Saturday, November 22, 2008

Westhead Out of Work in Oklahoma City



NBA fans will pay close attention to the fact that P. J. Carlesimo is out of a job at Seat--uh, at Oklahoma City. WNBA fans, however, read the fine print:

It's a players' league and if a team's best player doesn't completely buy into what the coach is preaching, the coach almost always takes the fall. Magic Johnson effectively had Paul Westhead fired after the Lakers won a title.

Carlesimo, at 21-74 with the Sonics/Thunder, had no chance. (Paul) Westhead, coincidentally, was an assistant on Carlesimo's staff and was also let go.


This means that Paul Westhead, who won a WNBA title with the Phoenix Mercury in 2007, is currently available. The strange sound you heard is the sound of the ears perking up of every team in the WNBA that didn't make the playoffs.

Well, maybe not the Atlanta Dream. Let's see, we have:

Marynell Meadors, a head coach in the WNBA for three seasons
Carol Ross, an SEC coach of the year and a very successful college coach for several seasons as a Dream assistant coach
Fred Williams, a head coach of USC and also a head coach in the old NWBL

Even if you look at the Vice President of Media Relations (Tonya Alleyne), she was the head coach at San Diego City College. Something tells me that the Atlanta Dream would have no problem finding a new coach in the organization if Meadors leaves.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your forgot Fred coached the Utah Starzz in the WNBA for three years....

No one can accuse Marynell of being afraid to hire veteran head coaches alongside her. Any one of the three of them could be the head coach in a heartbeat which is a plus for the bench.