The AltRaps Blog

Raptors coach off hot seat, on solid bench - cleveland.com
“There was nothing I could do about it,” Mitchell said after practice here on Friday. “The only thing I could do was walk into the arena, and if I didn’t have a message ‘Come see me,’ from the principal’s office, I knew I had a job that day. If we won, I knew I kept it for one more day.”

Now in his fourth season, Mitchell insists he hasn’t changed. But the Raptors organization has changed considerably - for the better.

Babcock was replaced first by interim General Manager Wayne Embry, who had been acting as an adviser to the Raptors, and then by Bryan Colangelo. Colangelo just happens to be the reigning NBA Executive of the Year.

“From the day we hired Bryan, people look at you differently,” Mitchell said. “He has a reputation of doing whatever it takes to turn the team around.”

Embry, the former Cavs executive who never wanted the Raptors job permanently, said keeping Mitchell and hiring Colangelo were the right things to do. There were additional things done behind the scenes that contributed to the Raptors’ turnaround.

“When we made the decision to get rid of the older guys and get below the salary cap, that was huge,” said Embry, who traded Aaron Williams and Jalen Rose in his brief tenure as the Raptors’ general manager. “It opened up room for Bryan to upgrade. He did a tremendous job of bringing in younger talent. We were able to make a couple trades and sign some players once we cleared cap room.

“In my short stint there as general manager, I found that you can’t build a team if you’re over the salary cap. That’s what I convinced ownership - to make trades to get below the salary cap and then hire the person who could be the architect from that point. That’s what they did.”

While Mitchell may not think he has changed, Embry, still an adviser to the team, thinks Mitchell has grown as a coach.

So does Donyell Marshall, who was a forward with the Raptors during Mitchell’s rookie season. He was in the locker room when Mitchell and Alston got into it.

“You’ve got to understand, I was [with Golden State] for the Spree and P.J. situation,” he said, referring to the infamous incident in which Latrell Sprewell tried to choke Golden State coach P.J. Carlesimo. “I’ve seen it all before. To me, at that point in time, at that moment, it was nothing new. I think people made more of it than it was. It wasn’t a situation that was going to make the team go downhill and stay downhill for years. It was a situation that happened and was done with. We were still in the playoff race the rest of that season.

“Sam was a rookie coach at that time. At that time, he was only a couple years removed as a player. Becoming a head coach right away can be difficult. At times I think he found himself caught in the middle. He knows he’s a coach now, and he’d handle the situation a lot different. He learned a lot from that and he made himself a better coach.”