in the lottery. Would this proposal improve the current state of things incrementally? At least some people in the league think it's worthy of discussion.

With Warkentien's plan, what's to stop a team like the Lakers tanking the season, finish 15th, win the mini-tournament, make the playoffs and get the best chance to land the No. 1 overall pick?
-- Dustin, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada

I'm pretty sure Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson and Jerry Buss would stop the Lakers from doing that.

3 things you hear over a cup of coffee

• An Eastern scout on how teams will take fewer risks in their coaching hires:
"The day of the disposable coach is almost at an end now. You're going to see these owners leaning back toward experienced guys, so maybe they go for more of a coach's coach than a player's coach. I think the move in Detroit from Michael Curry to John Kuester is evidence of that. So was the thinking in Minnesota, to choose Kurt Rambis over Bill Laimbeer, who has never coached in the NBA. You saw Sacramento take a chance on a guy like Reggie Theus -- that didn't work. Get on the bench, put in your time, be at practice, learn how to do a game plan, form a philosophy before you're handed the keys ... That's what teams are going to be looking for now that they don't have as much money to spend."

• A Western scout on why he watches the warmups:
"It's a good chance to see the young big guys who maybe don't play a lot during the game. I'll look at them in pregame during the drills and see what kind of touch they have, how they move and also can they catch it? Can they run and can they catch the freaking ball when it's passed? If they can do those simple things, then they can be big guys in the league. If not, then they're non-factors. When I see a team that has a lot of young big guys, you can tell that team probably is hoping that one of the three has something that can allow them to play someday. That's why you see big guys come out early in the draft, because they want to get drafted before people can figure out who they really are."

• A Western scout on Al Jefferson:
"He has that old-fashioned game in the low post, and why that has gone away so much from the game today I don't know. But somewhere down the road somebody taught him some post moves and then he refined them. It's a feel thing when you're operating in the post -- I did this to him last time, now I'm going to set him up with the countermove; or, he's cutting me off in the middle, so now I have to go to the baseline.

"A lot of times you don't see college players developing their post moves because they're facing zones in college, and it's hard to get the ball into them. Sometimes we'll get big guys in for pre-draft workouts and it turns out they've got more skill in the post than what they showed in college, and the reason they didn't have the chance to do it was because it was so crowded in there. But at the same time, I don't see why more players wouldn't want to put in the time to emulate the things Jefferson does."

2 questions for Antonio McDyess

The 35-year-old new Spur spoke to me in the preseason.

• After missing 194 games because of knee injuries over three seasons (2001-04), does your body feel younger?

"People ask me that all the time. The answer is I really don't. I didn't play basketball, I didn't run up and down the court. But mentally, that physical therapy all day for two or three years was a strain for my body, honestly. I was working hard. Personally I don't feel any younger. But I do feel I got a lot more in my tank to help this team out, to win a championship.''

• What did your new partner in the frontcourt, Tim Duncan, say to you when you came to San Antonio?

"He made it perfectly clear to me he wasn't playing center. He said, 'You know I'm still the 4.' " I said, 'I can't argue with you.' I'll play center, I'll play 4, it don't matter to me. I think he just likes the title [of power forward].

"He's so humble, like you won't even think Tim Duncan's got four championships, because he'll treat everyone the same and he'll expect everyone to be treated the same. I would think Tim Duncan is like, 'Hey, this is my team,' and have an ego that way. But he doesn't."

1 thought on the Olympiakos saga

• A resolution must be achieved. During its preseason visit to the U.S. the Greek club Olympiakos was greeted with speculation that it might be garnished of its uniforms, plane tickets and other properties before it played exhibition games against the Spurs and Cavaliers. The goodwill trip turned into a fiasco.

There may be more to come. U.S. Rep. Peter King has drawn in the NBA by asking commissioner David Stern how he can be involved with a club that owes money to American players. Boston-based agent Tom McLaughlin and former player Chris Morris have won U.S. court judgments by default against Olympiakos worth $1.4 million that the club has yet to pay. Over the years there have been many stories of other American players who claimed they were owed money in unpaid salaries from clubs in Europe.

It is understandable that Olympiakos president Panagiotis Angelopoulos believes he is being held unfairly accountable for the sins of a previous owner. He has big dreams of growing his club by outbidding the NBA for players like Josh Childress and Linas Kleiza, but now he is being held down by an issue in which he was not personally involved.

Stern also must be wondering what this has to do with him, because his owners -- to their fiscal detriment -- pay NBA players in full whether they're worthy of the salary or not. Then there is the Euroleague, which may be threatened with garnishment of its payments to Olympiakos even though in recent years it has raised the standards of its 24 clubs -- including Olympiakos -- with the result of far fewer allegations of unpaid contracts.

But none of this changes the bottom line: McLaughlin and Morris currently have a default judgment that permits them to collect their money. Not only does McLaughlin insist he will keep working to collect it, but that he'll also counsel more former players who say they are owed money by other European clubs as well.

So other European clubs may yet face similar claims. Sooner or later, European basketball and the NBA will have to deal with the issue of the former players' contracts. Otherwise it will limit their ability to grow the game together.