Very nice long profile of Coach Nate just put up at blazers.com...

Here's a couple of excerpts...

"...With the emergence of Portland's rookie trio of Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Rodriguez into prime-time prominence, the second-year development of Jack, Martell Webster and Travis Outlaw, and the continued improvement of power forward Zach Randolph, there has been a lot of talk in Rip City land about what style of basketball McMillan would like to play with this group.

“如果你问我我最喜欢的风格的游戏,我t would be an up-tempo style with ball control. That is, I'd like to have a team that gets out and runs the floor, but one that would also have a post-presence in a half-court game and an ability to defend," McMillan said.

As examples, he pointed to the Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s and the Utah Jazz of the '90s.

"The Lakers had Magic and Worthy -- guys who could get up and down and fuel show time and fastbreak basketball. But they also had Kareem for a post game and a specialist Michael Cooper as a defensive stopper. They had the precise blend of personnel to play the style I like," he said.

To the other extreme, McMillan admires the way Jerry Sloan-coached teams play. "They emphasize defense; in the 1990s, they had a great pick-and-roll halfcourt offense in Stockton and Malone. They also could run when they had the advantage and their ability to defend was widely admired in the league," he said...."

"...One of the kids from Wilmington's Laney High School who showed up for those pickup games was a skinny-legged fellow, about Nate's size, wearing powder blue leather sneakers.

His name: Michael Jordan.

"Michael had been cut at one time from his high school team and he always seemed to have something to prove when he showed up," Randy recalled. "He practiced there all the time -- night and day, before our college home games and after some of those games, on weekends, too," Randy recalls. "If the lights were on in the gym, you could bet that Michael Jordan was in there taking shots to make himself better."

In the scrimmages, Nate ended up on the same team as Jordan, but after the games were done, he turned to Randy and said, "I wanted to play against that guy."..."

http://www.nba.com/blazers/news/Natersquos_World__McMillan-214800-41.html