Good coaches always put the team first. Even if that means sitting behind the bench.
Nuggets lead assistant coach Adrian Dantley did just that when he was a member of Denver's coaching staff. As George Karl's right-hand man, Dantley did the majority of his in-game work from the first row of seats behind the bench.
However, when Dantley refused to move to the bench and leave his seat behind it, he said he was fired.
According to Yahoo!, Karl and the Nuggets coaching staff had a method of shuffling coaching seats to avoid a hierarchical feeling of "working for the boss." When Dantley opted not to move his seat, he was let go.
"I got fired because I didn't rotate on the bench,'' Dantley told yahoo.com.
"I wasn't going to rotate. If they [other assistants] want the publicity to sit up front, I don't need the publicity… I got no problem not being seen on TV and sitting at the back of the bench."
Dantley served as Denver's interim head coach in 2009-10 when Karl was sidelined due to a cancer of the throat. He went 13-12 including a playoff loss to Phoenix in the Western Conference semifinals.
