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New coaching search thread

RacerDeac said:
Amaker is a guy we'd never fire. He'd probably never build a Top 10 team, but he'd get to the post season enough that you just couldn't fire him. Seems likely he'd be the end of Wake Forest basketball being something I cared about.
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Agreed 100%
 
Even with a lost decade in there, Wake has still won more NCAA tournament games than Tommy Amaker. No thanks.
 
berneses said:
The biggest problem with Amaker is that he wouldn't excite the fan base at all. He is as dull as Manning and [Redacted]. Would be a terrible hire imho.
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He wouldn’t excite recruits. That’s the bigger problem. Get the recruits and coach them up, and the fans will be happy. But Amaker is the guy who failed at Michigan and now has done OK at Harvard. He’s a clear C-level hire. Won’t incite much of a recruiting bump.
 
berneses said:
The biggest problem with Amaker is that he wouldn't excite the fan base at all. He is as dull as Manning and [Redacted]. Would be a terrible hire imho.
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Agreed. I would not get excited to see what he has as I already know based off his past performances. I would not buy tickets and would continue having the same apathy concerning wake bball as I have had the last 5 years.
 
KidA23 said:
1. Agree with the consensus; Amaker seems like a good man and a decent person, but would be a terribly uninspiring hire given his track record. There is literally no indication from his tenure at any of his stops (UM, Seton Hall, or Harvard) that he consistently could have Wake in the top-third of the ACC and in the NCAA tournament under any circumstances. He has not coached a consistent NCAA tournament performer at any of his 3 head coaching jobs--even at Harvard, he has made 4 NCAA tournament appearances in 12 full seasons--and there is absolutely nothing that I can see from his track record to indicate he could take Wake to a level he's been unable to take Harvard or Michigan. I would definitely prefer Matta or Forbes, and probably would prefer Kelsey given his potential upside (but honestly could be swayed either way and agree it's reasonably debatable from either side).

2. As an employer lawyer who frequently drafts executive employment agreements and has personally negotiated and litigated the "for Cause / not for Cause" termination issue, I find the $7.5 million settlement figure completely and 100% believable and honestly is what I would've predicted at the outset of this whole thing. These agreements typically call for some form of severance upon a not-for-Cause termination, and zero severance of any kind upon a for-Cause termination, with the agreement spelling out the specific bases of what constitutes "Cause"--itself a highly negotiated issue that turns entirely on what the agreement ultimately specifies as far as what the "Cause" bases are, when and how they are triggered, any notice obligations, any cure rights of the parties, and so on and so forth. I suspect that upon a not-for-Cause separation, DM was indeed owed the remaining $15 million of his reported salary, and that upon a Cause termination, this number would have been $0. My guess is the parties have spent the last 1-2 months going back and forth posturing and blowing smoke on how the facts of DM's employment have or have not triggered one or more of the Cause bases, and that there is reasonable risk on both sides. (By way of background, typically just being bad at one's job is not sufficient to constitute "Cause," but again it all depends on what the agreement says. Most executive agreements have a Cause trigger along the lines of "Material failure to perform Executive's duties and responsibilities hereunder" which is what I suspect Wake was posturing under here, though again every agreement is different; if the executive had good counsel, it might be limited to "Material willful failure" or a "Repeated willful failure" or a "Repeated material failure . . . which remains uncured following written notice by Employer," etc. Here, we'll never know.) Anyway, in the negotiations I've done on this issue, splitting the distance right down the middle is the most common outcome. Would not surprise me in the least if that is exactly what happened here.
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Good stuff on both counts. Amaker has coached long enough to know what he is: is a solid college basketball coach, but not elite.

FWIW, one reason why Harvard didn't make the NCAA last year and finished 2nd in the Ivy's this past year is major injuries.

