East Coaches Are Not Built to Last

They shoot coaches, don’t they?

Still further decline of the East?

It shouldn’t be possible for things to get any worse, but two more of the Eastern Conference’s coaches disappeared last week, suggesting two more programs in turmoil.

The New Jersey Nets’ firing of Byron Scott was laughable, even if everyone, starting with Scott, saw it coming as far back as last spring, when the team decided not to offer him an extension.

“It was mentioned to me that I’ve been coach longer than anyone else in our conference, and I think that’s a tragedy,” Boston’s Jim O’Brien said the next day.

“You take a good guy like Byron. He brought that team to the Finals the last two years. He turned around that franchise and did not even get his contract renewed. It’s a crying shame.”

Obviously overcome by grief, the dean of East coaches then proceeded to resign, himself, within hours.

The East’s new dean is Atlanta’s Terry Stotts, who just passed the 100-game mark (38-62), and is there only on a courtesy pass until the Hawks’ sale finally goes through.

An incredible 17 of 29 coaches are out of jobs since the end of last season, resulting in a scramble for such cliches as, “You can’t fire the whole team.”

Because 14 of the 17 are in the East, including five of the six who left this season, it might not be a coincidence, any more than that almost all of the big men and all of the teams with major salary-cap room are in the West.

It’s not that the entire East is mismanaged, only most of it.

Donnie Walsh rebuilt the Indiana Pacers, who could be good enough to stand up to anyone in the West. Detroit’s Joe Dumars made the unpopular choice of a foreign 7-footer, who’d just turned 18, Darko Milicic, over a ready-for-prime-time college star, Carmelo Anthony.

Orlando’s well-laid plans foundered on the loss of Grant Hill. Chicago looked like a rising power until General Manager Jerry Krause’s long-hoped-for successor, John Paxson, decided to junk the program a month into his first season.

Everywhere else in the East, the future seems to refer to next month.

O’Brien, low key and well liked, left with his head high, giving up the $6 million he was to get through 2006, just because he didn’t share new General Manager Danny Ainge’s “vision.” O’Brien was a Rick Pitino guy and let Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce take enough three-pointers to rank No. 1 and No. 10, respectively, last season, although they were Nos. 79 and 86 in accuracy.

Walker was sent to Dallas and shaped up immediately. Maybe if O’Brien had coached him, as Don Nelson has, they would still be together in Boston.

Ainge has something more traditional in mind, like championships. However, he made his own mistakes -- Ricky Davis? -- and is being baked over a slow fire like a pot of Boston beans by a press corps that tolerated M.L. Carr and Paul Gaston.

Remember when the Celtics outsmarted everyone, getting franchise players such as Bill Russell, Larry Bird and Dave Cowens after other teams passed on them?

Neither does anyone else in the East.

Net President Rod Thorn was in a hopeless position, knowing Jason Kidd’s distaste for Scott’s candor. Kidd, of course, protested his innocence, as he had at Cal when Lou Campanelli was fired and at Dallas when Jim Cleamons fell.

Thorn has his own problems, such as getting new ownership while giving Dikembe Mutombo and Alonzo Mourning $20-million payoffs. The team is going to Brooklyn but not until 2006. However long it takes, as the New York Post’s Pete Vecsey noted, “The Dodgers had a better shot of seeing Brooklyn than Scott.”

Meanwhile, in Manhattan, the Knicks have been down for so long, anything looks up to them, including their run up to No. 8 and the last playoff slot.

“The Knicks win three in a row and the whole city is rocking,” a delighted Commissioner David Stern told the New York Times’ Harvey Araton. “The New York Times, the Daily News -- that’s all anyone is talking about.”

I don’t know whether to congratulate the Knicks on developing a new breed of supportive fans, or predict that this will come to nothing when the fans figure out that while this team may make the -- drumroll! -- playoffs, it doesn’t figure to stay in them long.

I’ll stay with this coming to nothing.

They still pay off on titles, so it’s a mystery why Miami would cap itself out until 2007 for Lamar Odom, who might make the Heat a playoff team but can’t make it a champion if it doesn’t have another starter as tall as he is.

Is it possible Pat Riley figured that out in the preseason, which is why he left at such a weird time?

Then there was the Michael Jordan debacle in Washington; Toronto General Manager Glen Grunwald’s trading two big men and going with a front line of Chris Bosh, Donyell Marshall and Vince Carter; and Philadelphia’s giving Derrick Coleman, who is 36 and sat out 30 games a season when he was younger, a three-year, $13.5-million deal.

With management like that, more coaches are lined up like penguins on an ice floe.

Stotts might go at any moment. Randy Ayers’ Philadelphia 76ers are plummeting and the brass is on the road, looking over his shoulder. Boston’s John Carroll and New Jersey’s Lawrence Frank have interim deals. Orlando’s Johnny Davis looks lame, even if they just announced his return.

(Why?)

Meanwhile, the Lakers’ Phil Jackson is in his fifth season, Sacramento’s Rick Adelman is in his sixth, San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich his eighth, Minnesota’s Flip Saunders his ninth and Nelson his seventh. Only Nelson is in trouble and only because he works for Mark Cuban.

Building a team isn’t hard, at least in principle: Get a great player like Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Chris Webber or Dirk Nowitzki and build around him.

In the East, get the best player you can and if it doesn’t work out, fire someone before anyone remembers whose idea it was.

Faces and Figures

Still more trouble in Gotham: The Knicks’ Allan Houston, who sat out only 19 games in 10 seasons, benched himself, possibly until the All-Star break, to rest a sore knee. Asked what team physician Norman Scott had told him, Houston answered, “It doesn’t matter what Dr. Scott told me. I don’t care what Dr. Scott told me.” ... Still more trouble in Boston: With Vin Baker suspended for a second time for drinking, the Celtics might have grounds to void his contract, worth $36 million and running through 2006. However, to avoid a fight with the Players Assn., they may, instead, offer a settlement. In any case, Baker isn’t expected to play for them again.... Never mind: A day after resigning, O’Brien said he should have been more open-minded. Said Red Auerbach to the Boston Globe: “Knowing Jim as I do, I think it kind of built up in him and all of a sudden, one day he pops. And once you pop, sometimes you can’t unpop.”

All but forgotten in Orlando, Hill, whose left ankle has broken down three seasons in a row, says he’ll try it one last time. This time, however, it will be in the season’s last 10 games. If he doesn’t play more than 10 games, the Magic can get his $15 million-a-year salary off its cap by 2005. “[Hill’s doctor] said, ‘Get ready,’ ” Hill said. “He’s allowed me to do everything. He’s not holding me back at all. Now, it’s a matter of doing it repetitively. It’s building. It’s like knocking down one wall, then there’s another hurdle to jump.”

Still more trouble in Chicago: Scottie Pippen, on a guaranteed two-year, $10-million deal, says he’ll retire after this season. Pippen was a leader in Portland but has played only 20 games. Said Eddy Curry, asked about recent criticism by Pippen: “I have a couple of comments I could say about people but I keep them to myself. It doesn’t make what somebody says right, just because they’ve achieved a lot in the NBA. I’m happy for Scottie for achieving so much. But at the same time, he didn’t start out like he was. There was a growing period for him.”