Rashad McCants delivered when it counted, scoring the last five points of Saturday's championship game against the 3 Headed Monsters to crown Trilogy the first-ever BIG3 champion, finishing an undefeated 10-0 after his 22-point MVP-performance.
Following his team's victory, the 6-foot-4 shooting guard gave praise to his coach, former Detroit Pistons' great Rich Mahorn, while throwing some shade to past coaches who didn't give him the opportunity he feels he deserves.
“I gotta say that Rick is probably the most understanding coach I've ever had,” said McCants during his post-championship press conference. “There's coaches that give up on players after three or four games and resort to the conflict and the jabbering back and forth, but I've always been a player-coach, and I've always been a coach's player and Rick just tells me ‘hey, do your thing' and he criticizes when he needs to and he knows that I'm a sponge and I'll just try to soak it all in.”
“When you got a coach like that, who's willing to teach you during the game the things that you need to know, brings you out of the game and says ‘Shad, look, take a breather.' That's not criticism, that's him knowing when to take you in and out of the game. I would rather have a coach like that than anybody else.”
Press conference from BIG3's inaugural season champs, Trilogy! Full vid 👉 https://t.co/aUTy4jViEk pic.twitter.com/cNAXpi5YrI
— BIG3 (@thebig3) August 28, 2017
McCants was coached by Dwane Casey, Randy Wittman, and Kevin McHale during his four-year tenure with the Minnesota Timberwolves, playing only 24 games under Sacramento Kings coach Kenny Natt before the flame in his short NBA career was ultimately vanished.
The Asheville native wasn't short of controversy during his time at the University of North Carolina, where he won a championship in 2005 — comparing UNC to a “jail” where he wasn't allowed to say what he thinks.
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