Mark Boyle's recent podcast with Hornets head coach, Byron Scott revealed how close Scott came to taking over the Pacers after Larry Bird stepped down as coach.
Mark Boyle: How close did you come to getting that job and do you ever wonder how your career might have gone had you landed it?Byron Scott: I still wonder and I thought, to be honest with you Mark, when I met with Donnie Walsh I thought I had the job. I was excited about it. I went home and talked to my wife and told her how the interview process went. From what I hear, it kind of went down to, Donnie wanted me and the owners wanted Isiah, so obvisouly the owners won. I think back to it and how, in my coaching career, if there had been any changes -- because I thought I would've been in a great situation here with some great guys and a great organization and I thought we would've had a lot of success as well. So every now and then I do think about that but obviously God wanted me to go to New Jersey and everything kind of worked out well for me there.
Oh, that hurts. I wonder if Byron would've been pushing Walsh to bring in Jamaal Tinsley ala Zeke. Speaking of which, to avoid shedding tears I simply have to laugh at this quote from Isiah Thomas from Tinsley's introductory news conference after the draft in 2001.
"He (Tinsley) plays a different kind of game," Thomas said. "He makes his teammates better. There hasn't been a stat invented for the things that a guy like him is capable of bringing to a team."
Well, that last sentence is certainly true.