In Episode 4 of “The Last Dance,” Michael Jordan recounted how he first welcomed Phil Jackson as his new coach. The Chicago Bulls had parted ways with Doug Collins, a coach Jordan liked, to bring in Jackson, who had a very different philosophy.
Jordan loved Collins and the trust the young coach had in him, admitting that the change to an egalitarian style of basketball wasn't one he was fond of at the time:
“I wasn’t a Phil Jackson fan when he first came in, because he was coming in to take the ball out of my hands,” said Jordan in the popular ESPN docuseries. “Doug put the ball in my hands.”
For Andrés Nocioni, who played for Collins on the Philadelphia 76ers during the tail end of his NBA career, Collins is nothing more than a liar.
Via TalkBasquet, translated by HoopsHype:
“Doug Collins lied to my face,” Nocioni wrote in his autobiography. “Because he told me that I was going to be like Jesus Christ for the Sixers. And that’s why they took me out of the World Championship. The one coach who lied to me the most was Collins. He promised me something that later it wasn’t true.”
Nocioni is referring to the 2010 World Cup in Turkey, where he planned to play for his native Argentina despite an injury. But Nocioni wasn't done ragging on Collins, or on former Sixers teammate Andre Iguodala:
“Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner played in Philadelphia, and I started playing when Iguodala was injured. But when he came back, everything changed,” wrote Nocioni. “Andre did not want me in the team, because I hit him in practice, pushed him, irritated him. He was complaining about it, and instead of having my back, Collins pulled me out of the rotation.
“Then he lied to me again just before the playoffs. One day he comes and says ‘I’m going to rest Iguodala for a few games. I’ll give you those games so you are ready for the playoffs. Because this is a big thing, this is not for kids. Be ready’. I played well in the final two games of the regular season, averaging 15 points, and we started the playoffs against LeBron’s Miami, I had 10 minutes and never played again.”
Nocioni saw an abrupt decline to his minutes after four and a half seasons with the Chicago Bulls. He went from getting minutes in the mid-20s to slipping under 20 minutes in one season with the Sacramento Kings and even more so in his last two with Philadelphia.
Nocioni played in only 54 games in 2010-11, his first of two years under Collins. He played only 11 games in 2011-12, marking the end of his stint in the NBA before returning to resume his career in Spain.
Collins didn't provide Nocioni with that Jordan-esque treatment that we saw on “The Last Dance.” Matter of fact, Collins tried to apologize later on, but Nocioni was having none of it, as those two years were indeed his last dance in the league.
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