Will the "Williams Wall" Case Sack the NFL's Labor Agreement?

A few months ago, the biggest question surrounding the pending suspension of the "Williams Wall" was the blow it could deal to the Vikings' pass rush.

At this point, however, it's time to wonder whether a court victory by Minnesota's two star defensive tackles—whose suspensions were blocked again by a judge today—will land a knockout punch on the league's collective bargaining agreement.

When Pat and Kevin Williams (no relation) first drew four-game bans for testing positive for a banned diuretic last October, along with a handful of other players, the notion of toppling the NFL's doping policy via lawsuit seemed absurd.

After all, the rules were crystal clear: Put a banned substance in your body, and you sit, no matter how it got there or whether it was on the label. The Players' Association signed off on the policy as part of the collective bargaining agreement.

And really, that's just about the only way a drug-testing program can work. You need to leave complaints about tainted supplements, rogue physicians, and other "accidental" ingestion at the door. If you test clean, you're clean; if not, you're suspended.

As Bill Parcells might have put it, "You are what your urine says you are."

The league's drug policy may have plenty of other problems—HGH, designer steroids, suspensions for marijuana use—but until the Williams' case, ambiguity on the consequences of a positive test wasn't one of them.

In this case, the question that most impacts the NFL's doping rules is whether players can challenge the policy based on state labor laws.

Via federal appeal, the league hopes to establish that players cannot contest the drug tests. Winning that battle would be a big step in quashing further challenges to the policy.

But what happens if the NFL loses?

If some or all of the CBA's provisions become open to challenge in state court, the league's labor agreement effectively goes down in flames.

Even a relatively minor victory for the Williamses on the state level—a ruling that the league was out of line in stepping up testing after the first positive, for instance, or that the league is limited in its ability to discipline employees for using a legal product at a non-work location on their own time, would send CBA spiraling into chaos.

Drug testing could become a case-by-case quagmire. The Williamses have already staved off their suspensions for five games and counting—why wouldn't other players who felt slighted by suspensions employ a similar tactic to keep playing (and getting paid) as long as possible?

What about the code of conduct and the discipline Roger Goodell administers for incidents that take place off the field, outside of business hours? Is that up for debate, as well?

What about the financial side of the equation—roster cuts, the franchise tag, and the cap? If the CBA isn't ironclad at the state level, there are very messy questions to answer about how the league's labor agreement jibes with workers' rights under state laws, both in Minnesota and elsewhere.

In other words, the Williams' case could be the loose thread that unravels the NFL's entire labor relations structure.

Want to chew on a real doomsday scenario? Think about the ramifications across all pro sports if a precedent in which state court decisions can pick apart league labor agreements is established.

Ultimately, it shouldn't come down to that. The cut-and-dried nature of the league's drug policy should give the NFL the edge in the long run here, regardless of the circumstances surrounding who knew what about the contents of the diuretic in question.

Then again, most of us expected this case to be resolved much faster than it has been. The courts presiding over it clearly see some grey area in the NFL's substance rules, and at this stage, the outcome is no sure thing.

As a Vikings fan, I hate to lose the Williamses for a quarter of the season. But if the two do manage to dodge their suspensions, I don't relish the wider implications for the game.

Talking Ricky Rubio on Sports Overnight America

Last night, I joined Pat Mauro of Sports Overnight America to talk Brett Favre, the Vikings, and the Timberwolves.

A transcript of the first part of our conversation, which covered Favre and the Vikings, can be found here.

This section covers our discussion on Ricky Rubio, the Timberwolves, and the differences in the paths young American and European stars take to the NBA.

Thanks again to Pat for the chance to chat.


Pat Mauro: Is Ricky Rubio ever going to suit up as a T-Wolf? How come he didn’t show up on Saturday?


Marino Eccher: …My first thought as soon as he was drafted and I heard that he was thinking about staying in Spain was that if he does not show up for the Timberwolves this year, it’s never gonna happen.

