Lavin Not the Guy? Lavin the Guy? (Updated 4:45 pm)
In the middle of this afternoon, a few rumors started spreading that Steve Lavin will not be NC State’s next coach. However, the circus continued because other reports from Pack Pride and The Wolfpacker’s Message boards partially contradicted the rumor and indicated that Lavin would be the next coach under the caveat that “certain terms and conditions are met”.
As a follow-up, one of our authors spoke with a source who wouldn’t share specifics when we asked, “What the hell does it mean if “certain terms and conditions are met”? Heck, Dean Smith can be our next coach “if certain terms and conditions are met. What kind of information is that?
Evidently the supposed hang-up revolves around the amount of ‘guaranteed’ money available for Lavin. As we highlighted for you in this interesting piece on How Coaches are Paid (Related: Three contract structures), the only the part of coaches’ contracts customarily guaranteed in the State of North Carolina (NC State’s Athletics Department) is the money paid by the Department to the coach. Media, shoe and other ancillary compensation are predicated on the coach’s employment at the school.
Let’s say Lavin initially received an offer of (guaranteed) $250k for five years – that is a guaranteed $1.25MM in addition to the other sources of compensation that we expect to total in the range of $1 million to $1.5 million per annum. Surely Lavin does not expect to do so poorly that he expects to fired in the first 3 to 4 years? This means that Lavin effectively has a guarantee totaling millions of dollars in the coming 3 to 5 years that he won’t make at ESPN.
We don’t know all of the specifics, but we are somewhat concerned by this situation. First, it feels very prima-donna-ish that this extra (somewhat inconsequential) guarantee of money is that big of a deal for a guy that doesn’t have a coaching job and hasn’t even been able to get interviews at schools where he previously coached (like Purdue). Second, from a business point of view, what has Steve Lavin done to merit an exception to North Carolina’s business practices to allow to pay him more guaranteed money than is usually the case?
Preliminarily, we are a little fearful that this information is a set-up for NC State to save face in a scenario where Lavin turns down the job. If the afternoon rumor that Lavin is NOT the guy holds up, then the NC State spin-machine will most definitely be looking to blame something outside of their control as the reason why the deal didn’t work with Lavin. It would never cross their mind – or anyone at NC State’s – that they just f’d up by chasing the wrong guy, for the wrong reasons, in the wrong way.
Which one of these directions is the right direction? Sheesh. We will continue to work to confirm where this is going as it just keeps getting nuttier and nuttier from Lee Fowler’s Lake House, where the search has primarily been conducted. (Tough life)
Regardless of if State lands Lavin or not – Fowler has a MAJOR problem on his hands — NO OFFER SHOULD HAVE EVER COME FROM STATE IF ALL “TERMS AND CONDITIONS” WEREN’T ALREADY PUT TOGETHER!
Steve Lavin isn’t even a current college basketball coach. Therefore, since he is (obviously) so high on Fowler’s, NC State could have been speaking with him since April 1st. Why are we not set on “certain terms and conditions” for Lavin 22 days after the news broke that Sendek was leaving and almost 40 days after Fowler first new of Arizona State’s interest in Sendek? What the hell has Fowler been doing for three weeks if he doesn’t have all of the terms and conditions with Lavin nailed down?
We don’t know what all this means…and, like all information in coaching searches…we don’t know at what point in the timeline the information that we are gathering is most up to date? Things change so damn fast that it is hard to piece together timelines of when information is current.
A few other points:
* Regardless of if Lavin is ultimately hired as NC State’s next basketball coach, the recent information definitely supports the premise that Steve Lavin is Lee Fowler’s next choice (as sad as that may be to some). So, Lavin doesn’t accept the job then we have major problems.
* Additionally, this does not mean that Beilein is necessarily “the next guy”. Even if NC State would want him to be the next guy, how would Beilein’s ego handle being 4th choice? If Lavin is the guy that Fowler wants, then Fowler better hope that he gets him because the options after a 3rd public rejection will be quite different from the options before it.
* If NC State really did offer the job to Lavin, then the offer should have been pulled the moment The Sporting News reported it on Friday night. Everyone knows that the leak came from Lavin’s side. Why are we even speaking to someone that did this to us? Why is all of this coming out on Monday? Did nobody work this weekend? Was the weather at Fowler’s lake house too nice to worry with the coaching search and trying to nail down these terms and conditions?
