FanHouse Flip Saunders

In a Charlotte Observer story this morning, Bobcats coach Larry Brown tells beat writer Rick Bonnell that certain NBA rules have strangled the game's beauty. Brown most recently blew up at a replacement referee who wouldn't look him in the eye, but the coach is now putting on the pose that the game is not entertaining fans because of ... illegal defense rules?

Brown tells Bonnell that the league needs to force the game into a more "up-and-down" style, to reignite flow into the sport by allowing any type of defense and moving in the three-point line. Hey, maybe he's right. I'm not opposed to a free-flowing game. But my Hypocrisy Radar is bugging out, and you can't just ignore a Hypocrisy Radar.

WASHINGTON -- Gilbert Arenas may be eliminating the often outrageous, sometimes peculiar behavior that once added to his popularity, but the rest of his game is coming back just fine.

The explosiveness has returned.

The 28-29-point scoring average may be fading into history, along with the Agent Zero and the Hibachi personas, but a more valuable, more productive 20-point, 10-assist guy could be brewing inside him.

It's what the Washington Wizards need.

WASHINGTON -- Agent Zero and the Hibachi announced their retirements from the NBA Monday, making way for a newcomer named Gilbert Arenas.

At the Washington Wizards' media day at Verizon Center, Arenas, who has missed all but 15 games the last two seasons thanks to three operations on his left knee, claimed that he planned on being a serious player this year, not the one who was "goofing around'' in his previous eight seasons, when he assigned himself nicknames, blogged religiously, put on practice exhibitions whose videos went viral, showed off his "phenomenal swag,'' and generally turned himself into a colorful and popular character.

"When I was entertaining and playing, all you guys focused on were my words. Now I'd rather that you guys just focused on my basketball,'' Arenas said during a nearly half-hour interview session that, contrary to his usual mode, he began at precisely the scheduled time.

Ready or not, here Flip comes.

After much discussion, rumor mongering and ballyhoo, Yahoo! Sports reports that the Washington Wizards will make former Pistons and Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders their new head coach, reportedly agreeing to a four-year, $18 million deal.

That's not Yankees money or corporate bailout money, but for the Wizards, that's a pretty hefty chunk of change.

Flip Saunders has seemed like the sensible choice to step in for the Wizards for a while now, so it's no surprise that ESPN's Ric Bucher and CBS Sports' Ken Berger both report this weekend that Washington will meet with Saunders by the end of the week.

A creative offensive-minded coach who isn't too proud to use schemes to cover defensive inefficiencies, Saunders seems like the appropriate quality for a team trying to play its way back to the postseason. For Saunders it makes great sense, too. Of the few teams expected to hire a new coach, Washington arguably has the least treacherous road toward improvement. Simply making the playoffs would earn Saunders Coach of the Year consideration; in other situations, the cupboard is either less stocked or the expectations will be higher.

The Rotation is a weekly study on the NBA by one of our All-Star voices. In rotation this week is Tom Ziller.

An annual tradition regular as daybreak, as the season ends a pack of coaches are mercilessly hacked to pieces by fans, media and often their own bosses. A parade of potential replacements jumps aboard the carousel. They dance, they preen ... one of them wins. A year or two or (fingers crossed) three later, said doll gets torn apart. The cycle continues.

There was a switch this season, though: the bloodletting happened during the season, as a record eight coaches met the iron maiden between opening night and Valentine's Day. Is there anyone left to execute at season's end?

Well ... yes. Of course there is. After the jump, we tell you whom and guess their replacements.

Over the weekend, the Jazz announced that Jerry Sloan would be back for his 22nd year as head coach in 2009-10, the longest stint for any head coach in any of the professional sports.

On the exact opposite of the longevity spectrum, the Thunder and Timberwolves are mulling the futures of Scott Brooks and Kevin McHale, respectively, two of the newest members of the NBA's head coaching fraternity. Will they remain with Sloan in that elite group?

Joe Dumars took the high road when announcing Flip Saunders' dismissal last week by refusing to dwell on Saunders' failings. One thing he did let slip, though, was how disappointed he was in Amir Johnson's playing time in the playoffs and the regular season.

Michael Curry will be introduced as Saunders' successor later today, and I don't think it's a stretch at all to assume a prerequisite for the job was sharing Dumars' hopes for Johnson to see more time in 2008-09. Why does a 21-year-old reserve merit so much attention? Because he's the most athletic player on Detroit's roster, and despite extremely inconsistent minutes, he's one of the most productive players in the entire league.

Wait, one of the most productive players in the league? Indeed, and that's not an exaggeration. This made it's rounds on the blogosphere a couple of weeks ago, but the blog Count the Basket compared seven different advanced metrics for evaluating player performance independent of playing time, and Johnson rated favorably in almost all of them:

Another eye-popper is seeing Amir Johnson, the 21-year-old Detroit power forward who's been riding the pine in the playoffs, ranked first in the league in Adjusted Plus/Minus. This actually isn't as great an anomaly as might be expected - Johnson rated rather well across the board. His consensus ranking was 15th. He was rated lowest by PER (64th), but he ranked 11th in Win Shares and 20th in Statistical Plus/Minus. Obviously one has to use some caution considering he played under 800 minutes on the season, but the fact that he rated well in several metrics could be a good sign for the future.

Yesterday my colleague Tom Ziller asked the not-so-hypothetical question, "Whatever happened to Doug Collins?" For a few brief seconds it looked like he was a lock to be hired by the Bulls, and yet instead of getting a deal done the team has continued to drag their heels by giving the likes of Dwane Casey and Chuck Person second interviews.

So what gives? Brian Hanley of the Chicago Sun-Times explains:

General manager John Paxson was unavailable for comment and remained waiting for the OK from chairman Jerry Reinsdorf to hire Doug Collins. Reinsdorf is said to be upset that the news of Collins' imminent hiring was leaked last week to media, which is why he has revisited the decision.

Really? If that's the case, wow, Reinsdorf seriously needs to get over himself. If he's confident enough to make a multi-year offer, he shouldn't be so worried about the news getting out a few days before he wanted.

But while the Bulls are still talking to candidates, the Daily Herald reports that the Bulls "have not shown much interest" in interviewing recently disposed Pistons Flip Saunders (much to the chagrin of local bloggers). The Star-Tribune muses that Flip might take a year off from coaching to serve as a television analyst. Considering he'll still collect $5.4 million owed from the Pistons, there's no reason for him not to jump back into the business.

Joe Dumars announced the dismissal of Flip Saunders with a statement released this morning, and he hinted at how drastic the rest of his offseason moves may be during a press conference in the afternoon:

"Make no mistake, everybody is in play right now," said Joe Dumars, the Pistons' president of basketball operations. "There are no sacred cows here. You lose that sacred cow status when you lose three straight years."

It's not often you see a GM put his entire team on the block, but Dumars obviously wants to get the word out -- both to his players and other GM's -- that he'll do anything to improve his team. My personal feeling is that Rasheed Wallace will be the only starter who's traded, but if Dumars has a chance to bring back a superstar (Rasheed and Rip Hamilton for Tracy McGrady?), he just may bite.

It's a different situation from last year when Dumars was hesitant to disrupt his core and allegedly passed on deals for Shawn Marion or Amare Stoudemire that would have required giving up two starters. But with guys like Rodney Stuckey, Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson waiting in the wings, the Pistons are better prepared to plug holes in their starting lineup if the right two-for-one deal materializes.