There are cradles of coaches and there are graveyards of coaches, and Eddie Jordan just walked into a dark place where headstones are everywhere. Since 1997, the Washington Wizards have employed eight head coaches. Let's count 'em: Jimmy Lynam, Bernie Bickerstaff, Jim Brovelli, Gar Heard, Darrell Walker, Leonard Hamilton, Doug Collins, and now Jordan. All the others, may they R.I.P. The Wizards have tried college coaches such as Hamilton, seasoned men who had been head coaches elsewhere such as Bickerstaff and Lynam, longtime assistants such as Heard, a newly retired player with old-school philosophies such as Walker, and even a proven winner such as Collins.

The one thing they all had in common, in retrospect, is that they never had a chance. Okay, maybe Lynam and Bickerstaff did, to an extent, because they had Chris Webber and Juwan Howard and a lineup of players who made the playoffs together once here, and many of them are solid pros on good teams now. But the NBA ain't pro football. The coach can and does make a difference; all you have to do is look at whatever team Larry Brown coaches before, during and after his tenure. But it's not like you bring in Bill Parcells or Scotty Bowman and flip everything overnight. In the NBA you need to assemble good players, lots of them, and you have to hold onto them, even through growing pains that would have been best negotiated in college.

If the Wizards can hire a GM or director of operations who can bring in some good players over the next two years, and at least one great one, Jordan can eventually turn this homecoming into a success because everybody you talk to in NBA circles thinks he's one of the top assistant coaches in the league, along with the Lakers' Jim Cleamons and Seattle's Dwane Casey. Players, scouts, other coaches all say Eddie Jordan has the communications skills, the grasp of strategy and nuance, the organizational skills and the passion to be a fine head coach.