Shouting matches happen in sports all the time, though not nearly as publicly as the Andre Miller / Nate McMillan spat from yesterday. Lots of Portland media members witnessed it and reported it, but few have gotten into the implications of what happened yet.
The Miller/McMillan Shouting Match: What’s Next?
Blazers Edge, SB Nation’s Portland Trail Blazers blog, did in this post. The major point? The incident reflects badly on both Miller’s and McMillan’s general approach.
In particular, the timing and matter in which Miller aired his frustrations was inappropriate.
Miller plays the single leadership position on a basketball team, is a veteran and claims to be a professional. His fundamental grievances involve increasing his playing time and receiving respect. Surely going head-to-head, yell-to-yell with his coach, in front of a group of mostly younger players, including multiple rookies, is not the message a team needs from a player in his position, no matter how legitimately frustrated. Miller must find a different, better way to communicate his frustrations and he has to find a different, better time to do that. Period. Even if he was 100% correct on every issue he raised this morning, he was dead wrong.
On the other hand, the Miller situation is very similar to what happened with Sergio Rodriguez last year. In both instances, McMillan had a point guard with a slightly different approach to the game than his ideal point guard, and in both cases, he has struggled to properly integrate their skills.
When McMillan spoke about himself as a player earlier this fall, the picture he painted was of the model teammate, a player willing to change positions and sacrifice his own minutes and touches for the betterment of his group. As he well knows, not every player approaches the NBA the same way. McMillan did the right things without needing to be told to do them. Since the summer, there’s a fair body of evidence that suggests Miller does not comport himself in this same manner.
The onus, therefore, falls on McMillan to do everything in his considerable power to avoid a Rodriguez rerun. To admit that his personality management style has not been as successful as his on-court strategy and that this time it’s happening to a potentially key player — one who is quite difficult to jettison — rather than a role player who will be quickly forgotten. Adjusting that management style does not necessarily mean altering his gameplans or rotations. But it does mean being more proactive in addressing questions of roles, team needs and, let’s face it, egos. The “My Door is Open” philosophy needs to shift to, in certain situations, “Hey, man, how’s it going? Got a minute?”
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