Sonics made Weiss decision with coach

Bob Weiss may not be Mr. Sonic, but he is an original Sonic – and that’s every bit as good for those with a soft spot for silly lore and lost causes.

Weiss may have one of those himself.

He should. He was one of Seattle’s selections in the National Basketball Association expansion draft that gave birth to the SuperSonics in 1967 – he and Walt Hazzard, Rod Thorn, Tom Meschery and other assorted expendables, all of whom apparently had a much better time in coach Al Bianchi’s flea circus than their 23 victories would suggest.

“Every player on that team was just happy to be there,” Weiss recalled. “Even though we weren’t very good, it wasn’t like a team that had been around 12 years and not doing well. And we had our moments.”

One happened to come on Thanksgiving 1967 in Philadelphia, where the Sonics and Boston were the undercard to the Sixers and the other expansion tomato can, San Diego, on one of those old doubleheaders that spoke to the NBA’s rather desperate marketing at the time.

“They had Russell and Havlicek and that whole great team, and we beat them by 44,” Weiss said. “Tom Meschery was bouncing off the walls – nobody beat the Celtics by 40. It was one of those nights. Jack McMahon (then coaching San Diego) walked in late in the game, and since the scoreboard didn’t have the names of the teams in those days – just ‘Home’ and ‘Away’ – he thought, ‘Oh, poor Bianchi’s getting killed again.’ “

That was actually Weiss’ first full season in the NBA. There have been 38 more since, and affiliation with 11 different franchises.

He’s a three-star survivor. Even coached the Los Angeles Clippers and kept his career alive to be a head coach again.

The strange convergence of circumstances that elevated Weiss back to that status – this time with Seattle – detours through the Spokane Arena tonight at 7, when the Sonics make their annual stop to play the Portland Trail Blazers.

Surely you read either in your morning paper or Soap Opera Digest this past summer of Portland’s wooing away of Nate McMillan after two decades as a player, assistant and head coach of the Sonics, the only NBA employer he’d known. There was considerable jing involved, naturally, but also a curious case of mutual disaffection among McMillan, Seattle ownership and Sonics players – even after they’d won 52 games and restored the franchise to some measure of competitive relevance.

Also, getting their pockets picked by Team Freak Show down the freeway bordered on a civic embarrassment, whether Sonics management admitted it or not.

But instead of salving their sensibilities with a boutique hire, they elevated Weiss, a Sonics assistant since 1994 – mostly on a show of support from Seattle players.

Let’s hold off on the inmates/ asylum analogies until at least midseason, OK?

Until he saw the whole thing begin to unfold, the 63-year-old Weiss was fairly certain he’d never be a head coach again.

“I just didn’t think this job would open up for about 12 years,” he admitted, “and I was very content to be working with Nate.”

But his competitive Jones hadn’t been dulled by too many seasons as second chair.

“As an assistant, you’re involved – but you’re more of a spectator,” Weiss said. “As the head coach, you’re more in the same situation as you were as a player, and as a result the ups and downs are a lot higher, and that’s more gratifying. That’s why I wanted to give it another shot.”

Probably it didn’t hurt that he wasn’t getting saddled with the Clippers again. For the first time, Weiss isn’t stuck trying to find all the lugnuts for the wheels.

Or how did he put it at his introductory press conference? “We don’t have any players on a respirator.”

As opposed to his stay at San Antonio in 1987-88, where David Robinson came along to fill Larry Brown’s cupboard after Weiss had been fired.

Or the three seasons at Atlanta, where Dominique Wilkins had already had his best years.

Or the year with the Clips when they helpfully traded off Danny Manning to watch Wilkins limp toward retirement.

“You’re always happy for the opportunity,” Weiss said, “but a lot of times you step into those rebuilding situations as a young coach and because you don’t have the pedigree yet, you don’t have a lifeline – and it’s easy to pull a plug on a guy like that. Larry Brown will get the extra two or three years he needs because of his pedigree. But otherwise your window of opportunity is pretty short.

“I didn’t feel that much pressure that first job with San Antonio. I actually was given a new contract in December my second year – my owner tore up the old one and extended me. But he sold his position in the team and the new owner, Red McCombs, wanted to make his own splash and he had a chance to get Larry Brown, so he did.”

He’s no longer a young coach, but that doesn’t diminish the pedigree issue.

Weiss was both a safe hire and a risk – safe because the club knew him thoroughly from his long service, and also because of the salary savings from not having to meet McMillan’s price. The risk is that management so eagerly bought in to the players’ wishes – which at least in part were based on knowing Weiss isn’t anywhere near the harpy McMillan had become.

Already, All-Star Ray Allen has referenced Weiss’ commitment to the running game, and others have noted their relief in escaping McMillan’s style of discipline.

“It may sound like a small thing,” Allen told the Seattle Times, “but I think Bob is less concerned with things that don’t have to do with basketball.”

Nonetheless, Weiss maintained that he’s “comfortable making the tough decisions.

“The minutes are your big hammer, because all these guys want to play. And they’re all competitive. They want to win, they want to work hard, and they want to do the right thing – and, yeah, every once in a while a player gets a little more interested in himself and then you have to deal with the problem. I think the biggest difference (between himself and McMillan) is that I have the ability to step back and take a deep breath every now and then.”

In a sense, that’s what the franchise did, too. And they couldn’t have stepped back any farther than to hire Bob Weiss.