Thursday, April 21, 2011

Rockets are after Dallas assistant Dwane Casey. We don’t blame them


Dallas Mavericks assistant Dwane Casey has been the one who has gotten away for far too long, and it appears he might have yet another chance at a head coaching slot. ESPN's Marc Stein, who is in touch with all things Dallas-y, is reporting that the Mavericks have allowed Houston the chance to interview Casey for the Rockets' open head-coaching job.

There is a catch, before we can send the well-regarded assistant over to Houston in order to mold Daryl Morey's group of "pretty good's" into the next big thing.

For one, the Mavs have requested that the Rox keep their prized assistant (and believe me, Rick Carlisle does prize Casey quite a bit) out of the interview room until after the team's first-round series with Portland. Secondly, the Rockets (according to Stein) are in no hurry to make an offer even if Casey wows them right off the bat, as they wait out the postseason for other potential coaches to be ushered out of their current jobs. Especially if they work in potential coaches working in Orlando, right now.

Casey is best known as the former Minnesota Timberwolves head coach who had the pleasure of leading a terrible supporting cast plus Kevin Garnett to a 20-20 record in 2006-07 before being fired. His replacement, Randy Wittman, managed a 12-30 record after Casey was let go. Cruelly, Casey was passed over by both the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Clippers for jobs that eventually went to Vinny Del Negro, and he missed a chance to coach the Atlanta Hawks last season when the Hawks decided to go in-house with their hire. And we see how well that turned out.

This is a legitimate, knockout head-man-in-waiting whose basketball pedigree runs deep. While I usually wouldn't turn down the chance to have Stan Van Gundy coach my team, a person like Dwane Casey would at least give me pause.

LeBron James Mark Teixeira

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