The Atlanta Hawks beat the Miami Heat 94-80 on Tuesday night as Nate McMillan, who was named the interim head coach on Monday afternoon, notched his first win since officially taking over.
McMillan had previously gone 2-1 filling in for Lloyd Pierce while he was away on paternity leave just last month.
In Atlanta, there have been three head coaches fired in the past year as United parted ways with Frank de Boer and the Falcons moved on from Dan Quinn. In both of those situations, the interim head coach did not receive the full-time job.
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So the question remains, does McMillan become a serious candidate for the job or is he going to be viewed the way Stephen Glass and Raheem Morris were?
John and Hugh take a look at the circumstances with the Hawks and why they feel this could be a different decision than was made with the other Atlanta sports teams.
“Doesn’t he have the inside track here," questions Fricke. “Raheem was always tied to the Dan Quinn regime and when it came to United you were always gonna move on (from Stephen Glass). But I think Nate McMillan is in a different position. He has a team that is OK, a playoff team that can make a serious run. And if they do respond to him, he’s got so much experience, he absolutely wins the job.”
Nate McMillan has been the head coach of three franchises previously (Seattle, Portland, and Indiana) before taking over Atlanta earlier this week and took each of those teams to the playoffs in multiple seasons.
“We all know that outside entities are usually brought in,” says Hugh Douglas. “I think it depends on how much better they play down the stretch. He’s being evaluated, and if the message is being received, then why change it?”
Nate McMillan has another quick chance to make a good impression tonight as the Hawks face the Orlando Magic before heading into the All-Star break.