* After serving at UCLA as the lead assistant under NCAA-embarassment, Jim Harrick, Steve Lavin was nailed for three NCAA violations as Head Coach. He didn’t have the highest of reputations in the industry. That said, it doesn’t surprise some of our sources that Lavin leaked this “offer” to Mike DeCourcy.
* If Lee Fowler was stupid enough to offer the job to his personal friend, Steve Lavin, in a manner in which NC State could be turned down (particularly publicly), then he should be fired the moment we announce our new coach. How can you put yourself in a position to get turned down for a coaching gig by a guy that is not a coach!?!
* If NC State were going to hire Beilein, they still must work through negotiations related to West Virginia’s $3MM buyout of Beilein. Buyouts are something NC State isn’t accustomed to dealing with as our past Athletics Directors, like Les Robinson, somehow thought that it was prudent not to lock up coaches with buyouts while simultaneously structuring contracts requiring the school to pay larger-than-market buyouts if we wanted to fire a coach (see Herb Sendek’s situation five years ago). Thanks, Les!
PS: We continue to be amazed at how absolutely stupid some of our readers (many of which post at Pack Pride) truly are. We’re just a bunch of average guys trying to pull together resources and information for a community that prides itself on a helluva lot more quality than is available on the idiot boards.
We are not a “news site.â€? It’s a blog. Big difference. Of course, most people inherently understand the difference. As we have said dozens of times, our focus is on discussing and analyzing what is out there when it arises – our focus is not to “break news”.
On one of the threads we just learned that “we” evidently criticized Chuck Amto in a recent basketball article (huh?), we evidently endorsed Dereck Whittenburg last week (huh?), and we also were on the grassy knoll in Dallas. We also learned that we don’t take stands on issues? (Huh?) And we are criticized for misinformation?
106 Responses to “Lavin Not the Guy? Lavin the Guy? (Updated 4:45 pm)”
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04/26/2006
[...] Over at State Fans Nation, they highlight a few rumors concerning Lavin. If there is a hang-up, it revolves around the amount of ‘guaranteed’ money available. [...]
Fowler is running a 4-alarm Chinese fire drill.
We simply can’t make an offer to Steve Lavin and get turned down? Barnes and Calipari spurning us? Fine. Steve Lavin? Embarrassing beyond belief.
Lee Fowler is going to end up making State the laughing stock of college bb unless he pull some kind of miracle out of his ass.
SFN – He already has. In previously updates we’ve referenced the number of calls that he has made to names that had no business being called in Fowler’s shotgun approach. Unless something falls from the sky into our lap, Fowler may be on his last days.
I wish our choices were not limited to Lavin, Beilein, and Whitt (if that is indeed the case).
If we fail to come back and offer him what he wants financially, then is it us turning down Lavin?
Long-term nobody keeps up with who turned down what job or what coach. The focus will be on the new coach and what happens to the program going forward IMO.
Just when you think that it can’t get any worse or strange. . . . . At this point, I am afraid that the longer the clock ticks, the worse things get for us.
I’m dead serious about this… Fowler needs to walk when this is all over. In three weeks, he has turned us in to the laughing stock of the national media. How in the HELL do you make a THIRD PUBLIC OFFER to somebody and not have the details hammered out? If I’m running the ship, I better be damn certain that whomever I extend the offer to is going to accept.
Guys, relax. Unless you know and aren’t saying, none of us know whats been said or offered to who. Could all be smoke and mirrors. There will be time to discuss lee and how this shook out after its over and we know who the coach is. Lets wait until then. The media could be making this a chinese fire drill, no more, no less.
With all due respect StateFans – I don’t think your sources are worth as much as you think. Are these the same sources that led you to believe that Montgomery was going to be the new coach last week?
I think it would be wise to withhold judgement of LF until the end (will it ever come???). We will have PLENTY of time to critique his performance at that point.
SFN – with all due respect, it is easy to not know anything and then criticize. First, please reference where we said that Montgomery was going to be the new coach last week…particularly the part where our sources said it was a done deal?
We know a whole lot more about what was going on last week than you. When all this is over, we will de-brief.
All,
We are a f’ing BLOG. NOT A NEWS SITE. We’re simply sharing things with all of you that we hear. You can process the information any way that you want?
For note – we don’t really care what any of you think about when/how we should criticize others or what we run and when we run it. This is the beauty of being a blog. We’ve discussed this here. So, please don’t waste your time sharing your thoughts on how we should run our blog.
