Friday, July 16, 2010

He's Ba-aa-ack: Bay Area Hack

He's back.

Errr, rather, he's a back. Not a fullback. Running back. Or cornerback too. Not a halfback, throwback or even paperback glue.

But 'back' (also baack). As in Bay Area Hack.

How do you become a baack?

Connect dots to spots which, when further examined, are nothing but $hit$tain$ of derivative speculation. Tweet samples via Twitter. Rely on parrots to retweet.

Today's baack: Matt Steinmetz of Comcast Sports Network San Francisco Bay Area.
Spoelstra Likely on Warriors' Short List for Coaches
Now that the Warriors have a new owner, could Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra be the next head coach? It certainly is possible.
Mandalay Entertainment CEO Peter Guber and Menlo Park businessman Joe Lacob have reached an agreement in principle to purchase the Warriors from Chris Cohan for approximately $450 million.

Now, take a look at the hierarchy of the Mandalay Group, and you’ll see an interesting name near the top: Jon Spoelstra, vice chairman of marketing for baseball properties.

That would be Erik Spoelstra’s father.

Erik Spoelstra is currently the head coach of the Miami Heat, but there have been indications that president Pat Riley is interested in moving to the bench – particularly after Miami signed LeBron James and Chris Bosh and re-signed Dwyane Wade recently.

Warriors current head coach Don Nelson has one more year remaining on his contract, but it is possible – and some say likely – that he will not begin the year as head coach of the Warriors.

The elder Spoelstra was the president and CEO of the New Jersey Nets for three years, and he also was the senior vice president and general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers for 11 seasons.

Erik Spoelstra has been the coach of the Heat for the past two seasons, going 90-74 during the regular season and making the playoffs each year.
From Jon Spoelstra's bio:

Jon is president of SRO Partners, Inc., a sports marketing company that specializes in team and event marketing. Clients are the Sacramento Kings, the San Francisco Giants, the Toronto Raptors, the LPGA tournament in Portland, the Portland Forest Dragons (the Arena Football League team in Portland), a pro soccer and pro basketball team in Japan, and other major and minor league teams in the U.S.

Got that? Daddy has a job with a firm that just bought into an NBA team. So, according to Steinmetz, son could "likely" join team connected to daddy's firm because following daddy is what sonnies do. Always. Forever. Until they don't.

Yeah but ... what about 2006? When Pat nudged SVG aside? And 2010? When Riley, pre-July, wouldn't rule out a return?

Ask Shaq about 2006. Or Stan. Because it was O'Neal who engineered Riley's takeover after persistently butting heads with Van Gundy over "philosophical differences", i.e., SVG moving Shaq around on and off the ball/block. As for 2010, Riley merely anticipated the usual tea leaves wrongly suggesting LeBron would demand a HOF coach before committing to Miami.

Otherwise, Erik "likely" has/could/will in the past/present/future -- according to Steinmenz -- become a shorty for the Kings, Raptors, a pro soccer and basketball team in Japan,  an Arena Football team in Portland, the San Francisco Giants and, the mother of all dream jobs, an LPGA slot linked to an LPGA tournament in Portland.

FORE!