McMillan is shaping up to be my kind of coach. He tells it like it is, lays the smack down; but also sees the bigger strategic picture.

McMillan perhaps read the board again and took the advice of the vocal minority (even seemed to use the exact same examples as the posts: Kobe and the Lakers, Jordan and the Bulls); and if Sunday night against the Bucks is a sign of things to come, this team is going to the playoffs because of it.

Just to recap, McMillan tore into his players after the Laker game, meeting with Vin Baker, and Gary Payton specifically about working within the confines of the team's offense.

Sunday night, they did just that and if the Sonics had a center to patrol the paint, no telling what the final score would have been. The Sonics looked like a team that was going somewhere, a team that was in control of its own destiny.

That wasn't the case a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago one had to factor how well other teams were doing to even think about the playoffs. The difference now is we won't have to worry about how other teams are doing; they may need to start worrying about how we are doing.

Seeing that now, when the Sonics lose; the loss will afford the Sonics an opportunity to collectively get better; something they haven't done very much in 3 seasons. They will know why the system failed (instead of them failing the system) and will work towards becoming cohesive and consistent.

Turnovers should go down, practice should take on a different toll, when building and perfecting a system you shouldn't have to constantly lecture about fundamentals. After awhile you graduate to intricacies.

We've been losing for several years with the "these young guys got to step up" or the "we got to hit shots" rationale for losses, and that doesn't leave much substance to build upon and learn from.

From a coach's standpoint, that is shit on a stick.

Operating within a system

A Basketball game is essentially two organizations competing towards a limited resource -- a win. It's the basis of all competition from sports, to chess, to war.

Could you imagine a group of Navy Seals or Army Rangers that as soon as they went behind enemy lines all go and do their own thing? Abandoning the military strategy and freelancing like Rambo's?

Abandoning the strategy, you effectively twist your Special Forces into guerilla fighting pawns -- the last thing a Commander wants to hear on a status report.

Even if one or two Rangers succumbed to the urge to freelance it could affect the coordinated movement and possibly cost the entire team the mission, and their lives.

What makes a special teams force effective is their ability to move in concert, the ability to carry out coordinated operations, practiced to perfection, tried and true.

In war, as in basketball, you never want to be drawn into a battle of guerilla combat. War, as in basketball, should always be carried out foremost strategically to maximize victories and minimize defeats.

When a strategy is eventually defeated you have to understand why the strategy fails, and from that failure learn, evolve, and prepare a stronger strategy from it.

When guerilla fighters lose a battle, because of its ad-hoc nature the only thing learnable is "war is no fun", or in the case of Russia's stance in Afghanistan or America's role in Vietnam, "why are we here?"

In pure guerilla warfare, the preparation one can do is a token formality; the general chance of victory remains as before, especially when in Sports where the rules are fixed and the talent -- for the most part -- level.

The Sonics cannot approach games from a guerilla standpoint, and this is the reason why McMillan got so furious at his floor leaders abandoning the offense.

It isn't Christmas yet, but I got what I wanted as the final hang-up with our strategy appears to have finally been resolved. I hope the change is the start of something special: the growth of this team as a whole. A similar growth Jordan and the Bulls had when they adopted the Triangle system, the same success the Lakers enjoyed by forcing Kobe to play within the offense.

This change should make it easier on all the Sonics players. They now will know where to go, when to cut, and where to end up, making it easier for our reserves to enter games and contribute.

I know a lot of us felt the Sonics had the talent to be far more effective then they were playing, struggling against a 2-11 Miami doormat, but they didn't know how to get the contributions out of all their talent.

Nate has now laid down the law and what he has to do now is stay on top of it, which I am confident he will.

Nate McMillan will be in Seattle for a long time as coach, and his implementing of a system will probably be the most important achievement in his conquest towards success.

In addition to having the respect of his players which is a growing problem in the NBA, having a good system will prove to be just as, if not more important then a glitzy roster (as Portland and others remind us of everyday).

Whatever system McMillan officially adheres to, the trials and tribulations of its effectiveness should lead to an evolved product that only gets stronger over time. That gives Seattle a solid foundation for the future, to not just avoid the lottery but to have the chance to be something special.

It's such a fundamental concept and yet so many teams let their players ignore it; they do so at their own peril.

In this NBA, there is no way around not having a system and no one can merely buy a championship. Shaq and Kobe didn't win any titles until Phil Jackson came along. The Bucks didn't have any success until George Karl directed the franchise. The 76ers didn't have any success with Iverson until they moved the improvisational guard from PG to SG.

Of course things like personnel are important, but the system in place separates the average team from the elite team. That is to suggest, a general manager can provide the paintbrush, but only the coach can turn paint into art.

Nate is our Artist -- and has taken command of the brush.

Back to the Far Corner Archive

All opinions expressed in this column are solely the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of other columnists or staff of Sonicscentral.com