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Posted: Monday June 07, 1999 04:01 PM
By Tom Heitz, Turner Sports Was anyone surprised that Cleveland fired Mike Fratello? Usually when a coach is axed, there are those who immediately come to his defense, railing against the organization for making a hasty decision or claiming that the coach just didn’t have the pieces to compete. No one came to Fratello’s defense when he was finally let go this past Tuesday. There wasn’t a case to be made for keeping the Czar. The reality was Fratello did a horrible job during his six seasons as head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Quite frankly, there was a lot who wondered how he hung on for this long. Maybe the fact he did a good job as a TV analyst had something to do with it. Although Cleveland’s 22-28 record this year was its only losing season under Fratello, the Cavs had never won more than 47 games and were 2-12 in playoffs under his watch. As I’ve written about on many an occasion, Fratello was under the belief that losing a game 75-70 is somehow more tolerable than losing a game 115-110. That’s utter nonsense. But the city of Cleveland has been relegated to watching that brand of basketball for the last half-dozen years. Perhaps the biggest reason why Fratello was fired was that during his time, the Cavs had been the NBA’s least appealing team. Over the last five seasons, the Cavs have ranked last, 28th, last, 24th and 26th respectively, in scoring offense. If you’re not going to be a team that wins in the playoffs, at least be an exciting team. Fratello’s squad was neither.
Now it’s up to new General Manager Jim Paxson to clean up the mess that Fratello has left. The good thing is that the team has talent. Shawn Kemp, Derek Anderson and Brevin Knight will all benefit from an up-tempo offense and the Cavs have the #8 and #11 picks in the first round. And with Zydrunas Ilgauskas coming back from a broken foot, the Cavaliers’ future is suddenly brighter. But their future was suddenly brighter anyway on Tuesday when Fratello was let go. Who would have thought that Cleveland fans would refer to Lenny Wilkens’-coached teams of the early-90’s as “those high-octane Cavaliers”.
Draft DoingsMinnesota elected to keep its first round pick this year (No. 14 overall) instead of relinquishing it to Toronto as part of their January 21st deal that also involved Denver. The Raptors will now get the Wolves number one pick next year regardless of if it lands in the lottery or not. This all means that the Wolves will have two of the top fourteen picks in this year’s draft while the Raptors, instead of having three first-rounders, will only have two (5 & 12). Toronto coach Butch Carter was hoping to have three first-rounders this year so he could trade two of the picks for a veteran (similar to what he did last year in acquiring Kevin Willis). Now the Raptors, who face the possibility of losing forwards John Wallace and Charles Oakley to free agency, might be forced to use the picks. Zeljko Rebraca, this past season’s Eurpoean Player of the Year, was in Toronto this past week to check out the city and negotiate with the Raptors on a possible contract. Rebraca, a 6-11 free agent center, is being offered up to $5 million a year from European teams and the thinking is that Toronto will not break the bank for a foreigner who’s never played in the NBA. That’s too bad because the Raptors need a center and Rebraca, who can bang inside and is also athletic, would be a perfect fit in Toronto. In addition, Rebraca is 27 years old and any long term deal he signs in Europe should negate any chance of him playing in the NBA during the prime of his career. All this means is that Michael Stewart, who signed a one-year deal in January with the understanding that he would get a long-term deal this summer, will play a bigger role with the team next fall. Raptors’ coach Butch Carter admitted that he did a “poor” job of coaching the second-year player this past season.
Tip-InsJust wondering, but do you think that Larry Bird and Mark Jackson still feel that Patrick Ewing was “milking it”?…Jackson on Knicks’ coach Jeff Van Gundy: “He’s under-appreciated. If I were him, I’d pack my stuff up and go somewhere else”…Atlanta has four first-round draft picks, unfortunately, none of them are before No. 16. The last team with four picks in the first round was Sacramento in 1990 and none of them made any kind of impact: Lionnel Simmons (7), Travis Mays (14), Duane Causwell (18) and Anthony Bonner (23). Over the past two weeks, the Hawks have worked out a number of college big men including Even Eschmeyer, Calvin Booth and Lari Ketner. Not exactly the most talented trio to ever pick up the rock…Jonathan Bender is quickly moving up on a lot of teams’ draft lists. Like all other high school players (with the exception of Moses Malone and Kevin Garnett) that directly enter the draft, the 6-10 Bender will need at least two years to mature. A team such as Phoenix, which has expressed interest in Bender (the Suns pick 9th), will be more inclined to take the gamble since they have enough talent returning and can afford to wait on the Picayune (MS) High graduate… Rumors have Orlando’s Penny Hardaway heading to Phoenix as part of a sign and trade deal. Though Hardaway has missed his share of games over the last three years (none, however, this past season), compared to the Suns’ brittle Rex Chapman, Penny will seem as though he’s A.C. Green. Tom Heitz has been involved with Turner Sports production for four years, and currently provides behind-the-scenes analysis for the NBA on TNT.
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