EARNING THEIR STRIPES
There were 14.1 seconds to play and the Los Angeles Lakers trailed the Detroit Pistons, 87-84.
Time for coach Chuck Person to earn his paycheck.
Chuck Person?
If it’s July and it’s the Lakers, it’s not going to be Phil Jackson drawing up the plays. Instead, Person, a former NBA sharpshooter who spent last season as an assistant to Jackson with the league champions, is getting a chance to grow in a profession that admittedly held no allure for him until late in his playing career.
Person is the Lakers’ head coach at the NBA Summer League, where the stakes do not exactly compare to Game 7 of the Finals against the Boston Celtics. But it’s important to Person’s career development.
“You never stop learning, whether you’re a coach or a player,” Person said. “To be able to organize and run your own practice, to make decisions during the course of the game, dealing with the different personalities in the locker room, it’s a great opportunity.”
Person is one of several former NBA players getting the opportunity to run their own teams this week in Las Vegas.
Dan Majerle is Phoenix’s Summer League coach. Mario Elie is guiding the Sacramento Kings. Like the players they’re coaching, they are scrutinized and analyzed from the stands by their team’s head coaches, general managers and, in some cases, team owners.
“Anytime you get experience running games, running practices, working with timeouts, working with players, it can only help you get better as a coach,” said Majerle, who is running the Suns’ Summer League team for the second straight year.
Elie, coaching a Summer League team for the fourth time, said, “You’re getting a chance to bring a group of guys together that don’t know each other and get them to act as a unit.”
Person, Majerle and Elie said the reason they got into coaching was their desire to stay close to the game.
“As a player, I wasn’t fortunate to win a championship,” said Person, 46, who played 13 years in the NBA and averaged 14.7 points. “Being with the Lakers, being with Phil Jackson, you see exactly how it’s done — how to coach, manage timeouts, manage people, manage your staff. I saw from the very first day I was with the Lakers how organized everything was and how everything got carried out through Game 7 of the Finals.”
Majerle, 44, who played 14 seasons and averaged 11.4 points, said: “My plan after I was done playing was to take a year off. But I jumped into TV and stayed around the game.
“When the Suns hired Terry Porter we sat down and decided this might be a good time to try and get into it. It’s one of those situations where you never know unless you try it. I felt it got me back in a competitive spirit, things I missed about not playing anymore.”
Elie, 46, was a seventh-round draft pick in 1985 and averaged 12.1 points in 11 seasons.
“I love everything about the game. I can’t be a doctor or a lawyer. This is what I do,” he said. “I love coming to the gym. I love teaching. As coaches, we have the best seats in the house. We fly on private jets. We get money to eat. It’s a great way to making a living.”
MENTORING YOUNG PLAYERS
Dealing with today’s players is different from when Person, Majerle and Elie played.
“It’s a different culture,” Majerle said. “When I was coming up, you had older guys to teach you. I also had four years of college. So I was more mature. Now you have guys — 18-, 19-, 20-year-old kids — who have a lot of growing up to do and have to learn, not only on the floor but off the floor. You find yourself being more of a mentor and a teacher because you’re not just helping develop their basketball skills, you’re helping develop life skills.”
Person recalled a conversation he had with Hall of Fame coach Jack Ramsay while playing for the Indiana Pacers.
“(Ramsay) said to me, ‘Chuck, do you have any aspirations to be a coach?’ and I said, ‘Absolutely.’ And he said, ‘Would you be willing to deal with a player like yourself?’
“At the time, I was brash, outspoken. So he posed the question to me and it really changed the way I approached things. I can draw on those experiences as I deal with players now that I’m a coach. Those same questions Jack Ramsay posed to me, I can pose those same questions to a player today.”
Elie said: “The league is a lot younger. Guys come in unpolished. There’s a lot more teaching involved. You need a lot more patience. You can’t grind guys hard. It’s a different generation. When I played, coaches could ride you hard and you responded without reacting. These guys, they mope, they frown, so you gotta treat them with kid gloves.”
It helps the coaches’ credibility to have had success as players. Elie has three NBA championship rings (two with Houston, one with San Antonio), and Majerle played in the 1993 Finals with the Suns.
“Players respect guys who play the game, guys who’ve won championships, who understand the game,” Elie said.
Majerle said of his successful past: “I tell them every day. Some of the guys know what I did as a player.”
Their success is part of the reason they were chosen to be Summer League head coaches.
“From Day One, (Person) has fit in with a veteran staff and he’s well prepared and he’s got a way about him on the court that the players seem to like,” Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said.
Suns head coach Alvin Gentry believes Majerle has a bright future in coaching.
“He understands the game and he’s worked extremely hard at it, just like when he was a player,” Gentry said.
30 COVETED HEAD COACHING JOBS
None of the former players has put a specific timetable on becoming a head coach in the NBA. All three are enjoying their current roles and they understand that landing one of the 30 coveted jobs depends as much on good timing as ability.
“This is my seventh year (as a coach),” Elie said. “I know I’m close. I just have to keep working at it. I’m comfortable with where I’m at. When the phone rings, I’m ready to move 20 inches to the right to that big seat.”
Majerle said: “I don’t have a timetable. I love working for Alvin and if this is as far as it gets for me, I’ll be very happy.”
Person said: “When you’re prepared in every phase of the game, all you need is the opportunity, the chance to put your money where your mouth is.”
One of those chances came at the end of the Lakers-Pistons game last week. As Person set up the play in the huddle, he realized he didn’t have Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Ron Artest, Lamar Odom and Derek Fisher to execute what he had just drawn up. Instead, he was relying on D.J. Strawberry, Rob Kurz, Ibrahim Jaaber, Derrick Caracter and Devin Ebanks to come through.
The plan was for Strawberry to come off a screen and get a 3-point shot. But he wasn’t able to get off a shot and the second and third options broke down.
The Lakers never tied it and wound up losing, 89-84.
“We thought we had a good play but it just didn’t work out this time around,” Person said.
Minutes after the game, he received a text message. “Losing is OK. It teaches you to focus better and to prepare your players to play.”
The author of the text? Phil Jackson, who watched the game on television and wanted to make sure Person didn’t leave Cox Pavilion discouraged.
“That made me feel better,” he said. “No one likes losing. Even in the Summer League.”
Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913.
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