Written by Candace Buckner at IndyStar.com
When Nate McMillan was finally done, his water bottle running on empty from all the swigs taken in between answering questions for more than an hour, he rose from his seat and sighed. Asked how he’d spend the rest of his Monday, McMillan muttered something about a nap.
Don’t blame McMillan for wanting to slow down a bit — because the whirlwind that changed his career materialized so fast.
“All this,” McMillan said, wearing a white team-issued polo shirt befitting a head coach, “happened really in the last 48 hours.”
About a week ago, McMillan, four years removed from his last head coaching gig, was retracing his job interview in Sacramento. He was spending Mother’s Day weekend in his home state of North Carolina and wondering when Pacers assistants had to report back to Bankers Life Fieldhouse for predraft workouts.
Then, this past weekend, McMillan was sitting down with the team’s president of basketball operations and nodding as Larry Bird laid out his vision for the next Pacers head coach.
I could do that.
I could do what you want.
What you want me to do, is what I do.
By Monday morning, McMillan, the only person the Pacers interviewed for the position, was stationed next to Bird in front of a room full of reporters.
Promoted to Indiana Pacers head coach, and the whole ordeal took only a few days.
“The choice for me,” Bird said, “was very easy.”
On May 5, Bird was in this same room and explaining why he decided not to renew the contract of the team’s previous head coach, Frank Vogel. From there, the Pacers began a clandestine operation to find the new guy.
There was a list, General Manager Kevin Pritchard said.
“We knew the list. We talked about, it seems like ad nauseam, of who the coaches were out there,” Pritchard told reporters. “(But) when Frank was not retained, we got in a room and we put up our list, and part of that list was Nate.”
Calls were made, Bird said.
“I’ve talked to a couple people on the phone,” Bird offered, “and there’s a lot of interest in the job.”
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