Feature story: Rick Carlisle

By Taylor Maggiore

People applaud Rick Carlisle for his performance regardless of the strength of his year to year roster. Evan Siegel of the Smoking Cuban wrote a feature about the Dallas Mavericks’ head coach, Carlisle, and how he dealt with inconsistent roster changes.

Carlisle coached the Mavericks for nine years as the head coach. He replaced Avery Johnson. In 2011, Carlisle’s third year with the Mavericks, he took the team to the program’s first NBA Championship Title. Dallas upset Miami Heat. After this key win, Carlisle got a five year extension until 2015.

Gregg Popovich admits, “Carlisle has maintained status as being one of the best coaches in the league.” Siegel wraps his feature up by saying that “if enough things go right and the Mavs rebuild their team properly, Carlisle could still be there to be a championship coach under the right circumstances.”

Overall, I enjoy the feature story and the purpose: to bring attention to a great coach. I agree with most of the points Siegel made. I would have liked to see more highlights of more recent teams, and what Carlisle could be doing differently. Offering a devil’s advocate point of view is beneficial to a story.