by Bob Young - Sept. 5, 2012 09:07 PM
azcentral sports
When Arizona State basketball coach Herb Sendek named former NBA head coach Eric Musselman and longtime NBA assistant Larry Greer to his staff this week we wondered, as many of you might have: Did Sendek just hire his replacement?
After all, Musselman is a young, fiery, ambitious coach who is known for playing exciting offensive basketball. And he's been looking for the right opportunity to get into the college game since he was let go by the Sacramento Kings in 2007.
However, something entirely different occurred to Jeff Van Gundy, the ESPN/ABC analyst who is Sendek's friend and mentor.
"Listen," Van Gundy said Wednesday. "Herb is a very serious guy. You're not going to share a lot of belly laughs with him.
"But he's got balls, you know? I've always appreciated that about him."
Arizona State basketball fans should, too.
Hey, maybe this unorthodox move will backfire and our first impression will prove true. But you have to give Sendek credit for having enough confidence in himself to hire a coach as talented as Musselman to join a staff that will include associate head coach Dedrique Taylor and Greer.
"He could have hired some non-threatening, run-of-the-mill guys, but that's not the path he chose," said Steve Patterson, ASU's vice-president for university athletics and himself a former NBA guy.
"Herb took an honest look at the program and said these guys can be an asset to him and the program and to ASU as a whole. When Herb goes into somebody's house and sits in the kitchen and tells them that these guys are going to coach them, they're going to be pretty excited."
And that, Van Gundy said, is what Arizona State needed most -- the ability to get into the homes of top-level recruits.
"Arizona State is a tough, tough job," he said. "Herb can coach with anybody. I was with him at Providence College, so I've seen it first-hand.
"But they just haven't had good enough players in the last couple of years. So this is a different way. There are colleges out there who pay (players). We know Herb is going to run an ultra-clean program.
"I give him credit for having the basketball courage to try something different. This is not a panacea ... and certain schools have certain advantages and others take liberties with the rules.
"So how are you going to get some of those high-quality players? And when you get them, how do you coach them?"
The answer, Sendek decided, was to think "outside the box" when assistants Scott Pera and Lamont Smith departed last month.
Greer has college coaching experience. For Musselman, it's new. But he became intrigued while working as a television broadcast analyst on college games.
"When I wasn't doing TV, I spent time watching teams," he said. "I spent 10 days with Coach (Bill) Self at Kansas watching how they do things. I went to Western Illinois when Derek Thomas was the coach there. I went down to Southern Mississippi when Larry Eustachy was there.
"... I would go to watch the shoot-arounds of all the teams that came in to play Cal. So I went to Arizona State's practice when they were there.
"It wasn't anybody telling me about Coach Sendek. I saw what I saw, and I've told people that was one of the best shoot-arounds I've ever seen at any level."
Before the Kings, Musselman was head coach of the Golden State Warriors. He has been an NBA assistant and a head coach in the CBA and NBA Developmental League as well as coach of the Venezuela national team.
But at ASU he'll also have to recruit. Van Gundy believes he'll be a natural.
"He's as competitive of a guy as I've ever coached against," he said. "He's hungry. He's a brilliant offensive mind and he's going to be a terrific recruiter because of his competitive nature and what he has to sell.
"This is a guy who can tell kids exactly what it takes to play in the NBA."
Musselman has coached and developed small, lightning-quick NBA point guards such as Earl Boykins and Speedy Claxton -- players in the mold of ASU's Jahii Carson, a 5-foot-10, 175-pound freshman from Mesa High.
Musselman said Sendek has asked him and Greer to bounce ideas off him. Some of those are bound to include a more open brand of offense.
Sendek not only is willing to accept input, he already was headed toward a more up-tempo style of play to take advantage of a point guard such as Carson.
"With our personnel changes, the train was moving that direction," Sendek said. "With their expertise, I think we can really polish that process."
It's a bold stroke for Sendek, and he deserves credit for hiring a guy capable of taking his job -- or maybe saving it.
Reach Young at 602-444-8271 or bob.young@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/BobYoungTHI.
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