Now, I’m not quite sure if that’s the case. I do have a hard time seeing him ending up in a Timberwolves uniform, just because between him and Jonny Flynn, I think Rubio is the guy that other teams are really going to come after, and I think Rubio is the bigger trade asset.

In terms of them coexisting in the backcourt, I can’t see that happening. I can’t see any situation in which two guys who are clearly point guards and ball handlers are gonna share time on the court.


PM: He just turned 18 years old. I gotta believe a lot of Americans are saying, “Hey, if I gotta be 19 and a year out of college, how come this dude at 18 gets to come over here and play?”


ME: ...the other day I was wondering: Even LeBron James, at 17 or 18, he had to borrow against future earning to get his Hummer. Last year, Ricky Rubio made €300,000 to play basketball. He was 17.

So I think there’s certainly a disconnect there in terms of what’s acceptable to American college players and what’s acceptable to young European stars.

Now, are Americans going to start flocking to Europe to make their money early and to make a splash professionally rather than going to college? I don’t know. You look at European basketball, you hear these horror stories of guys not getting paid, guys not getting playing time, so I think it’s still very much an unknown world for American basketball players.

…But if you do in fact see a tipping point in the next five, 10 years where guys look at Europe as a more attractive option, that’s when I think you’re gonna start to see some reconsideration of the economic incentives for guys who stay domestic.


PM: You wonder how many guys in the next year or two are going to go the Brandon Jennings route. All I could think on Thursday watching the draft was, “This would probably be more interesting if there was some high schoolers involved.” Tyler Hansborough wouldn’t have gone 13 to the Pacers if there were some high schoolers available.


ME: …That’s an excellent point, and you mention Brandon Jennings—there was a young man out in California, his name escapes me, he’s a big man, who is skipping his senior year of high school to go play in Europe.

So it’s not just guys skipping college….again, this isn’t like a trend or a phenomenon yet, but it’s been done, where guys are saying, “Why should I play college ball, why should I play high school ball, when I can make five, six figures playing in Europe, and probably be more NBA-ready when I come out?”


PM: I feel so divided, too, because I’m such a college basketball fan, and I love the idea of these great stars, these great talents, coming and playing some college hoops for a couple of years, but at the same time, you look at like tennis players, and really any other sport, and there’s no age limit. If you’re a 15-year-old phenom in Tennis, you can go play Wimbeldon.


ME: …the great accomplishment of college basketball and college football—if you want to call it that—is that they’ve become these tremendously successful profit-churning industries that get all of their employees to work for free.

Now, obviously, you get some scholarships in there, it’s not quite as cut-and-dried as that, but you have to think that sooner or later, just with the amount of money that comes out of college basketball and college football…someone’s gonna look at that and say, “What the heck are we doing here? Why the heck would these young men agree to ply their trade, use their talent, to make somebody else a buck?”

Talking Favre on Sports Overnight America

Last night, I joined Pat Mauro of Sports Overnight America in the wee hours of the morning to discuss Brett Favre, the Vikings, and the Timberwolves.

In case you missed it—or if 12:40 CDT was past your bedtime—the text of our conversation is below, with a little bit of my excess verbiage trimmed for the sake of brevity.

The Favre and Vikings chatter is covered here. You can read the T'Wolves talk here.

Special thanks to Pat—who was a terrific host—for having me on board.


Pat Mauro: Is Brett Favre going to be a Viking? It almost seems like every fan, everyone involved with the Vikings—unless your name is Sage Rosenfels—would like the sound of Brett Favre as quarterback of this team. Am I out there in saying that?


Marino Eccher: No, I think you’re pretty on-the-ball there, Pat. First of all, to answer your question, I do think barring a major setback with that arm, you are going to see Brett Favre in a Vikings uniform come training camp time.

And for the most part, I think the team is going to feel pretty good about that. Now obviously, that depends on which Brett Favre you’re getting.