Their stud PF Seth Towns was the Ivy League POY as a sophomore in 2018, but then couldn't play this past two seasons. Out of HS, Amaker recruited Towns over Iowa and Dayton among others. The Ivy League doesn't allow 5th year players; so, Towns was highly coveted in the transfer market this past year, and he is heading to tOSU. Also, this past season, their 2nd best player Bryce Aiken missed all but 7 games with an injury. He is also transferring because of the Ivy League rules and is heading to Seton Hall (over Michigan, Maryland and Iowa State).

Amaker's record would be a lot better over the past two seasons if Towns and Aiken had been able to play. Amaker recruited both of them over several top 50 programs. Absolutely true that Harvard gave Amaker the ability to recruit over Ivy League schools, but he also did a decent job of beating non-Ivy League schools for recruits.
 
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Ugh. I remember how I felt when Bz was announced. And how I felt right before he was announced. I'm starting to feel like that.

I felt nothing about Manning. Had low expectations and they were fulfilled.
 
How People Think Thad Matta Walks vs. How Thad Matta Actually Walks

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Say Hey Deac said:
Matta has a very serious Phil Niekro/Otis Nixon/the dad from The Wonder Years thing going on where he looks 25 years older than his actual age.
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Seems like he has always looked older. Until we started discussing him as a candidate I did not realize how young he was when he took over OSU. Back then he could have passed for 50. Hope he comes here though.
 
PTI airport has a pretty big private jet maintenance facility, so that Lear from Indianapolis is almost assuredly coming in for maintenance and not ferrying Matta.
 
KidA23 said:
2. As an employment lawyer who frequently drafts executive employment agreements and has personally negotiated and litigated the "for Cause / not for Cause" termination issue, I find the $7.5 million settlement figure completely and 100% believable and honestly is what I would've predicted at the outset of this whole thing. These agreements typically call for some form of severance upon a not-for-Cause termination, and zero severance of any kind upon a for-Cause termination, with the agreement spelling out the specific bases of what constitutes "Cause"--itself a highly negotiated issue that turns entirely on what the agreement ultimately specifies as far as what the "Cause" bases are, when and how they are triggered, any notice obligations, any cure rights of the parties, and so on and so forth. I suspect that upon a not-for-Cause separation, DM was indeed owed the remaining $15 million of his reported salary, and that upon a Cause termination, this number would have been $0. My guess is the parties have spent the last 1-2 months going back and forth posturing and blowing smoke on how the facts of DM's employment have or have not triggered one or more of the Cause bases, and that there is reasonable risk on both sides. (By way of background, typically just being bad at one's job is not sufficient to constitute "Cause," but again it all depends on what the agreement says. Most executive agreements have a Cause trigger along the lines of "Material failure to perform Executive's duties and responsibilities hereunder" which is what I suspect Wake was posturing under here, though again every agreement is different; if the executive had good counsel, it might be limited to "Material willful failure" or a "Repeated willful failure" or a "Repeated material failure . . . which remains uncured following written notice by Employer," etc. Here, we'll never know.) Anyway, in the negotiations I've done on this issue, splitting the distance right down the middle is the most common outcome. Would not surprise me in the least if that is exactly what happened here.
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So, by my math:

$7.5=x/2

Goodman seems like he nailed "x" (or at least close enough that calling him a liar is silly) and Currie just didn't want to have to publicly explain away his predecessor's incompetence.

Anyway, a $7.5 million dollar buyout in the middle of an impending Depression seems like a pretty good explanation for why we're strongly considering somebody with Tommy Amaker's resume. Amaker would be the third straight coaching hire who still wouldn't be an improvement over the coach we fired and leaked embarrassing rumors about to the press and to the Wake community. Maybe Currie should just re-hire Dino...

Amaker is such a drop off from Forbes, let alone Beilein and Matta, and unlike Miller and Kelsey, has virtually no ceiling at the P6 level.

ETA: and fuck me if we hire a fucking Duke grad. DR and some of y'all jizzing yourselves over a Carolina grad is one thing, but a Duke grad? Have some fucking dignity, Wake grads.
 
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