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The clumsy, public dance the Lakers had with Jackson all but sealed the fate of D’Antoni, who never was afforded the goodwill of a passionate fan base and, as we all know, never had a chance from a talent standpoint. |
I’ve argued patience from the very beginning, urging the Lakers to hire him and pleading with fans to give him time to build a roster more conducive to his style of play. |
In retrospect I underestimated just how angry Lakers fans really are and how much spite and resentment they hold for D’Antoni, whose only real failure was not being the beloved Jackson. |
It’s an anger and bitterness I don’t believe will ever be resolved, especially with some inevitably rough years ahead of the Lakers as they try to rebuild from essentially scratch. |
Lakers fans probably don’t want to hear this, but barring LeBron James opting out of his contract this summer to take his talents to Hollywood — which isn’t happening — they’re in for a prolonged rebuilding process. |
It’s going to take a minimum of three years, if the exact pieces fall precisely into place, before the Lakers compete for anything substantial. |
Anything sooner requires miracles the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar falling into their laps. More likely, it might take even longer. |
D’Antoni never will survive such an undertaking. The fans won’t let him. |
I’m not one to let impatient, unrealistic fans sway my opinion, but in this case I see no other option than the Lakers parting ways with D’Antoni at the end of the regular season. |
It’s the one move the team can make to help stem the tsunami-like wave of anger that’s been building for three years. Coupled, of course, with a corresponding home-run hire to replace him. |
I don’t blame D’Antoni for this mess and I believe he’s a good coach in need of the very thing every good coach requires — talent. |
Even Jackson, unless you actually believe he’d still be slipping 11 rings onto his fingers without Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen or Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. |
But with the Lakers facing such an uncertain future, it’s best they clear the deck entirely and bring in a coach the fans can buy into, someone they will grant the necessary time to gradually improve, build and develop what certainly will be a young team. |
Someone they are patient with — provided, of course, they finally wrap their arms around the reality facing them. |
This won’t be a quick fix. There is no one out there, not even Jackson, who magically will turn the Lakers into a championship team. Progress next year is winning more than 40 games and the steady improvement of a young draft pick — unless the Lakers move their lottery pick for a young star like Kevin Love or Kyrie Irv... |
Even if they do bring in a Love or Irving, the Lakers will do well just to make the playoffs. |
The sooner fans truly accept that, the sooner they can seriously embrace the challenge of rebuilding. |
It starts by backing the new head coach. |
But that’s the trick, isn’t it? |
Finding someone the fans will stand behind, despite the tumultuous waters that still lie ahead and identifying someone players will respect — Bryant included — someone who will catch the eye of potential free agents and can be trusted to bring along a young roster. |
The easy part is firing D’Antoni. |
The hard part is finding someone who satisfies the Lakers’ various needs. |
Ollie, the former Crenshaw High star who just led Connecticut to the National Championship, could be that guy. |
He didn’t just replace Jim Calhoun, the legendary UConn coach Ollie played under. He immediately created his own legend by masterfully guiding the Huskies through the NCAA tournament. |
He’s young and bright and has NBA experience, having played 13 years in the league. |
More importantly, the relationships he built in the NBA coupled with his instant success at Connecticut guarantee him immediate respect upon walking into a locker room. |
“Kevin Ollie, he was a game-changer for us,” Durant said. “He changed the whole culture, I think. He might not say it, but I think he changed the whole culture in Oklahoma City. |
Need I remind anyone Durant is a potential free agent after the 2015 season? |
Fisher also would be an intriguing choice, given the goodwill he has with Lakers fans and his relationship with Bryant. |
He’s someone Bryant automatically will support and also someone the fans will grant the necessary time to in order to conduct the rebuilding process. |
Is it a concern he’s never coached before? |
Perhaps, but with Jason Kidd having success with the Brooklyn Nets and young managers like Joe Girardi and Brad Ausmus making the immediate leap from the playing field to the manager’s office, a growing trend seems to be developing. |
Identify young, intelligent, recently retired players as coaching and managerial candidates and hire them. |
I can’t think of a player who checks off all those boxes better than Fisher, who’s been a coach on the floor almost since the day he arrived with the Lakers in 1996. |
But the first step is parting ways with D’Antoni. |
And it’s one the Lakers must make as soon as the season ends. |
Damien Bueno is the Vice President for Strategic Industries and Markets, based in Melbourne. He joined SAP in 2007 from IBM, where he was Head of Public Sector Solutions, within IBM Global Services. |
Damien has been an influential thought leader, providing many Government agencies with sound strategic advice around maximising benefits from their business systems, to support the Australian Government’s policy initiatives and to improve agency operational efficiency. |
Recently, Damien has pioneered a co-investment model where SAP will contribute $100 million into Australian Government, designed to position SAP at the heart of Government’s new digital engagement with citizens. |
Damien has vast experience working with agencies on large business transformational projects, providing strategic advice as well as leveraging global expertise to ensure agencies have the right tools and expertise to undertake large transformation projects. |
Prior to working for IBM, Damien co-founded AlphaBlox Australia, a BI/Data Warehousing Consultancy and product development company, acquired by IBM in 2004. |
Damien holds a Bachelor of Economics and Graduate Diploma in Advance Finance from Monash University and is a Certified Practicing Accountant. |
