August 31, 2020
The Sixers are one of several teams looking for a coaching upgrade to push them to the next level this offseason. Will they be able to beat out the Brooklyn Nets in the eyes of coaches looking to contend, or the New Orleans Pelicans for coaches looking to put their stamp on a developing program? That remains to be seen.
Last week, another name popped onto the coaching market: Nate McMillan, most recently the head coach of the Indiana Pacers. To the surprise of many, McMillan was given the boot following a recent pseudo-extension, thanks to Indy being swept out of the first round by Miami. But McMillan took ownership himself following the loss, telling The Athletic he took responsibility for the team's early exit despite Domantas Sabonis' absence.
“If we had gone down there with that full team, a healthy team, and lost, I would have made the decision for them. But I understand, sometimes you have some bad luck," McMillan told Bob Kravitz last week. "You’ve got to take responsibility for what happens on your watch. And we failed to advance, so I have to take responsibility for that.”
Almost immediately, McMillan's viability as a candidate for the Sixers job came up amongst readers, to the point that it felt appropriate to discuss at length rather than as part of an offseason mailbag. McMillan's name hasn't come up as a potential option yet, as some other big names did last week, but his profile is worth discussing anyway.
In some ways, the McMillan's Pacers are the team Sixers fans wanted their team to be. Offensively challenged though they may have been, the overall level of commitment and their focus on defense night-to-night gave Indiana an air of professionalism. That's a good place to start.
Given the talent on hand, it seems fair to say the Pacers overachieved throughout his tenure, and at the very least met expectations in an increasingly competitive Eastern Conference. The Pacers actually improved the season after Paul George left town, with Victor Oladipo's breakout season the spark for a reasonably deep attack.
Oladipo's first All-Star campaign dovetails with a belief that McMillan gets a lot out of his players. While Oladipo's leap may mostly have been about timing and opportunity, the degree to which he broke out reflects well on McMillan and the structure in Indiana. It wasn't just an offensive breakthrough either: Oladipo led the league in steals by almost half of a steal per game in 2017-18, doubling his average from the previous season in Oklahoma City.
It's tricky to dole out credit for player development a lot of the time because of how much work is done away from the team and out of season. That remains true when evaluating McMillan, but his ability to get more out of players in unexpected ways is a point in his favor.
Take T.J. Warren for example, who Sixers fans are familiar with after his flamethrower performance against Philly to open the restart. Warren arrived in Indiana with a reputation as an uninterested, largely incompetent defender.
That changed with the Pacers. With Warren willing to at least compete, he went from an active negative to about a net-neutral on defense, a change more significant than it sounds. That improvement made it easier to appreciate his offensive contributions.
From a leadership perspective, McMillan is neither a screamer nor a church mouse, balancing the need for discipline with an appreciation for relationships. "Accountability" doesn't mean berating players and throwing chairs, and one of McMillan's strengths historically has been using a firm hand without compromising a calm, steady demeanor. It's not unfair to believe a coach can push this group forward with buy-in alone, and McMillan's track record on that front is among the strongest on the market.
Under McMillan, the Pacers have had one of the least "modern" offenses in the league. If you are looking for a coach who is going to add some creative juice to a roster that needs outside-the-box thinking, McMillan is not the guy.
The first point many people will bring up is Indiana's reliance on long two-point shots. They trailed only San Antonio and Washington in attempts from 15-19 feet this season and ranked dead last in threes attempted per game. That's enough for an open-and-shut case for some people. You're not going to win high-level games without valuing the three-point shot. The Pacers have been in the bottom five in attempts every year he has coached them despite ranking well in efficiency from deep, including top-five finishes in three-point efficiency in 2018-19 and 2016-17.
Old-school types have often bellowed the Sixers shoot too many threes, and maybe that means they'd like McMillan. You could even explain away this problem some by pointing to team construction since two of Indiana's best players (Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis) are big men. But that oversimplifies the issue.
An offense that settles for mid-range shots isn't just turning down threes, it fails to generate free-throw attempts because players are not creating contact around the rim. Again, the Pacers ranked dead last in free throws attempted this season, ranking no higher than 23rd during McMillan's four seasons in charge. That's where the team construction argument begins to fall apart. If this was simply about playing through your bigs in the paint more, the lack of threes could be offset by trips to the line, but that never happened for Indiana.
The Sixers need basically the exact opposite from any coach taking over this team. Tobias Harris already passes up too many open threes to take contested, leaning shots from the mid-post, and any coach coming in needs to facilitate an offense where Harris, Ben Simmons, and every non-Embiid player to get to the free-throw line more. That has never been McMillan's M.O., nor does it seem likely he would dramatically change how he views the game 20 years into his coaching career.
Undermanned though they may have been against Miami in Round 1, Indiana's 4-0 defeat epitomized the struggles of McMillan's tenure. Offensively, the Pacers would go long stretches of time with little ball movement or off-ball actions, and they have consistently struggled to beat switching defenses as a result. That's a problem in today's NBA and today's Eastern Conference especially. The smaller, more athletic big men that are in vogue handle 1-5 pick-and-roll switches better than ever, and McMillan's teams have struggled to combat that problem with schematic tweaks.
His refusal to adjust is a big-picture concern, but also an issue within the setting of a playoff series. McMillan, who coached the Blazers from 2005-2012 and the Sonics from 2000-2005, has not been to the second round of the playoffs since his last year in Seattle. Outside of a valiant seven-game battle with the Cavaliers in 2017-18, his Pacers teams were swept out of the playoffs every year. The same steadiness that allowed the Pacers to deliver night-to-night professionalism in the regular season was a liability against teams and coaches who could execute stylistic changes and opponent-specific tweaks in the playoffs. It is hard to dismiss 16 seasons worth of results between three different franchises.
McMillan fits the qualities of the sort of person you want as a head coach. He is a leader who commands respect without alienating people to do so. But he has either been unwilling or unable to adapt to the way the league works now, either through his own self-led changes or the hiring of coordinators who make up for his blind spots. To use an NFL lens for a moment, he's the equivalent of a run-heavy coach who has shown no inclination to trust or empower anyone who wants to throw the ball more.
In any case, it might be a moot point. McMillan recently told a reporter he would be sitting out the next season to reflect, and the Sixers don't have a year to waste. He doesn't feel like the right man for this particular job.
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