If you get the guy who, through the first 11 games of last year, threw those 22 touchdowns, 13 picks, completed about 70 percent of his passes, well, it’s all good an gravy.

If you get the guy, who went 1-4 to close out the season, couldn’t make a throw to save his life, and ended up needing bicep surgery for a torn tendon, you’re going to have some problems with that.


PM: Thomas Jones said, “Hey, we lost because of Brett Favre,” and he ended up eating his words, because of that. He chose not to pursue that a little bit farther.

But the Jets were in pretty good position to go to the playoffs, and if you look at everything that happened those last four or five games, Brett Favre was basically the reason they didn’t go to the playoffs.



ME: I think it’s kind of a double-edged sword, because you look at the first two-thirds of the season, and it was Favre this, Favre that, the Favre experiment’s working, the team is 8-3. People are talking about, “Are the Jets gonna get a first-round bye?” People are mentioning the Jets as a Super Bowl contender.

But Favre fell off the wagon in a huge way in that last third of the season, completed fewer than 60 percent of his passes, two touchdowns, nine interceptions…he was really struggling to make throws that throughout his career had just been second nature to him.

Now, if he comes to the Vikings, you’re probably going to get that same kind of up-and-down feeling. Whether it’s deserved or not, at the end of this season, if you have Brett Favre quarterbacking the whole way, you’re going to say either it was Brett Favre who got them to the top of the mountain, or Brett Favre that could not do it.


PM: With the Jets, they wound up getting rid of Chad Pennington, who went to Miami and wound up having a really good year for them and appears to be there guy. In Minnesota, it was Gus Frerotte last year, it was Jackson, they ended up adding Rosenfels.

It’s almost like, even Brett Favre—and we don’t know what’s up with the shoulder, we don’t know if it’s 100 percent—but it’s almost like, “Brett Favre’s better than all those guys,” isn’t he?


ME: Absolutely…if Brett Favre is anything close to, not even his three-time MVP status, but if he’s anything close to what he was at the beginning of last year, or what he was in 2007 in Green Bay, he’s a tremendous upgrade over Rosenfels, he’s a tremendous upgrade over Tarvaris Jackson.

In regards to Rosenfels, you’re talking about a 31-year-old career backup, a guy who has been distinctly average over his NFL career. He’s a fine second option, he’s a fine veteran presence if you’re trying to push a young quarterback. But he’s not a long-term solution, he doesn’t have a lot of star power, and he does not have a tremendous track record of success.

When you talk about Tarvaris Jackson, you talk about a guy, who, last season, he threw nine touchdowns, two interceptions, you look at that and say, “Hey, maybe he’s coming along a little bit.”

….Jackson is a guy who only threw for about 117 yards a game last season. What that tells you is the Vikings were not comfortable putting the ball in his hands. It tells you that they did not think he was the guy who could win games.

And toward the end of the year, with that season finale against the Giants, the Vikings needed that to clinch the division, and in that playoff game against the Eagles, Jackson did not look good.

So if you’re got Favre anything close to healthy, if you’ve got an arm that’s anything close to working, you certainly have to look at him as a dramatic upgrade over the position as it stands right now.


PM: If he’s healthy, you figure that the majority of the time, he says, “Hike,” and gives the ball to Adrian Peterson. Adrian Peterson’s going to be carrying the load, and that takes a lot of pressure off whoever the quarterback is

…We know Brett Favre’s getting older, it’s not the Brett Favre of a few years back, but if it’s just the Brett Favre of the first 11 or 12 games with the Jets last year, this is a better Vikings team than they were last year.


ME: And I think that’s going to be be the case. Now, what you have to wonder about a little bit is putting Favre in that situation and saying, “OK, you’re the second fiddle on this offense to a feature back.”

Because really, throughout Favre’s career, that’s not really happened. He has always been the focal point of the offense, and he’s never lined up in front of somebody who’s a bigger name than he is.

In Green Bay, Ahman Green had a couple of good years. Favre’s last year there, Ryan Grant kind of game on late. But he’s never shared the backfield with a star running back.

