Denver coach Michael Malone spent his 60th day inside the NBA bubble at Walt Disney World on Friday, and he’d like two things known.
One, he misses his family.
Two, he doesn’t understand why they aren’t with him now.
Malone — offering perhaps the most impassioned plea of any coach who has spoken on the topic — railed against the policy that says coaches are unable to bring family or a guest into the bubble. Some players were reunited in the bubble with family members or guests for the first time this week, and referees had the option of bringing one guest into the bubble.
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“I say, ’Shame on you, NBA.’ This is crazy,” Malone said. “I miss my family, and I think I speak for me, I speak for my coaches and probably all the coaches down here — 60 days and not having access and not being granted the privilege to have my family come here, to me, is criminal in nature. And that shouldn’t be. Shouldn’t be at all.”
It might not be that way as the playoffs move along. Miami coach Erik Spoelstra — who previously criticized the policy — said the league’s head coaches, led by Dallas’s Rick Carlisle, are lobbying for change and that the NBA “hasn’t totally, absolutely, 100 percent shut the door” on the notion.
“I understand that these are not easy decisions, and this is not a normal period of time in our history,” Spoelstra said. “This is unprecedented. You can’t compare this to anything else. You’re trying to put together something that has protocols, that has structure, that is working in a world where there is COVID and a global pandemic . . . The more people you add to it, then you’re also increasing the risk of something happening.”
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The league worked with Disney officials as well as health authorities to determine how many people could be safely allowed inside the so-called bubble. The restart began with 22 teams; only eight remain, and the population drop allows room for family members and in some cases additional team staff to enter the bubble.
Spoelstra said the league’s head coaches simply want the NBA to consider the request and revisit the policy. He hasn’t seen his wife and two young sons since the Heat left for Lake Buena Vista two months ago.
“We’re not in the military. We don’t have a background in this,” Spoelstra said. “I miss my family dearly. These are extraordinary times and this is an extraordinary opportunity here in this bubble. So, I get it. This is not easy.”
Woodson signs on to assist Knicks
Mike Woodson, the only Knicks coach to win a playoff series in the last two decades and the last one to even reach the postseason, is coming back to New York as an assistant on Tom Thibodeau’s staff.
Woodson was one of the assistant coaches announced Friday by the Knicks, who hired Thibodeau as their coach in July.
The Knicks had already said that longtime Kentucky assistant Kenny Payne had left John Calipari’s staff to join Thibodeau. They have now added Johnnie Bryant as associate head coach, and Woodson and Andy Greer as assistant coaches.
Woodson originally joined Mike D’Antoni’s staff as an assistant for the 2011-12 season, becoming the interim coach when D’Antoni resigned in March of that season. He guided the Knicks on an 18-6 finishing kick to earn a playoff spot and the full-time job.
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He then led New York to a 54-28 record in 2012-13, winning the franchise’s first Atlantic Division title since 1994. The Knicks beat Boston to reach the second round of the postseason for the only time since 2000.
But the Knicks hired Phil Jackson as president late in the 2013-14 season and he didn’t retain Woodson after the Knicks narrowly missed the playoffs. They haven’t returned to the postseason since, a seven-year drought that matches the longest in franchise history.
Woodson, who also led Atlanta to three postseason appearances before going to New York, worked on Doc Rivers’s staff with the Los Angeles Clippers from 2014-18. Thibodeau was an assistant to Rivers in Boston, and Rivers joked Friday that Woodson was “going to work more hours than he’s ever seen in his life” under the demanding Thibodeau.
“I’m also just amazed that Woody, when you look at his record, that he didn’t have a head coaching job already, but it is what it is,” Rivers added. “He’s going back to New York, he’s very happy. I’m happy to see two of my assistants working together now and I just love what Thibs is doing in New York. I think they’re going to be successful and I can’t wait for them to be that.”
Greer is also a former Knicks assistant, working there from 2001-03, and was later an assistant to Thibodeau in both Chicago and Minnesota.
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Bryant spent the last six seasons as an assistant with the Utah Jazz, who lost in the first round of the playoffs. Also, Daisuke Yoshimoto was hired as an assistant to the head coach.