Just hours after Larry Brown stepped down, the Charlotte Bobcats have named Paul Silas as their new head coach, team owner Michael Jordan announced.
This is an interim gig, with the position to be re-evaluated at the end of the season.
Silas has had 10 previous seasons as an NBA head coach, including four seasons with the Hornets when they were in Charlotte (he helped the franchise move to New Orleans), and being LeBron James first coach in Cleveland. He was also a coach with the Clippers, but we tend to forgive people for that and ignore the record there. Silas has been out of the league for five years. He also was a 16-year NBA player before coaching.
The Bobcats are 9-18 and playing terrible basketball right now. Just ask Jordan. A shake up was needed, but a new coach does not fix a mismatched roster that lacks offensive firepower. Remember this past summer the Bobcats traded Tyson Chandler — anchor of the Mavericks rejuvenated defense — for virtually nothing, and watched Raymond Felton go to New York where he is leading that team to a resurgence. When you take that much talent off the roster, the coach can only do so much, and Silas has his work cut out for him.
