Jordan Hires Darrell Walker

January 29, 2000 / 11:11 PM EST / CBS/AP

On the court, Michael Jordan's one-on-one spin move past Laron Profit was as smooth as ever. Off the court, the Washington Wizards head of basketball operations admitted his first big management move - a confusing and bitter change of coaches - didn't go according to plan.

Darrell Walker, who has been coaching a last-place team in the CBA, was hired as the Wizards interim coach Monday. Walker expected to be named an assistant, but suddenly moved up the ladder when Jordan's first choice, Golden State assistant Rod Higgins, fell through because the Wizards couldn't agree on a compensation deal with the Warriors.

"That was an unfortunate situation in that things did not work out properly with Golden State," Jordan said. "Rod was just one of our candidates for the job. Darrell was another."

Walker was 41-90 over 1 1/2 seasons with the Toronto Raptors before quitting in 1998, and he's leaving a Rockford Lightning team that is 13-17 and in last place in the CBA's Atlantic Conference. Thrilled to be out of the minors, Walker used the word "fun" at least a dozen times at his introductory news conference.

"I'm just happy to be here," said Walker, who also played four years as a guard with the then-Washington Bullets from 1987-91. "It's a dream come true. Hopefully, I can be the guy who can turn this team around back in the right direction. It's not like we're going to jump up and run off 20 or 30 in a row, I just want us to go out, be competitive, get after people, play defense and have some fun."

Walker's first game is Tuesday night in Cleveland, but he was almost the bit player Monday as some tough parting shots were exchanged among the players, Jordan and fired coach Gar Heard. Jordan had to defend the timing and manner of Heard's dismissal, and Jordan, Rod Strickland and Juwan Howard shot back at Heard's allegation that his dismissal was due in part to the "David Falk factor."

Jordan was in Atlanta for the Super Bowl when Heard was fired Saturday night, immediately after the Wizards (14-30) beat the Cleveland Cavaliers. Jordan said he was deferring to the wishes of general manager Wes Unseld.

"I actually offered to do that because that's my responsibility as president," Jordan said. "And Wes took the approach that `I hired the guy, I'll fire the guy.' My response to Wes was that this is the only time that you're going to be able to do this. From this time forward, I'm going to do the hiring, and 'm going to do all the firing."

From the first day he became part-owner and president of basketball operations, Jordan gave Heard the cold shoulder. Heard said he wished Jordan had fired him immediately instead of letting him twist in the wind, and suggested to several newspapers that the Falk, the agent who represents Jordan and well as Wizards players Rod Strickland and Juwan Howard, was an intermediary to his demise.

"I didn't expect to be one of (Michael's) guys, especially with the David Falk factor." Heard told The Washington Post. "Rod and Juwan, I'm sure they didn't have anything good to say."

Strickland and Howard, both of whom clashed openly with Heard's old-school coaching style, reacted with anger.

"Ha! Let me tell you something," Strickland said. "I sat up last night trying to think about how I was going to deal with this situation, and I wanted to be very diplomatic about this. But instead he's talking his little shots. The bottom is, maybe he just couldn't coach. Have y'all ever thought of that? Is that a possibility? I'll take accountability when I play bad, when we lose, I'll take the heat and everything. Now he has to take some heat and accountability. He didn't handle this situation that great, neither. And it wasn't just about me and Juwan. That's just an excuse.

"He came in with a bulldozer mentality. He was like that every day, balking, cursing, screaming every day. After a while, that gets old. We're grown men."

Said Howard: "I don't control stuff like that. I don't go behind the scenes and I don't go behind anybody's back."

Jordan was more diplomatic, saying he fired Heard because the coach had lost his players' respect.

"When you're disappointed, quite naturally you start reaching out for different types of straws," Jordan said. "He felt like David Falk changed my mind or initiated the firing, but I think that's totally incorrect.

"He had some great knowledge about the game, but the thing that was very obvious and unfortunately it happened before I got here is he lost respect for the players."

The big highlight Monday was Jordan and rookie Profit going one-on-one in a trash-talking best-of-three after practice. Profit won the first game, Jordan won the second and had a big lead in the third when they stopped.

"He's the best player that ever played the game," Profit said. "I look at it as, what can he do to me that he hasn't already done on national TV in front of millions of people?"