It’s going to be interesting to see, if he ends up in Minnesota, if he’s comfortable in a system where he’s not asked to carry the load, where he’s not asked to win the game by himself, where he’s just asked to kind of get out of the way and make the throws when he needs to make ‘em. It’s going to be interesting to see if that famous Favre ego can handle that.


PM: Do you get the feeling that if this doesn’t happen—and I think we all get the feeling it is going to happen—but if it doesn’t happen, the Minnesota faithful are going to be greatly disappointed?


ME: Well, I think at this point, there will certainly be a letdown, because over the last couple weeks, month or so, it’s been kind of an open secret that if everything is alright medically, Favre is gonna end up with the Vikings. Over the last week, you’ve seen reports pop up from a couple of different sources, you’ve seen reports pop up from Minnesota’s KFAN that there is a contract in place, and that it’s all but a done deal.

So now that it’s come this far, I think that yeah, if Favre doesn’t end up being the guy, Vikings fans are gonna come down off that high a little bit, because they’re not sold on Tarvaris Jackson, and I don’t think they’re convinced that Sage Rosenfels is anything special.


PM: Rosenfels put up some pretty good numbers with the Texans, but how much of this with the Vikings organization is about, “Hey, Brett Favre gives up the best chance of winning,” versus, “Brett Favre’s gonna put a lot of seats in the stands.”


ME: ...I don’t think there’s any question in their minds that Favre gives them the best chance of winning.

I think there is something intoxicating about the idea of bringing him on board. I think it creates a buzz. I don’t know that the Vikings have a whole lot of trouble putting butts in the seats, so to speak…but I think there’s something about Brett Favre that makes both the organization and fans stop and say, “Wow, that would really be something special to have going on this year.”


PM: Do you ever wish as a Vikings fan that they played in an outdoor stadium?


ME: You know, I don’t. I’ve spent a little too much time in the winter in Minnesota to wish that rationally, and when Zygi Wilf came out a couple years ago and said, “Let’s get an outdoor stadium,” I said, “Great, I’m gonna get a plasma; I will be very comfortable at home if that’s the case.”

And I think Brett Favre would not be thinking about this as seriously as he is if the Vikings played outdoors, because over the last couple years, we’ve seen that that reputation of his as an outdoor quarterback, as a guy who just loves to mix it up in the elements, is not what it used to be.

He did not look comfortable—even dating back to that last playoff game in Green Bay in 2007, he had a couple of bad games last year outdoors, so I think playing indoors this year can only be good for Brett Favre at this point.


PM: You know, we all love Brett Favre, Brett Favre’s a great ambassador for football, as long as Brett Favre continues to play, I’ll be a fan of his, but do you ever get the impression that Brett Favre is a little bit overrated?

You talk about the playoff game a couple years ago, throwing the pick against the Giants. He’s thrown a lot of crucial picks in the playoffs. I know he’s done a lot of great things, there’s no question, he’s obviously a Hall of Famer, but do you think because we all like Brett Favre so much, that when you get right down to it, he’s a little overrated?


ME: ...I don’t think there’s any question that this point that with all the love that’s been heaped on Favre throughout the years, that he is kind of riding a little bit on those ’95, ’96, ’97, really magical seasons…and on the “good old boy” stuff—everybody likes his, “Aw, shucks,” and “He’s a gamer,” “He loves to play the game,” and I think he’s earned that.

I think he certainly has a little bit of an overrated stature at this point. Now, it’s hard to say, because I think that’s kind of a common sentiment, so it’s hard to say when a guy goes from being overrated to being underrated simply because of that backlash.

Ricky Rubio: How Much Pro Hoops is Too Much?

Ricky Rubio is certainly wise beyond his years.

He cracked Spain's professional league at age 14. He debuted in Euroleague play three days after his 16th birthday.

