He agreed, and that's what I thought we had. About four days or five days after that, he said we fired him. Well, I don't know what Kevin said exactly. Yes, Kevin said [Flip] was done. And maybe Flip was truthful in that Kevin did say, "you are not coaching tomorrow night; I have taken over." Kevin did come to me and say, "I'm not going to turn it over to the assistant coaches. It is such a mess, and it's my responsibility."
CP: So before Flip said anything about being fired, you still felt in your mind that there was a possibility that he would return?
Taylor: Yup. And I had that conversation with him later on, and asked him if he wanted to come back. Before we hired Casey. I said, "I told you the door was open. Nobody had ever said you were fired, even after you said it. I am saying to you, I have not come to that conclusion." Now I knew that he still might come to me and say, well you've got to fire McHale before I come back because I don't like the guy now, or something like that.
CP: And that's wouldn't have been an option, would it?
Taylor: I am just telling you what I said to Flip. I asked, Do you want to come back? And he said, I just think too many things have happened now. Thank you for asking. No, I will not come back under any circumstances. That has never been reported, and I just wanted to say that.
So, getting back to Casey. Firing a coach is not an easy thing for me, and it is consistent with me on all my businesses. Good people go through difficult things from time to time, and they make mistakes. But I don't give up on good people. Now I realize that, like politics, this business is a little different. If players give up on somebody, you have to do something. But I know in my businesses, if I have to give up on my leader, that is a very difficult time. When Kevin replaced Flip, that wasn't just a snap decision or one conversation. We talked to the players and talked to different people.
I am not mad at Flip. Things worked out. He got a really good job in Detroit. Now when you are asking about Dwane, if it goes that way, it will start quietly with conversations. Flip acted like it was a surprise and I was like, Flip how can you act like that? It wasn't a surprise. And I don't think I would do it that way to Dwane either. If it really goes bad, it is going to be a mutual thing. And then we will be in a predicament, because Randy said he didn't want to come here if it was to replace Dwane. If we ever had to fire Dwane, does that mean we couldn't replace him with Randy?
None of that stuff has been talked about. We don't have a [contingency] plan at all in that way. We are really pleased that he brought some other assistants in, and we are confident that he can do the job. But he has to prove it. I told him last year I was disappointed. And he is man enough to say he got too much under pressure and should have taken more risks.
With Flip, we never really asked what he was going to do and what he expected, because he always was doing pretty well. But publicly I just want to defend Kevin a little bit when it comes to Flip. Kevin did not run the team and tell Flip to do this or that. As a matter of fact, Kevin backed off a little bit. Early on, Kevin was really involved in running the team. But he and Flip were so close that every night at half time, those guys would sit down and talk. It became more difficult as it went along and Kevin gave him suggestions. Flip felt more confident as the coach and Kevin backed off.
But I don't think it got better for Flip when Kevin backed off. I heard conversations where Kevin would say, "But Flip, that team had you figured out, and they were doing this and this." Later Flip would usually say, "we watched the film and Kevin was right." And sometimes Kevin would say, I never would have done what Flip did during that game, but it worked. They were pretty honest even when they disagreed, is what I am saying.