Size is no longer a primary indicator of business success because the game is no longer about being big or small. Future performance is determined by the speed at which you can respond to market change. |
Many of the challenges faced by small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) remain unchanged – you need to find and retain customers in a competitive market, you have to plan for the future without taking your eye off the here and now, you need to grow your business without losing control. And of course there’s cash flow ... |
But in the digital economy, every business has access to similar market opportunities. For example, online stores mean you have the potential to serve a global audience while cloud technologies allow you to scale rapidly. |
With less red tape to cut through when making changes to everyday operations, SMBs have an important competitive advantage over larger rivals when it comes to making the digital shift. |
Acting like the business you want to be, not the one you are today, is a crucial part of being successful in the digital economy. Research from analyst house IDC shows the fastest growing SMBs are using cloud technologies to transform their business. |
When selecting the right mix of technologies, being clear about future growth ambitions and which partners can help is key. Agility and scalability are vital if you’re going to move at the required speed as your business grows, while ensuring business growth pains do not hamper progress. |
It’s important to select cloud-based technologies that can scale to meet your growth plans, making use of services that can be managed by technology partners so you can get on with running your business. This approach provides the capabilities needed today with the flexibility to add new ones as required. Importantly, ... |
Australian technology company Acurus is a great example because the business was doubling in size every six months. One of its core objectives was to provide a technology platform able to serve 300 employees, despite only having 60 full-time workers at the time. |
During its hunt for a new cloud-based management platform to help keep on top of its business processes, Acurus initially discounted SAP as too big and expensive for its needs – a common misconception held by smaller businesses. When given the opportunity, SAP demonstrated how it could support its business needs today ... |
Within three months of engaging SAP, Acurus was live on SAP Business ByDesign – the cloud-based application management software tailored for SMBs. Acurus now has real-time insights into business performance and processes, empowering employees to make smarter and faster business decisions. For example, greater transpare... |
While technology is fundamental to business success in the digital economy, SAP understands it’s a complex world for SMBs. In Australia, SMBs make up 86 per cent of our 4,000 customers. We also have more than 140 partners helping those SMBs solve specific business challenges and unlock new opportunities. |
Our SMB cloud technologies are built on the same principles that power some of the world’s largest brands. This means you benefit from services and technologies built on the lessons learned from a broad range of industries. We’re also investing heavily in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine lear... |
Stepping into the unknown is daunting regardless of whether you’re a large or small business. That’s why it’s never been more important to have the right partners around you. |
This is a sponsored article from SAP. |
Nikhil’s debut has audiences clapping hard — particularly in areas like Hassan and Chikkaballapur, where the pull of his grandfather and father, former Karnataka CM H.D. Kumaraswamy, is strong. |
His grandfather, former prime minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, was famous for catching 40 winks — but Kannada cinema’s latest flower, Nikhil Kumar, looks wide-awake in Jaguar, where he plays an anti-corruption crusader. Nikhil’s debut has audiences clapping hard — particularly in areas like Hassan and Chikkaballapur, where t... |
La dolce vita, you could say, life is sweet for such stars who look poised to enter the family business, politics, with a flick of glamorous wrists, a heart-stopping scowl, a memorable growl of mouthy dialogues. The path from silver screen to ballot box is crammed with cross-overs. From the legendary NTR and MGR to Jay... |
But like all dramatic kahaanis, this one has a twist. Film artists from political families are swearing off politics, instead promising, with filmi flourish, that cinema’s their only pyaar. Udhayanidhi, grandson of DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi (himself a script-writer) and son of M.K. Stalin (no grumpy Stalinist when he ... |
Publisher and home brewer Jon Alverson has opened Mighty Miss Brewing Company in conjunction with the revitalization project in downtown Greenville. |
Publisher and home brewer Jon Alverson is not a native of the Mississippi Delta. But with the opening of a new brewery and tap room, he’s clearly making his mark on the historic city of Greenville. |
Since 2013, Alverson, who migrated from Olive Branch and is originally from Mobile, has been at the helm of the Delta Democrat Times newspaper. But for the last 10 years, he’s been busy creating and perfecting his own craft beers and sharing them with others. |
Since that time, and in conjunction with the revitalization project in downtown Greenville, Alverson has opened Mighty Miss Brewing Company — the first of its kind in the Mississippi Delta. He’s created several craft brew recipes, four of which he’s distributing to restaurants and bars throughout the state. A fifth, cr... |
While Alverson’s craft beers had gained a loyal following in the Delta, his intentions never involved “going pro” and opening a brewery, until he was invited by businessman Bill Boykin to join the restoration effort. |
Founded in 2015, the Mighty Miss Brewing Company was financed by civic-minded individuals so committed to rebuilding and investing in their community, most of them never sampled the product. But confident in Alverson as the founder and operating partner, they have primal vision — like Boykin and the Mayor Chuck Jordan ... |
Mighty Miss Brewery was open for business on July 1 following a positive shift in legislation for craft breweries, formerly known as microbreweries. Prior to the passing of House Bill 1322, Mississippi was the only state that didn’t allow its breweries to sell their own product, a restriction proponents of craft beers ... |
