The Portland Trail Blazers ended last season with Kaleb Canales as the team's interim head coach after firing Nate McMillan, but the team isn't sure who will be manning the sidelines next season. New general manager Neil Olshey had said Canales is the in-house favorite when he was hired earlier this offseason, but the Blazers are conducting a coaching search regardless.
The team won't make it a public affair, though -- perhaps learning from the Charlotte Bobcats -- as Olshey told The Columbian at pre-draft workouts this week that the search will take place behind closed doors.
Trail Blazers general manager Neil Olshey asserted Monday that when it comes to the team's coaching search, most of it is going to play out "behind closed doors," which of course means the media will have to do some reading between the lines. And if there was any thing to decode recently, it may be that Kaleb Canales is not quite the "in-house" favorite Olshey declared him to be when took the job earlier this month.
Olshey didn't speak specifically, but he did say Monday that the search would be "exhaustive" and that there are "guys we're targeting." Could Canales be one of those guys? Sure. But while much of the public may have thought this anyway, it doesn't quite appear to be his job to lose.
There are quite a few qualified candidates out there, but if Olshey's going to stay tight-lipped on the process, this search might be difficult to follow until they've found their finalist.
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