What would you think about someone like Dwane Casey….Head coaching (NBA) experience and ties to the Seattle recruiting base thru AAU.

he has a ton of nba experience, player-coach ect…..kids like thames want someone who can get them to the NBA and knows the NBA
defensive minded, and played for bennett, making it more likely he’d keep some of the assistants which help sort term long term

he’s been an nba coach, where the other canidates we are looking at don’t have 1 win coaching in a major conference

he doesn’t care about $$$$, already rich

new challenge, he’ll bust his ass, i’m guessing he likes to win

i’m not sure if he is, but he won’t have to make decesions based on his families needs every year which is what bennett’s excuse will be until he has his dream job (vaild or not)

I think this would be an interesting hire, and ultimately a good thing for the program. He would give instant credibility to recruits (and lets face it, all of the players current and letter of intent guys are recruits now). He would keep the Bennett system, which I love and think needs to be kept around. He is also already a multimillionaire so maybe he would not jump ship so quickly. Also, I hate to bring race into it but hiring a black coach is interesting, especially considering the success that Rav had in recruiting. Just my thoughts, but I am on board with Porter.

I can’t really put my finger on it but Porter seems like a very bad fit for WSU.

He’s never been a college coach before, never had to deal with recruiting a player etc. I vote no.

What do you think is harder, dealing with 42 games of travel, a bunch of rich babies with massive ego’s, huge pressure from a front office and city…

Or recrutiting (which your assistants do a lot of) and dealing with 18-22 year olds who for the most part look up to you and want to be the type of player you were.

I’m not saying Porter is our dream guy….but how many Ex-Pro coaches have just thrown their name out there to coach in Pullman?

Take nothing away from Bone, his experience comes from assistant coach at UW and 3 good years at a Big Sky school. T. Porter has played in the finals and coached numerous season in the greatest leauge in the world.

I think if Porter interviews well you have to give him a hard look.

with no previous head coaching experience in college do, but who’d played in the NBA?

I grew up a Blazer fan, right in the middle of the great Drexler, Porter, Kersey teams. As a person, you won’t find a more stand up guy then Porter. He’s a great community member, a solid individual, and that probably reflects on his college coaches to some degree.

Here is why I say it’s a bad hire. Porter’s weakness as a player was that he melted under pressure, made crucial mistakes. He overthought things. Seemed to be true as coach of the Suns, he micromanaged and overthought everything. I’m just not convinced that Porter is a good coach, let alone capable of being a good coach in college where he has never coached before.

I love the Bennett’s, but it’s time to move on. I feel hiring Porter might be a move to keep the ties to the Bennett’s alive. There are coaches that have experience doing what we need to do now, recruit players and mold them into a system. That is specifically the experience Porter lacks. Is it possible that he would be a natural recruiter that can keep all of our players/signees and bring in more talent. Yes. It’s also possible that his coaching style will work in college. We have no proof of that though, and now is not the time to throw a hail mary.

Dnews.com is reporting that he was spotted on the campus with Dick Bennett today. That sounds too odd to be true on April fools day. But the fact that this has stuck around all day leads me to believe its not just one or two people pulling a prank. I guarantee you one thing, If Dick was on campus with Porter today and they both met with Sterk, he is the front runner by far for the gig.

Nuss,

Here is my logic having more time to think about everything. Bone is the safe pick, Porter is the sexy pick. Here’s why.

IMHO Porter has more potential to keep ALL of our team together including: Thames, Motum and Simon more specifically. The appeal of a guy who is fresh out of the NBA has to be very appealing! Can you imagine Porter calling Motum and saying, “Yeah, I spent the last year working with Stoudemire and Shaq, I might be able to help you develop your game.”

“Hey Thames, do you see yourself more as a Steve Nash type or Jason Richardson? I worked them both.”

“What was it like playing against Magic, Bird, Jordan? What does it take to be successful and get into the NBA from a small school? I’ll tell you.”

Terry Porter will give us the first legitimate chance of pulling a McDonald’s All-America level talent. Ken Bone will never ever get there regardless of how good he makes Pullman.

I think the continuity is there with Porter and he keeps the assistant coaches on board. Who knows when he bails in 2 years, then maybe Woodley and/or Johnson are ready. The thought he doesn’t have the college coaching experience, well he knows how to call plays and if he keeps some of the assistants in place I don’t see his NBA experience being unable to translate. If anything, it appears his coaching style is MORE geared toward college were kids will listen to you and buy in, than what he received from Phoenix. He had veteran players who were unwilling to adapt to his slowed down style. This shouldn’t be the issue with 18 year olds who are all ears.

Going back to Bone. I definitely will not be upset if we get him, but here is my other thought. It seems the main draw to Bone is he has the best chance of sticking around for longer. Well, does he? What happens when Romar decides to move on or Ernie Kent is relieved and he has a chance to move back to the west side of the state. We can no longer be naive and think he is going to stick around Pullman for 10 years. Heck, he might still be there at PSU in 3 years when Porter bails on us and we are in an even better situation by then. That puts him 3 years closer to the retirement talk and potentially Romar is cemented in at UW, and Ernie Kent has turned a leaf in Oregon or we get to see if he will bounce to Oregon if given the chance. If Tim Floyd will leave a very scary looking USC team for Arizona, then Ken Bone could bolt from WSU for Oregon or UW.

One of the first things I thought of was that Mychal Thompson spearheaded this interest. It will be interesting to see how serious Porter is about it and the vibe that Sterk is given on whether he really wants to be in Pullman or is just itching to coach.

Would he suggest a coach for his son if he didn’t think he was capable? Especially one he knows?