The Tap Room at Mighty Miss is open four days — 10 hours a week. The bar seats 40 and the facility also hosts corporate and social events. Besides Hettig, it employs several part-timers as bartenders. And twice a week, customers can tour the brewery and observe the brewmaking process. |
Distribution accounts for 90 percent of the sales at Mighty Miss Brewing Company, and future plans include shipping to other states. |
Even so, while craft breweries around the country have proliferated, including Louisiana with 26, Alabama with 28 and Tennessee with 66, Mississippi seems to be at a standstill with nine. According to the Mississippi Brewers Association, California leads the nation with 623 and Washington staggers behind with 334. |
Christensen said in a state that favors traditional beers, the challenge for Mighty Miss is to acquaint consumers with a new taste experience. |
Prior to the July 1 opening, Mighty Miss participated in the fourth annual World’s Smallest Home Brew Festival in Greenville, which Alverson helps to organize. They drew a desired crowd of about 100. |
Christensen said, however, their Tap Room is more about the “experience” and the “opportunity for consumers to connect with their brand” more so than a driver for their business model. |
Demonstrating that regional pride, Mighty Miss names it beers after small towns in the Delta. |
Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) expressed outrage Monday at the allegation that Lehman Brothers was trying to give bonuses to executives, even as the struggling bank was preparing to ask the federal government for a bailout. |
Cummings spoke at a hearing on the bank’s collapse in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. |
Former Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld is expected to testify later in the day, where he will likely get a hostile reception from Cummings and other Democrats. |
“I wonder how he sleeps at night,” Cummings said of Fuld. |
Be honest: How many items on your to-do list are there simply because they’ve always been there? Like checking your email every 30 minutes, or having the weekly check-in meeting with the marketing team, or reading every article in an industry publication. |
On the other side, consider what activities you wish you had more time for, like reading books, going to the gym, calling loved ones, and so on. When the things you want to do most are less urgent, it’s easy to postpone them—and live life passing them by. |
As Cody McLain points out in this piece on Medium, this inconsistent prioritization of “mediocre” activities can seriously get in the way of your ability to spend time meaningfully and commit to what matters most. And when you agree to just fine routines instead of the essential and meaningful ones, you lose those oppo... |
And you’re right: Thinking of your choices as always in sacrifice of something else is certainly a negative way to live your life. But, McLain argues, it’s also a realistic perspective that ensures you’re weighing those decisions practically. |
That’s where the “Do not do” list comes in. Inspired by David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, this productivity tool is a way to consciously identify and limit those tasks that aren’t worth your time. That might look like limiting your Facebook usage or outsourcing those annoying weekl... |
So, now ask yourself this: What are you going to put on your “Do not do” list to make room for the things that matter? |
A lot of cars were destroyed when Hurricane Sandy hit, by falling trees, flooding parking garages, and general mayhem. That means many drivers will be shopping for cars in the months to come. |
To offer a helping hand, and secure as much of the market as possible, both Ford and Nissan have created programs to offer victims of the storm discounts on new vehicles. |
Nissan will offer employee pricing and discounted financing on Nissan and Infiniti vehicles to anyone who lost vehicles to flooding. The deal (with details to come tomorrow) will be available through January 2. |
Ford's Disaster Relief Bonus Cash program will provide a $500 discount on 2012 and 2013 Ford and Lincoln models, for purchase or lease. |
It is open to residents of areas affected by Sandy, if they can provide a copy of an insurance claim detailing property loss due to the storm. The offer is also available through January 2. |
Ford's program also allows qualified customers to delay payments for one or two months. |
Both men wen were taken by helicopter to University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital. |
Ware Funeral Home in Cynthiana will be handling Fryman's funeral arrangements. |
Hampton said speed and alcohol were factors in the crash. |
Hundreds convened outside of a mosque in Phoenix yesterday after a former Marine organized an anti-Muslim "rally." |
The rally initially was organized by a Phoenix man who says he is a former Marine who fought in the Iraq War and believes Islam is a violent religion. He led about 250 people who carried pistols, assault rifles, American flags and drawings of the Prophet Muhammad to the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix. |
That group was met by an equally sized group of protesters, some holding signs promoting love and peace, who came to show their support for the mosque and Muslim community. |
As the two sides argued and yelled, dozens of police officers formed a line between them and kept them separated. There were no reports of injuries or arrests at the protest, which lasted a couple of hours and gained attention around the country on social media. Phoenix police estimated about 500 protesters showed up, ... |
I’m having to sell my house. My family is going into hiding, an armed Ritzheimer, flanked by burly men wearing F--- Islam! T-shirts, told reporters at the rally. They’re calling for lone wolves to behead me. That’s terrorism right here in America. |
Doesn't the "event" he organized sound a lot like terrorism? |
“We must always help when and where we can,” Premier and Minister of National Security Michael Dunkley said today [Sept 2] following a series of telephone calls with the Prime Minister of Dominica and the Premier of Montserrat in the wake of the damage caused by Tropical Storm Erika last week. |
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