Portland Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts has had his name pop up lately in coaching hot seat discussion. The Blazers are playing nearly .500 basketball and are a fringe playoff team, but the blame may not belong solely on Stotts. Ask a Blazers player and they will say the blame does not belong on Stotts at all.
“We all know what’s going on,’’ veteran Ed Davis says to Jason Quick of NBC Sports. “The guys on the team, we read about it, and I know Coach does … that ‘Hot Seat’ stuff and things like that. Everybody sees it, and I know while I’m here, (along with) a bunch of the rest of the guys in the locker room, we are going to fight for Coach. Every night. There is no quit in us. He’s our leader.’’
Star point guard Damian Lillard says the team is behind Terry Stotts too and that the criticism he gets is unwarranted. “And I think it’s unanimous for a reason,’’ Lillard said of the players all backing Stotts. “Like I always say: we play for a great person, and whatever struggles that we have, it’s not his fault. I will tell you that: it’s not his fault.’’
Stotts is regarded as a “player’s coach”, a distinction that could also imply that a coach is soft. Lillard also rejected that theory of his head coach. “I don’t work well with soft people,’’ Lillard said. “So, if he was soft , I would be like, he soft. I would tell you, he soft. I mean, he will call guys out … and he will … he does his job. He’s not a guy trying to be a hard ass, but when he needs to harden up he will harden up.”
Portland sits at 20-18, with a pedestrian 9-10 record on their home court. While the players may not want a change in head coach, the hot seat talk would evaporate with some consistent play. Having the backing of the team’s star in Lillard is good for Stotts, but the only thing that will for sure save his job is winning.
