ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 1996 basketball TAG: 9604240041
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C.
SOURCE: Associated Press
CHARLOTTE NEVER reached the NBA's elite under the ex-Tech player.
Allan Bristow's five-year run as the Charlotte Hornets' coach ended Tuesday when the team said it would buy out the final year of his contract.
The announcement came two days after the Hornets finished their season short of the playoffs and with a 41-41 record - well below expectations coming off a franchise record 50-victory season.
``It was kind of an unhealthy situation for him personally and a situation where a change was in order for us,'' Bob Bass, Charlotte's vice president of basketball operations, said at a news conference.
With team owner George Shinn at his side, Bass said Bristow and the Hornets had mutually agreed that the coach should resign. Bristow, who compiled a 207-203 record and twice led the Hornets to the playoffs, will be paid his entire 1996-97 salary of nearly $500,000, Bass said. A At a separate news conference two hours later, Bristow referred to the end of his employment with the Hornets as ``relieved or mutual agreement or whatever you want to call it.''
When pressed on whether he had been fired, Bristow, a former Virginia Tech basketball player, said the exact language didn't matter.
``It was mutually agreed. Call it what you want. You're going to anyway,'' said Bristow, who joined Brendan Malone of Toronto and Butch Beard of New Jersey as coaches to lose their jobs since the NBA season ended Sunday.
Charlotte fans were hoping the 1995-96 season - the Hornets' eighth - would be when the franchise took its place among the league's elite. But those hopes were dashed on the opening day of the season, when the Hornets concluded a bitter contract squabble with center Alonzo Mourning by shipping him to Miami in a six-player deal.
Mourning, who had rejected Charlotte's salary offer of $11.2 million, went on to fuel a late-season run that helped Miami overtake the Hornets for the eighth and final Eastern Conference playoff spot.
The Mourning trade, the four-player deal that brought Kenny Anderson from New Jersey, and several injuries substantially altered the face of the Hornets from the previous season.
``As far as starters, we only had one player coming back from that team,'' Bristow said, referring to Larry Johnson. ``It was a situation where as far as the starting lineup, we knew it was going to be very difficult.''
Charlotte went from a well-balanced team on offense and defense to one that had little inside presence, ranked among the league's worst in several defensive categories and was wildly inconsistent throughout the season.
For example, Charlotte on April 8 became the only team to defeat the Bulls in Chicago all season. But two nights later, in a playoff race showdown against Miami, the Hornets suffered one of the worst home losses in franchise history.
``I shouldn't say that .500 was probably the best this team could do,'' said Bristow, whose team lost four of its last six games. ``Could we have won a couple more games? Probably. Yeah. Could we have lost more than a couple more games? You bet. You betcha. And I'd rather look at the glass as half full than half empty.''
Bass said a desire for a fresh start was the primary reason he wanted to make a coaching change, but he acknowledged that the Hornets' fans, who consistently are among the league's attendance leaders, also played a role.
The Hornets have sold out 317 consecutive games at the 24,042-seat Charlotte Coliseum, a streak dating to December 1988. Many fans had become increasingly vocal in their criticism of Bristow's easygoing coaching style.
``You don't want fans telling you how to run your business,'' Bass said. ``At the same point, they're extremely, extremely important to us.''
Bristow, 44, said he has three options for the next year, the first of which is to relax and spend time with his wife and two daughters.
``Health-wise and sanity-wise, maybe that's the best decision,'' Bristow said, adding that he could also seek another coaching job or go to work for the league office.
His long-term goals include ``maybe putting a group together and buying an NBA team.'' Shinn maintains his team is not currently for sale, but Bristow said that may not always be the case.
Bristow's assistants - Johnny Bach, T.R. Dunn and Bill Hanzlik - are to remain on the Hornets' staff and will be assigned duties to help the team prepare for the June 26 draft, in which Charlotte has two first-round picks.
Bass said he had yet to compile a list of possible replacements for Bristow but hoped to hire someone by the draft.
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Allan Bristow, walking out of a news conference withby CNBhis wife, Etoila, resigned as coach of the Charlotte Hornets on
Tuesday. color.