So many people emailed me in the fall and winter asking why I wasn’t writing about how Rick Carlisle should be the next UVA Basketball coach.
People legit expected Carlisle, the coach of the Indiana Pacers, who punched their ticket to the NBA Finals last night with a 125-108 win over the New York Knicks, to take a job where the main focus is on navigating the NIL landscape.
“This is the sixth time that I have been to an NBA Finals. Three as a player, one as an assistant coach, second time as a head coach. This is no time to be popping champagne,” Carlisle, a 1984 UVA alum, told reporters after the Pacers’ Game 6 win.
His Dallas Mavericks won the NBA title in 2011. He’s also taken three teams to conference finals in his 24 seasons as an NBA head coach, with a career 993-860 won-loss record.
The 993 wins places him 11th on the all-time list, ahead of such luminaries as Red Auerbach (938) and Jack Ramsay (864), and within shouting distance of Pat Riley (1,210), Phil Jackson (1,155) and Larry Brown (1,098).
A guy with a Hall of Fame resume gets paid well, and Carlisle is working on a $9 million-a-year deal right now in Indiana.
For reference, UVA Athletics is paying the new head coach, Ryan Odom, $3.25 million a year.
Carlisle, good alum that he is, did pitch in and help with the search committee that eventually recommended the Odom hire.
But he was never a candidate for the job, because a guy in his mid-60s at the top of the NBA coaching pool doesn’t go back to college after 40 years as a player and coach in the NBA.
I don’t know how many times I had to respond with that line to people who emailed me castigating me and the people in charge of the search process for not throwing Carlisle’s name out there.
As the search process was playing out, Carlisle’s Pacers team closed out the regular season on a 15-4 run to earn the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, finished off the 2021 NBA champs, the Milwaukee Bucks, in five games the first round, then surprised the top seed Cleveland, with 2019 UVA alums De’Andre Hunter and Ty Jerome playing key roles for the Cavs, in five games in Round 2.
Indiana seized control of the Eastern Conference Finals with a pair of wins in Madison Square Garden, then finished off the Knicks in Game 6 last night in Indianapolis with a dominant second half, shooting 56.8 percent from the floor and connecting on 9-of-18 from three in the final 24 minutes.
Next up for Carlisle’s Pacers: the Oklahoma City Thunder, which was 68-14 in the regular season, led by 2025 MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
OKC, which defeated Minnesota in five games to win the West, is the betting favorite, with the expectation being that the Thunder will close things out in five.
“We understand the magnitude of the opponent,” Carlisle said last night. “Oklahoma City has been dominant all year long, with capital letters in the word dominant. Defensively, they’re historically great and they have all kinds of guys who can score.
“It is two teams that have similar structures, slightly different styles. I think it has the makings of a great series. From a coaching perspective, it is two teams that are fun to watch and fun to watch compete. So, we are looking forward to the challenge,” Carlisle said.
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Chris Graham
