The Michigan Daily - Monday, November 7, 1994 - 3 [ 114I i I I I t] mul.j fjjjL, I 'i igy~i~: I ifigoI! M E ,, _ ,.. _ _ _ . _ _ _ . _ _ .. _. II Im Jones The NBA Hall of Famer talks about life in the professional ranks RACHEL BACHMAN Bach's Score Former NBA player and coach K.C. Jones, possibly the winningest man in NBA history, is returning to the league as an assistant coach for the Detroit Pistons after a two-and-a-half yearabsence from the game. Jones has won 12 World Championships as a player, coach and assistant during his xtensive NBA career. Jones, an assistant in Boston while current Pistons head coach Don Chaney played for the Celtics, won eight championships as a player, two as an assistant and two as head coach. Jones, 62, has coached three NBA teams - the Washington Bullets, Se- attle Supersonics and Boston - to a 522-252 record in his 10 years as a head coach. 0 Daily Sports Writer Tim Smith re- centlyspoke with JonesabouttheNBA, including the development of future star Grant Hill, the Celtics' glory days with Larry Bird, and the possibil- ity of once again becoming a head coach. Daily: How does it feel to be back in the NBA after a two-and-a-half year absence? Jones: I'm very happy about it. The ast two-and-a-half years I've been sitting at home, and there's nothing like sitting at home and missing what you enjoy most, and myself, that's be- ing in the NBA. D: What have you been doing to keep yourself busy? J: The past two years I've been doing a lot of traveling to Asia looking at an Asian league. I'm looking to start * pro league over there, which would be international for all the Asian coun- tries, which was a brand new idea by myself and Ralph Harding. But that's about all I've been doing the past two-and-a-half years. Be- sides that I've been playing a lot of golf. D: How do you like your role as an assistant after being a successful head oach for so many years? J: I'd rather be the man in charge, but since I got no calls and never got any interview, this is the closest I can get, and being an assistant is close enough. It gives me visibility and hope- fully this coming year, I'll be called for an interview and be given a job. D: What do you think of the Pis- tons' chances this season? J: The prospects look good, but 'men what we did in the summer is put together a very young team with some strangers in the form of veterans, such as Mark West and Oliver Miller and Johnny Dawkins. So we don't know each other, but the talent is here. It's going to take a while for the young ones to make mistakes and learn from them, plus getting to know each other and have that team chemistry. The season is promising. If we continue to improve defensively, the offense will take care of itself. D: Speaking of young players, how do you think the one young player, Grant Hill, who is supposed to be the future of the organization, is progress- ing so far? J: Grant Hill has a lot of whatMagic game, and he has the ability to deal with it, but we talk. D: Grant has a lot of pressure on him from the media and fans to do well this year. What does the coaching staff expect from him? J: Well the pressure is that every- one wants to say that he's another Jordan, and then when he doesn't get I the backboard and dunk it at the end of the ballgame. Larry Bird was smooth at the game and so great in every department that it was hardly noticed. But in that pack- age, you just saw greatness. D: If there was one characteristic about Bird that really stuck out in your mind, what would it be? J: The fire. He has fire. The fire motivated the talent. The great passing ability, the great shooting, the great rebounding, diving after loose balls when you're 20 points up. The fire did all that for him. Going from confidence to arro- gance. And with arrogance, I'm talk- ing about intelligent arrogance. That just made him great. D: What was your favorite game memory of Bird? J: Hitting three pointers. We needed a three pointer to win the ball game and he told the Phoenix Suns that he was going to get the ball and the three pointer, and that's what-he did. D: What was your best memory as a coach? J: (Bird) made something like 60 points when we were playing the Hawks in New Orleans. It was an incredible game. D: You've been in the league a long time, who is the best player you have ever seen? J: You really can't say who is the greatest player of all. The greatest en- tertainer of all I guess would be Jordan, but on the same level as Magic and Bird. I put them all on the same level. D: Do you think the NBA will ever be the same without those three? J: What you're talking about is these guys leaving who were entertain- ing people. The people came out to see them. Now you've got Shaq (Shaquille O'Neal), you've got (Charles) Barkley and you've got some newcomers com- ing up. As long as the league has parity then I think it's going to be fine. Somebody's going to step up. D: In your playing days, who was better, Wilt Chamberlain or Bill Russell? J: Russell was the best defensive player and the best team player. Wilt was the best scorer and the best rebounder, so they're both great at the same level. One who knows says this team will recover T he words escaped from Trent Zenkewicz's lips like air from a balloon. "No explanation," he said, in answer to why his football team had lost three games at home this year. It was just after Michigan's 31-19 headache at the hands of Wisconsin, and neither he nor anyone else seemed to know what went wrong. "I don't know," coach Gary Moeller said, his head rotating slowly, his eyes glassy. There are various "explanations" of Michigan's three-loss letdown-of- a-season: Not enough fire in the gut. Not enough spirit in the weight room. Not enough hands in a pass' path. Nobody can really say what's going on. After all, if Moeller doesn't know when this team will resurface from snorkeling in the bog of mediocrity, who does? Amber. As in Amber, the psychic who works out of her house on Stadium Boulevard, just a football's throw from Michigan Stadium. In this season of "We-just-didn't-execute"s