Even a teenage LeBron needed to borrow against future earning to land his first Hummer—at the same age, Rubio was making good to the tune of €80,000 a season. While American prep stars were making college visits and trying to figure out where John Calipari was headed, Rubio was squaring off against Kobe and the Redeem Team in Olympic play.

But should the 18-year-old phenom's NBA suitors be concerned about his mileage?

The side story to Rubio's career arc, precocious to an unprecedented degree, is that he has logged an equally unprecedented workload of games and minutes at a tender young age.

In four seasons Spanish professional club with DKV Joventut, Rubio has 136 games and nearly 2,700 minutes of playing time under his belt.

Thirty-four games a year doesn't sound so different from a high school/AAU schedule, but those totals are skewed by a wrist injury that forced Rubio to miss significant time this season. In the 2006 and 2007 seasons, Rubio totaled 49 and 50 club games, respectively.

That doesn't include his stints with Spain's Under-16, Under-18, and senior national teams in international play, all of which have included runs to the championship rounds. In short, Rubio has been playing year-round basketball for the past three seasons.

Most of those games weren't "look what I can do" showcases against his peers, or even college-level competition—they were mano e mano affairs with fully grown pros, guaranteed to leave a few souvenir bruises.

If prep-to-pro stars start to decline early as their pro basketball odometers climb (ESPN's Bill Simmons is big on this theory), where does that leave Rubio, who has already been put through the paces harder than most college players?

Indeed, Rubio will enter the league with perhaps more wear-and-tear on his body than any 18-year-old who has come before him.

This shouldn't necessarily discourage teams from investing in him. Questions about his longevity are still a decade or more away from rearing their head in earnest, and his head start on professional experience should make the transition into The Association a little bit easier.

But Rubio's development will be a fascinating case study in just how many high-level basketball games a body can handle.

By the time Rubio grows into his body, he'll be a four-year veteran with nearly 500 pro games behind him between the U.S. and Europe. He'll enter his prime having played 800 games already, and pass the 1,000-games mark around age 29.

That doesn't include playoff appearances (and it's remarkably difficult for an NBA club to miss the postseason for a decade straight) or international activities.

By age 30, he'll have played more regular-season pro games between Europe and the U.S. than either Steve Nash, 35, or Jason Kidd, 36, currently have on their odometers.

If Rubio plays as long as either of those old-timers, he's a virtual lock to pass John Stockton for the most games ever played by a point guard (1,504). Of course, that's getting more than a little ahead of ourselves—whichever team drafts Rubio likely will be happy if he doesn't hit the wall by 31 or 32.

The franchise that tabs Rubio tonight—Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Minnesota, or some yet-unknown Draft Day mover—will look to the young passer to lead a fresh start.

They'd better hope he doesn't come with an early expiration date.

The Five Worst Champions in NBA History

Not all NBA champions are created equal.

Some steamroll to the title, sneering at anyone that stands in their way—your '96 Bulls, your "Fo', fo', fo'" Sixers.

Some hover near the top for a decade, emerging from the pack now and then to claim the crown—your 80s Lakers or modern-day Spurs.

And some leave you wondering, "How the heck did they pull that off?"

To be sure, the pantheon of The Association's banner-winners is dominated by powerhouses. Pro basketball is almost certainly the most dynasty-driven of all major sports—42 of the NBA's 63 titles belong to the Celtics, Lakers, Bulls, and Spurs.

More often than not, titles come in pairs or bunches, and teams that reach the top of the food chain tend to stay there for a while.

That trend of sustained dominance, however, makes the occasional head-scratchers and party-crashers all the more fascinating. We scoured the record books for the scoop on the flash-in-the-pan champs that dot NBA history.

Before we get into the verdicts on how those teams stack up, a few notes on the criteria:

-Regular-season record, playoff record, and point differential all count.

-A team's body of work counts. The 1995 Rockets, for instance, got a little slack for going back-to-back, even though their 1994-'95 campaign wasn't spectacular by itself.

