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Written by Les East | Friday, 13 November 2009 11:44 | Hornets News
NEW ORLEANS – Chris Paul says something had to be done to straighten out the Hornets, but he’s not sure the firing of Byron Scott was it.
“Obviously change needed to occur,” Paul said before the team’s shootaround Friday morning at the New Orleans Arena. “I’m not sure what should have happened. It’s not (Scott’s) fault. He played the cards he was dealt. It’s a tough situation.
“Coach was more than a coach to me. He was my mentor. He made me the player I am today. I put in a lot of hard work, but he’s the one who gave me a chance to play since I was a rookie.”
Paul said, “I’m just a player,” so he didn’t need to be consulted before Scott was fired Wednesday, but he said he should have been notified before he heard the news on TV.
“We’ve still got to play the games,” Paul said. “That’s what I told some of the guys. When the ball gets tossed up it’s all about basketball. In this league change happens every day. I hope we can turn it around. It’s all about winning.”
New head coach Jeff Bower, the team’s general manager, and new assistant coach Tim Floyd, the team’s former head coach, conducted their first practice, albeit it a limited one typical of gameday, shortly after Paul spoke to a large gathering of reporters.
Floyd, who moved back to New Orleans on June 9 after resigning from USC, said he was surprised when Bower called him Wednesday to ask if he was interested in returning to coaching.
“When we moved back I had not even entertained the thought (of this happening),’ Floyd said. “When Jeff called I was really excited. There had been other opportunities, but this seemed like the perfect fit.”
Floyd said his relationship with Bower, whom Floyd hired as his assistant when he was named Hornets coach in 2003, was one of the things that made the offer attractive.
He said he needs to get caught up on the Hornets’ personnel, though he did coach David West when West was a rookie and has seem the team play on television.
Floyd has not been an assistant coach in 23 years, when he was at Texas-El Paso. Since then he has been head coach with the University of Idaho, the University of New Orleans, Iowa State, the Chicago Bulls, the Hornets, and USC. Floyd resigned from the Trojans amid allegations that he had paid former Trojan player O.J. Mayo in what would be a violation of NCAA rules.
When asked if he was looking forward to the relative anonymity of being an assistant coach, Floyd smiled, and replied, “I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about that.”
Floyd said his role will be whatever Bower determines it to be and that he’ll be careful not to step on the toes of the three assistants who were retained from Scott’s staff.
Paul was reluctant to offer advice on what strategic changes the team should make, but when prodded he said, “I’d love to get the ball out of my hands as much as possible.”
He echoed West’s sentiments Wednesday that New Orleans had become too predictable and stagnant on offense.
Bower said he won’t be able to make drastic changes right away but he wants the team to “push the pace” and bring to pressure to the opposition on both ends of the floor, beginning with the game against Portland at 7 p.m. today in the New Orleans Arena.
He said he planned on starting the same lineup that Scott had used most recently – Paul, West, Emeka Okafor, Peja Stojakovic, and Devin Brown – tonight. Potential changes to the rotation and inactive list were to be determined later in the day. Ike Diogu, who has been sidelined by a strained knee, Sean Marks, and Morris Peterson have been the inactives of late.
With back-to-back games – the Hornets play at Atlanta on Saturday – Bower said more changes will have to wait until the team has more practice time.
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