and "I-don't-know"s, it was getting downright impossible to get some real answers about the fate of this team. What's a columnist to do? I went to Amber. Here's what she told me: "What they are going through right now, I think it's a phase," she said, 15 years of psychic practice behind her. "There's confusion on the team right now." Where's this confusion coming from? "There's bad energy there right now from someone who's bringing them down," she said. "It's their motivation. They're not motivated properly. I feel that they could've won the last few games if the motivation was right." Take into account, mind you, that this woman knows nothing about football. She did not know the names of the players until I told them to her. I said a name and she would tell me the feeling she got from it. (All of this I scrambled to transcribe by hand; tape recorders block her concentration.) Tyrone Wheatley? "I pick up good vibrations for him. He's got his heart in it." Todd Collins? "I feel that he's good at what he does, but there's complications in his life right now. It's difficult for him to focus. Something's going on in his life (outside of football)." Gary Moeller? "I don't pick up good vibrations through him. He's not doing what he's supposed to be doing. He's not what he appears to be. When you said the name, energy went through me, energy that wasn't right." Could he be the root of the problem? "It's pointing in his direction." Amber was very apologetic in her assertions, stressing that she didn't want to criticize anyone. But her feelings, passed down through three generations of women in her family, were undeniable. Then I got to the nitty gritty. Which bowl game are we going to this year? The Citrus in Orlando? The Holiday in San Diego? The (gulp) Hall of Fame Bowl? "I see water, lots of water." Not a big help. "My feeling?" She thought harder. "It's pointing more toward Florida." There you have it. Make your reservations now, folks. But I didn't stop with this year. After all, no Michigan fan is satisfied with anything less than the Rose Bowl, right? I wanted to know when the flowers See BACHMAN, Page 8 DETROIT PISTONS (Johnson), Larry Bird, (Michael) Jor- dan had and that's the ability to be a great passer; he does that well. His shooting is going to come along. He's pretty good right now but he's going to be much better. He plays defense, he rebounds, he runs and he leads the fast break. That's the full package of the game, and not many first-round picks come in with those kinds of qualifications. Most first-round picks come in majoring in one or two departments. One is shooting, the other may be pass defense or rebounding, but not many have the four or five departments of the game. He has all that, so in two or three years he'll be considered a great ballplayer. D: Have you given him any special advice to make his rookie season a little easier? J: I talk to him about a lot of stuff. I talk to him about defense and what the pros are about. I tell him what to look for in defense, all the angles of the his 33 points a game they say he's no Jordan. So that's the bad part of heap- ing all that praise on him and saying that we expect him to be another Jor- dan. That's not fair to him. I expect Grant to be Grant Hill and play the game. He will have a chance to really play the game by being a starter and he will get there quicker as far as learning what the pro game is about. Then it's up to him. D: You were an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics when another ac- claimed rookie, Larry Bird, came into the league. How would you compare the two in terms of impact in their rookie seasons? J: I scouted Bird when he was in college - a phenom, and when he came into the pros, I knew that this was greatness that we were going to look at because I saw what he could do in college. Here's this guy who's 6-foot-9 and can lead the fast break, shoot three pointers and then throw the ball against i qw, i STICKERS Continued from page 1 leading eighth goal of the season. She ended the season with 18 points, just one point behind team leader junior Gia Biagi. The Buckeyes retaliated with 19:43 maining in the half. Attacker Cori Buck controlled a pass from the conference's leading scorer, Dawn Pederson, and put the ball past Wolver- ine goalie Rachel Geisthardt to tie the game at one. Despite Michigan's 11-2 first-half shot advantage, the Buckeyes kept the Wolverines at bay, maintaining a I-1 Halftime tie. Michigan continued its shooting barrage in the second half, but Ohio State goalie Bev Perter stopped every- thing in her path. Perter finished the regular season as the second-ranked goalie in the conference with an .865 save percentage. She trailed only Northwestern's Donna Barg, who lead the conference with ten shutouts and a .867 save percentage. .he did a good job and she did hat she had to do," Irvine said. Geisthardt's success rate was not as impressive. Almost 14 minutes into the second half, the Buckeyes took the lead forgood when their leading scorer, Britta Eickhoff, tallied her 21st goal of the year with a shot inside the circle. "Wejust let them bring it down and walk it in to our zone," Irvine said. "I thought we were still in the game and we could pull it out though." Ohio State put the game out of reach with 3:06 remaining. Amy Gabrilla notched her second assist of the day when she helped Dawn Pederson score the game's final goal. "We didn't want to admit it was over," Irvine said. "But it really felt like everyone got down after the third goal." Geisthardt finished the afternoon with a mere four saves on seven shots. On the season, Geisthardt allowed 2.25 goals per game. The Wolverines' season-ending 9- I1 record marks the first time Michi- gan coach Patti Smith finished with a sub-.500 season. Prior to this season, Smith's worst season was her inaugu- ral one at Michigan when the Wolver- ines went 9-9-2. BOOTS ~ BOOTS ~ BOOTS We have the largest selection of winter boots. Action Sports Wear 663-6771 419 E. 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