May we refer you to http://www.blogger.com if you would like to do something different?
Thanks!!
To heck with terms and conditions…at this point we need to make an offer to somebody that WANTS to be head coach at NCSU……otherwise where is the desire to build a successful program??….I see desire from someone like Whitt or Marshall….Lavin??….we will just end up being his personal experiment to get back into coaching and he’ll leave us in shambles when he decides to move back to California….
Why do I have the feeling that Fowler’s offers go something along the lines of “I know that you probably aren’t interested since it is a really tough job with horrid fans, and even though I think you’re smart enough to say ‘No’, how would you like to come coach basketball for me at NC State?”
I’ve always had a strong dislike for “Coach” since the day he got here and this “search” has taken it to a whole new level. How in the world can someone like Oblinger allow Fowler continue to bumble around as he has for the last 5 years, especially the last month. I will be sorely disappointed if Fowler is here a year from now but I have hope that Oblinger has enough sense to cut the cord on “Coach”.
IMO LF has already proved he is unworthy of the position NO MATTER WHO THE NEXT BB HC IS at State.
1) This is not a “news site.” It’s a blog. Big difference.
2) Things can fall apart even if well-sourced. Find anybody close to the program who will dispute the Mike Montgomery boomlet of last week. It was indeed very, very real. And we certainly didn’t tell you it was signed, sealed, and delivered, did we?
SFN – Thank you for this. Using the advice of some of these folks we should just shut down until GoPack announces the hire sometime in the middle of the summer. What’s the point of existing?
^Thanks!
“Making a coaching prospect like Steve Lavin look terrible is wrong. ”
No, its not wrong. Its the truth. Not to mention if you want news, you can go to ESPN or FoxSports. I’m not sure how you can read this site and not get that.
Lavin was a failed version of Frank Haith at UCLA. He doesnt belong here.
GIVE RICK BARNES 3MM DOLLARS A YEAR AND BE DONE WITH IT. IF WE WANT THE BEST COACH AVAILABLE WE NEED TO PAY FOR IT. IF IT IS THE HARDEST JOB IN THE COUNTRY— WE NEED TO PAY LIKE IT. nO STUPID ANNUITY AFTER 5 YEARS. pAY IT NOW! THIS IS GETTING REDICULOUS. THIS IS EMBARRASING
Both PP and the WVU boards are now saying Belein is hired and assembling a staff to come to Raleigh…Supposedly the Lavin involvement was assembling current and potential player profiles for Belein…Makes sense as Lavin is a BB analyst and a good friend of Fowler…I could see him helping out in this capacity. Only time will tell….
“Why do I have the feeling that Fowler’s offers go something along the lines of “I know that you probably aren’t interested since it is a really tough job with horrid fans, and even though I think you’re smart enough to say ‘No’, how would you like to come coach basketball for me at NC State?â€?”
I agree 100%. I don’t think Fowler believes in the product he is trying to sell so it is no wonder that he can’t sell it. If he really thinks the expectations are unreasonable and the goals unattainable, then who in their right mind would accept the job?
^ That may be the way that it ultimately gets played…but, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would Lavin’s people (or anyone) leak to The Sporting News that he had an offer? We didn’t need any smoke screen from Lavin for our talks with Beilein.
No way.
If Lavin isn’t ultimately our coach, all signs point to him having turned down an offer from Lee Fowler; hopefully one of Fowler’s last acts as NC State Athletics Director.
I must say that this comment was quite “Fowler like” and I found quite funny: “For note – we don’t really care what any of you think about when/how we should criticize others. So, please don’t waste your time sharing your thoughts on it.”
Ready the signs for the following basketball season:
“Belein = Sendek Part 2″
“Welcome back to the Princeton of the Triangle”
Feel free to add more…. I am literally ROLLING my eyes at the concept of Belein roaming the sidelines next year. Didn’t we already have Belein (and a younger version of him)???
I have repeatedly said we should not criticize LF and this matter until the process is complete, but if we are stupid enough to pay $3million to buy out a B-list candidate’s contract that is a whole different matter. I would hope this is not true and if it turnsout to be true someone’s head should roll immediately!
If it plays out that we are actually going to pay a 3 million dollar buy out, that is terrible. Especially when that money could have been used to up an offer to a better coach, regardless of who that might have been.
c/o ’74
We’ve said the same thing, and rarely gotten any credit for it from the SFN haters.
This is getting nasty.