CLIPPERS UPDATE: CRUCIAL YEAR AHEAD.Byline: Joe Stevens Stevens, family of U.S. inventors. John Stevens, 1749–1838, b. New York City, was graduated from King's College (now Columbia Univ.) in 1768. Staff Writer PALM DESERT - Some expectations this season have the Clippers finishing with a winning record for the first time since the 1991-92 season. Other expectations have them making the playoffs for the first time since 1997 and others have them advancing in the postseason. No matter what the details of a particular expectation, it is obvious many eyes Many Eyes is an IBM project and website whose stated goal is to democratize information and to enable social data analysis ("social" in the sense of Web 2.0), by making it easy for laypeople to create, edit, share and discuss each other's visualizations. will be on coach Alvin Gentry Alvin Gentry is an American professional basketball coach, and college basketball player, who has led three different NBA teams. He served as an interim coach for the Miami Heat at the end of the 1995 season, and later coached the Detroit Pistons and the Los Angeles Clippers. and how he leads his talented roster. Gentry is in the final year of his contract and, although he downplays the pressure, this is a critical year for him. ``If you're asking me, if things go bad, if I'm worried about getting fired, I never spend any time worrying about that. I really don't,'' Gentry said. ``I'm going to coach this team the way I'm going to coach it. It doesn't matter if there are no years left on my contract or five years left on my contract. As a coach, I'm going to coach the same way, and that's to get the guys to play unselfishly, make them play hard and make them execute. And then if I do that and it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out.'' This is Gentry's third season as the Clippers' coach. After the team went 15-67 in the 1999-2000 season under Jim Todd For the baseball player, see . Jim Todd is a professional basketball coach. He was the coach at Salem State College for nearly ten years, and coached the Los Angeles Clippers for half a season in 2000, replacing Chris Ford. His focus was power forwards and centers. and Chris Ford Christopher Joseph Ford (born January 11, 1949 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA) is a former professional basketball player and head coach. A 6' 5" (1.96 m) guard from Villanova University, he played ten seasons (1972-1982) in the NBA as a member of the Detroit Pistons and Boston , Gentry led the Clippers to a 31-51 record in 2000-01, then got a two-year extension with a club option. So after this season, the team could keep him by picking up his option. Since the Clippers moved to Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. in 1984, only one coach - Bill Fitch William Fitch (born May 19 1934 in Davenport, Iowa) is a former NBA coach who has been successful in making teams playoff contenders throughout his coaching career. Before entering the professional ranks he coached college ball at the University of Minnesota, Bowling Green State - has been there for four seasons (1994-98). Gentry has coached the Clippers for 164 games in two full seasons, the third-most in team history. Assuming Gentry doesn't get fired before Dec. 10, he will move past Don Chaney's 185 games as a Clippers coach. ``I still say for me the whole thing is being able to make progress,'' Gentry said. ``I felt we made progress the first year, then we made progress from the first year to last year. And now we're trying to take the next step. It's important for everybody to be healthy, and if we're healthy, we're going to be a very good basketball team.'' Health might have kept the Clippers down last season when they finished 39-43. In particular, Lamar Odom Lamar Joseph Odom (born November 6 1979, in South Jamaica, Queens, New York) is an American professional basketball player who currently plays power forward (also plays both forward spots and is a "point-forward") for the National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Lakers. played just 29 games and averaged 13.1 points. The previous season, he played 76 games and averaged 17.2 points. With a more balanced roster, which includes Andre Miller Andre Lloyd Miller (born March 19, 1976 in Los Angeles, California) is an American professional basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA. College career Miller played collegiately at the University of Utah for four years. , the league's assists leader last season at 10.9 a game, the team looks much improved. In fact, this could be the best Clippers team in Eric Piatkowski's nine seasons in L.A. ``I think that we shouldn't be battling for that eighth spot in the playoffs,'' Piatkowski said. ``I think we should be in the middle of the hunt. We just have too many talented players that have a lot of experience. The one piece of the puzzle “Puzzle solving” redirects here. For the concept in Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science, see normal science. A puzzle is a problem or enigma that challenges ingenuity. we've always been missing is a point guard, and we have one of the best in the league now. There's just really no excuse.'' How does Gentry respond to the pressure? Well, sometimes he dismisses the pressure as a fact of coaching. Other times, he embraces it. ``I don't think that anybody's put any more expectations on us than we put on ourselves, as coaches or as players,'' he said. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: ALVIN GENTRY Clippers coach enters his third season, the final one under his contract. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion