Aug 29th 2008 7:00AM by Matt Watson (author feed)
Filed under: Trail Blazers, Western, FIBA, USA BasketballImagine Nate
McMillan’s Olympic predicament. As an assistant on Mike Krzyzewski’s
staff, he had to concerntrate at the task at hand — or at the very least,
keep a straight face — as Spain’s Rudy Fernandez torched the Redeem
Team’s collection of All-Stars (and posterized Dwight Howard) for 22
points in fewer than 18 minutes.

Behind the stoic front, though, he was
going nuts, just like most of the fans back in Portland. From Jason Quick of :
“I’m sitting there (in the gold medal game) with a straight face,
trying not to smile,” McMillan said. ” (Spain) are the guys we have
to beat, but I’m caught. That’s my player and I want to (he claps
his hands twice) but I gotta (he makes a serious face) because we are going up
against him.”

[…] “I was so impressed with him that it
was to the point where after the second time I saw him, I didn’t sleep
that night because I was moving my rotations around,” McMillan said.
“I swear I did not sleep. I could not sleep thinking about him. Because
I’m saying, ‘We can put him here, do this with him, do that with him
and Brandon (Roy), and do this… So he’s playing for us. Oh yeah. I
see that right now.”
So what did he dream up? For now he’s planning on using Fernandez on the
second team alongside Jerryd Bayless and Travis Outlaw, although Fernandez will
occasionaly share the court with Brandon Roy. If Fernandez plays as well as he
did in Beijing (which isn’t out of the question given the quality of
competition he faced), can the Blazers keep him out of the starting lineup? I
like Steve Blake as much as the next guy, but I don’t see how they
could.