-Star power counts. We considered All-Stars, All-NBA selections, and Hall of Famers as mitigating circumstances for otherwise unimpressive clubs.

-We looked as far back as the 1976 ABA-NBA merger. If you want to go further, go for it—we didn't.

With that in mind, here are a look at the five worst teams ever to be crowned the NBA's best:


5. 1995 Houston Rockets

Vitals: 47-35 regular season, 15-7 playoffs, plus-3.1 point differential

With the second-worst record and fourth-smallest point differential of any post-merger champions, these Rockets didn’t quite put together a complete season. They’re the lowest seed ever to win it all (No. 6), and like it or not, they made their mark in a league that was missing a certain someone.

A few factors kept this squad from climbing higher on the list. Consecutive titles are an accomplishment regardless of the circumstances. The roster also boasted a pair of Hall of Famers in Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon. Hakeem was an all-star that year, and both he and Drexler made the All-NBA third team.

Moreover, Drexler was acquired at midseason, so we’re willing to accept the premise that the Rockets needed time to gel with him in the mix.

The 1976 Boston Celtics (54-28 regular season, 12-6 playoffs, plus-2.3 differential) narrowly missed the cut here. We give ‘em credit for a 1974 banner, as well as Dave Cowens and a fading John Havlicek.

4. 2004 Detroit Pistons

Vitals: 54-28 regular season, 16-7 playoffs, plus-5.4 point differential

At this point, it’s safe to categorize these Pistons among the one-and-done champions. After the 1983 Sixers, Detroit is probably the best team of that bunch (we’re not counting last year’s Celtics as one-timers just yet), but it’s tough to earn love in this league without an encore.

The 2004 Pistons may be the least star-studded of any NBA champion. Their top scorer—Rip Hamilton—poured in just 17.6 points per game. Chauncey Billups was still considered something of a journeyman, and their lone All-Star representative was Ben Wallace, who also made the All-NBA second team.

After acquiring Rasheed Wallace at the trade deadline, Detroit finished the season on a 20-4 rampage, and disposed of the heavily favored Pacers to win the East before toppling the dysfunctional Lakers in the Finals.

If the Pistons had managed to upend the Spurs in Game Seven the following season, they’d go down in history as the second coming of the Bad Boys. Instead, they came up short in the bid for a repeat, and lost in the Conference Finals three straight times, earning a reputation as a team that was only good enough once.

3. 2006 Miami Heat

Vitals: 52-30 regular season, 16-7 playoffs, plus-3.9 point differential

Miami actually had many of the bona fides of a memorable champion: A Hall-of-Fame coach in Pat Riley, a still-spry Shaq, a superstar in Dwyane Wade, and a talented cast of role players. Both Wade and O’Neal were All-Stars, and both got All-NBA nods (first team for Shaq, second for Wade).

Two things relegate the Heat to this spot on the list. First, Miami benefited tremendously from one of the worst-officiated Finals we’ve ever seen. In the three games of the series that were decided by three or fewer points, the Heat shot a total of 46 more free throws than the Mavericks.

In Game Five, with the series tied 2-2, Dwyane Wade attempted 25 foul shots—as many as the entire Mavs team. In Game Six, he got 21 tries from the stripe, while Dallas, collectively, managed just 23.

There were plenty of other factors involved, but it’s tough to marvel at a championship that was influenced so heavily by an enormous disparity in officiating.

The second reason is that this team was about as flash-in-the-pan as they come. Miami enjoyed two seasons of serious contention: 2005, when it lost the conference finals, and 2006. Even 1979 Sonics died a slower, less agonizing death.

In 2007, the team went 44-38 and got swept out of the playoffs in the first round. The year after that, the team posted a 15-67 record and stopped trying to win games sometime around January. Most champs fade slowly—the Heat flamed out.


2. 1979 Seattle Supersonics

Vitals: 52-30 regular season, 12-5 playoffs, plus-2.7 point differential

Taking a shot at the only banner Sonics fans have to celebrate from their departed franchise seems mean-spirited, but this team wasn’t quite one for the ages.

