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MILWAUKEE — If Jim Todd were in a rock and roll band, he'd play bass guitar. If he were in the movies, he'd be the character actor who is in all your favourites and worked with all the greats, but whose name rolls on the credits when the theatre is empty.
But Todd works in the basketball business. Always has, even when he was an assistant coach at Columbia University and moonlighting as a doorman at Studio 54 in New York City in the late 1970s. If there are things he saw in the dark corners and the wee hours (at Studio 54, not Columbia) that might have given him pause to shake his head, his sense of decency prevents him from sharing all.
Which is just one of the reasons Todd, known as J.T., has played and prospered, survived and thrived, on the sidelines as an NBA assistant coach.
If he's more familiar to Raptors fans than most assistants, it's thanks to his frank halftime assessments on television broadcasts. It's made up, but here's something typical: “We pretty much stunk the joint out in the first half. We let them do whatever they wanted and didn't pass or shoot on our end. If we don't do better in the second half, we'll get blown out.” Toss in a healthy Boston accent, and you get the picture. So far, the good people of Milwaukee haven't had the pleasure.
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“They don't realize my talent yet,” Todd said. Give them time.
Tuesday night's game between the Raptors and Bucks was a reunion for Todd and Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell. The two were assistants together in Milwaukee under George Karl and then Terry Porter before Mitchell got the head-coaching job in Toronto and brought Todd with him as a golfing partner, confidant and lead assistant.
Last summer, not long after Mitchell was chosen as the coach of the year and pledged to return his staff intact, Todd was approached by the Bucks to lend his expertise to first-year head coach Larry Krystkowiak.
“I'm the older, experienced guy now that works with a younger coach, that's who I am,” said Todd, 55.
But younger coaches become experienced coaches and the dynamics of the relationship, always delicate, can change.
“Sometimes, especially when you're a young coach, you just need space to continue to grow,” Mitchell said. “It's not about if you like a guy or if you're still good friends. All people need space to grow. J.T. knew me when I first started. It's almost like a parent in a sense where it's hard to let go, that's all.”
Still tight?
“I love J.T.,” Mitchell said. “I look forward to taking his money in the summer time playing golf. We'll always be friends.”
It's that friendship that Todd says made the timing right to move back to the Bucks.
As Mitchell's friend and the most experienced member of his staff – Todd is working with his fifth head coach and briefly was the head man himself when he was with the Clippers – Todd often was in the role of devil's advocate. He felt it was his duty. “You have to know your role, but you can't be afraid to say what you think,” Todd said. “It's no good to be a yes man all the time, but when you leave that room, no matter what has been decided, even if you might not agree with it, you have to have your coach's back.”
The Raptors will miss him. Players loved him. “I looked at J.T. as the inside man,” former Raptor and current Buck Charlie Villanueva said. “He was a coach, but he was a player's coach.”
Todd's scouting acumen can't be underrated either. He was the among the first to point out that Rafael Araujo might not be long for the NBA after Todd blocked the rookie centre's shot twice in a single pregame warm-up.
Any time there's a change involving something as closely knit as an NBA coaching staff, there are always questions about why. Todd acknowledges that when the Raptors removed his status as the lead assistant before last season, putting him on par with the rest of the staff, he “wasn't ecstatic about it.” But in the end, he dealt with it by following his own advice. “You just wonder if there's a message you're missing,” he said. “ But at the end of the day, I didn't have a problem with it. It's like I tell the players every day, you have to take your ego out of it.”