The point differential was that of a 48-win club. Jack Sikma and Dennis Johnson both made the 1979 All-Star team, but Johnson was the only player on the roster who earned an All-NBA selection at any point in his career.

To Seattle’s credit, allowing opponents to shoot 46.3 percent and score 103.9 points per game was the gold standard of defense in that era—both of those marks led the NBA. The Sonics’ 52 wins were good enough for the best record in the West, and only three teams in the league won 50 or more that season.

This was head coach Lenny Wilkens’ second consecutive trip to the Finals with Seattle. He never made it back again.


1. 1978 Washington Bullets

Vitals: 44-38 regular season, 14-7 playoffs, plus-0.8 point differential

The Alvin Hayes-Wes Unseld Bullets were a fickle bunch. In 1975, the team won 60 games and lost the Finals under K.C. Jones. In 1979, they won 54 and lost the Finals again.

In between, Washington failed to top 50 wins. Statistically, the 1978 season was the team’s worst effort of the stretch. Although 44 wins were somehow good enough for the No. 3 seed in the East at the time, the Bullets outscored their opponents by less than a point per game. They posted the lowest win total and worst differential of any post-merger champion.

Six players on this squad averaged double figures in scoring, but Hayes was the team’s lone All-Star and All-NBA representative. Unseld was well past his prime, and the team’s other standouts—Bob Dandridge, Mitch Kupchak, Phil Chenier, Kevin Grevey—were all of the “good, not great” variety.

A title is a title, and even these Bullets didn’t stumble into one by accident. But if Bird and Magic saved the NBA in the 80s, the “classic” Washington-Seattle duels that closed out the 70s were one of the reasons it needed saving.

Kevin McHale: Gone but not Forgotten

Apparently, it’s hard not to like Kevin McHale.

His players liked him. People who interviewed him liked him.

And for a long, long time, his boss, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, really liked him.

But if you’re a Wolves fans who followed the team through McHale’s 15 years with the organization, finding a few unkind words to describe the man they called “The Ostrich” might be a little easier.

Where to begin?

As a GM, he spent first-round picks on milk-carton cases like Paul Grant, Will Avery, and Ndudi Ebi.

He came out on the wrong end of two draft-day swaps, shipping out Ray Allen in favor of Stephon Marbury (who later forced his way out of Minnesota), and flipping Brandon Roy for Randy Foye.

He presided over the worst front-office scandals in sports that nobody talks about: The 2000 debacle in which the league stripped the Wolves of five first-round picks (one of which was later restored and turned into Ebi) after discovering that the team had an under-the-table deal to offer a huge future contract to...Joe Freaking Smith.

He paid the Clippers a first-round pick to take a disgruntled Sam Cassell off his hands, giving six years and $38 million to Marko Jaric in the process. He threw six years and $34.6 million at Troy Hudson after a single productive playoff series.

He signed Michael Olowokandi—on purpose.

When these moves somehow failed to produce a consistent winner, McHale took three different coaches to the chopping block. He axed Flip Saunders a season after his run to the Western Conference Finals and took over himself.

He hired Dwane Casey for a season and a half. Discontent with the team's 20-20 record, McHale whacked him too. McHale opted instead for Randy Wittman, who went 12-30 the rest of the way, en route to a 39-115 showing over a season-plus at the helm.

Wittman and McHale also presided over the club’s defining moment of the post-Garnett era: An April 2006 tank job against Memphis in which backup center Mark Madsen went 1-for-15 from the floor (and 0-for-7 from behind the arc) to secure a loss for draft position purposes.

When it came time to fire Wittman after a 4-15 start last year, McHale somehow managed to convince Taylor that the three coaches he had hired and fired—not the GM who had hired and fired them—were the real problem.

Back to the sidelines McHale went, losing eight straight games before going on a 13-10 "tear". That was just enough to ruin the team’s draft position in a season wasted by injuries to Foye, Al Jefferson, and Corey Brewer.

After enduring a 5-25 start, fans got to sit through an 8-28 finish. Minnesota posted the worst record in the NBA in three of the season’s five full months (December, February, and March).

It’s not surprising that new Wolves GM David Kahn decided to part ways with McHale going forward—It’s surprising that it took him three different meetings to make the break.

Keeping McHale in the fold would have been a slap in the face to the dozen or so Minnesotans who haven't left this team for dead yet. Letting him go is the first step toward putting the past few years of misery in the rear-view mirror.

McHale told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that Kahn “didn't really give me any reasons” for the decision.

We can think of a few.

Phil Jackson: Suitable for All Ages

Eleven years ago, in the wake of Phil Jackson's second three-peat, the front-page headline of the Chicago Tribune proclaimed "The Joy of Six."

How about the Power of 10?

There are plenty of ways to quantify Jackson's brilliance. He's won more titles and more playoff games than anyone else. He owns the NBA's highest winning percentage ever in both the regular season and the playoffs.

But if you're cataloguing Jackson's accomplishments, don't forget one that puts him in the rarest of coaching company: The ability to climb to the top of the mountain in multiple eras.

By my count, Jackson has now hoisted the trophy in three different eras: Jordan, post-Jordan (the Duncan era?), and post-hand checking (the LeBron era, if you're so inclined—or the "one-and-done" years).

The particulars of that third era are open for debate, but any way you slice it, Jackson has won titles in three periods that featured distinct tactics and styles of play.

He rose above the physical grind of the early 90s. He thrived in the isolation-dominated years that followed the '99 lockout. And he just putting the finishing touches on a title in the hands-off, three-ball-obsessed landscape of the modern game.

Just how long has it been since Jackson's first title?

In 1991, Arnold Schwarzenegger topped the box office in Terminator 2. Mariah Carey's self-titled debut album topped the Billboard sales charts. The Lakers still shared the spotlight with the Los Angeles Rams.

To put it another way, Jackson is one season away from being able to show incoming rookies championship rings that he earned as a coach before they were born.

The only NBA comparison that comes to mind is Pat Riley, who won the last of his four "Showtime" Lakers titles in 1988 before commandeering the Heat at midseason en route to the 2006 crown.

Just one other coach has won a title with multiple teams: Alex Hannum, who did so with the St. Louis Hawks in 1958 and the 76ers in 1967 (try saying that one three times fast).

After that, everybody else—Red Auerbach, John Kundla, K.C. Jones, you name 'em—did so in one run.

Outside of Jackson, Riley, and Hannum, the only other multiple-title winner who has gone more than two seasons between rings is Gregg Popovich. Pop certainly deserves credit for winning four championships over a nine-year period with two different groups (one with David Robinson and one without).

But in terms of cross-decade dominance, Jackson—with six titles in the 90s and four in the 00s—stands alone.

The NBA isn't the only league where that kind of staying power is hard to find. In the history of the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB, just 14 coaches or managers have won multiple championships with a decade or more in between.

Only five coaches or managers across the four major North American sports have won titles with multiple teams. And if Jackson wins another title (or starts another three-peat, for that matter), he'll join football's George Halas and hockey's Scotty Bowman as the only pro sports coaches to earn championship banners in three different decades.

Plenty of coaches who enjoy tremendous success in one era can't find their footing in the next.

Lenny Wilkens won a title in 1979, but got out of the second round just once over the next two and a half decades. Chuck Daly's comeback attempt with the Magic netted him a lottery season and a first-round exit. Rudy Tomjanovich missed the playoffs in his last five seasons as a coach.

Even Riley admitted upon retirement that in his view, "This game is now about younger coaches who are technologically skilled, innovative and bring fresh new ideas."

In other words, No Coaching For Old Men.

Except for Jackson, of course.

One has to wonder if Arnold and Mariah are jealous.