Jim Rosborough Q&A on Lutes best teams & players leaving early - UPDATED

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Jim Rosborough will enter his 44th year of coaching in the 2017-18 school year when he joins the Pima Community College women's basketball coaching staff for the fourth straight season.

His coaching odyssey has taken him from coaching an eighth-grade team in Chicago in 1973 to coaching at Iowa under Lute Olson to a head coaching stint with Northern Illinois and then working as an Olson assistant at Arizona for 18 years until 2007.

Rosborough, 72, went on to be a volunteer assistant coach with the Arizona women's tennis team for four years. He scouted for the Atlanta Hawks for a season.

On a meager salary at Pima yet meaningful existence there, he has proven to be valuable to coach Todd Holthaus' staff with the successful Aztec program.

His wealth of basketball knowledge and his experience coaching some of the most elite players in the history of the game makes his opinion of what's going on in the sport worth listening to and taking note.

I had the opportunity to talk a few minutes with "Ros", as he is called by his friends, about the Arizona program and some of the storylines that exist with the Wildcats today.

Q: You and Lute coached teams with an abundance of NBA talent on one team. The 2000-01 team had Loren Woods, Richard Jefferson, Michael Wright and Gilbert Arenas get drafted after that season. The 1997-98 team had Miles Simon, Michael Dickerson and Mike Bibby who were drafted. How did you guys deal with any potential distractions similar to what Sean Miller might face in 2017-18 with Rawle Alkins, Allonzo Trier and DeAndre Ayton?

Rosborough: One thing that's really, really interesting in 2001, first of all, we didn't have any great inkling all year that this was going to be the last year for any of these guys. Nobody was talking all year, "Are they leaving? Are they leaving?" It just wasn't that way. We didn't have social media or anything else. We knew Loren was going to go (as a senior), Michael Wright maybe because the academics were so hard, but I don't think we knew Richard was necessarily going to go because Richard had a good year but really made his living defensively in the (NCAA) tournament. He wasn't the big talk. Gilbert was so young. There just really wasn't all this talk.

Jim Rosborough

Q: What do you think Miller will experience with this roster that is loaded with talent?

Rosborough: Sean's going to have to — he knows this and he's done a good job with guys that are leaving — he has to get the guys to understand about sharing the ball and it is a team thing and all of that. I think he does a good job of it. In our times, never did we have people coming in saying I'm going to play one year and then I'm done (like Ayton, a freshman). Ayton's leaving after one year. Trier's probably hoping this will be his last year. They have several guys. The biggest difference is all the preseason talk and attention on their leaving. Our guys maybe had some inkling but it was never during the course of the year the talk of everybody.

Q: How did you guys deal with any potential chemistry issues with so much talent on one team?

Rosborough: It was never an issue. Never, ever, ever an issue. The kids were not talking about it and it was not in the papers. It was never a topic even amongst the players. As you know, I was pretty close to the players. I would have heard something even if it was from a reserve. They shared the ball. That was a heck of team (in 2000-01). If Gilbert hadn't got hurt in the semifinal against Michigan State, we would have beaten the heck out of Duke (in the national title game) but he couldn't go. But again there wasn't any talk about it whatsoever. Richard, there was not any talk about him because he had a good year but defensively he made his living in the tournament. Never, ever — and this is truth — did I hear a peep out of any of those guys.

Q: If you had a chance to talk with Miller about your experience what would you say?

Rosborough: Sean, he knows this, it's no secret ... He has to get those guys playing hard, playing together and sharing the ball. Everybody's not going to be scoring 20 and you hope the kids are smart enough and wise enough to understand that if the team does well, they're going to do well. That's one of the oldest saying. If the team does really well, then it's going to be good for all of those guys. There is a lot of talent.

Q: You had guys like Mike Bibby and Brian Williams leave early after two seasons in the program. How did you guys deal with that?

Rosborough: The only guy who was a surprise in all of my time was Brian Williams. We didn't hear a peep out of him and then all of a sudden he shows up at the office with his mother and he was leaving. I guess he had already been over with a few agents and that was a big surprise. We had no inkling on that and that was what 1991 or 1992 so nobody was talking about it any way. ... We knew Bibby was going to be a short-term guy but he was a team-first guy. He had a lot of fun. Everybody liked him. He was there for one purpose and that was to become a pro.

Q: Your stance on the one-and-done policy for college basketball and the NBA?

Rosborough: I'm an old-timer and conservative and everything else. It just drives me up a tree. The thing about it is you have to take these kids. You have to take them for a year. Sean's job is to win games and you have to get these guys. You want your best chance to win big, to win a title, and everything else. So you have to take them. Basically the kids we had got better over the course of their three or four years. They got better every year. We played a style that was good for them and everything else so I do think they got better over a course of time, but yeah nobody ever talked about leaving early and that was big too.

Post coming up: Rosborough talks about the longevity of the Arizona players he coached that will take part in the NBA Finals.

Great story my
Javier Morales
@ allsportsTucson.com
Check out part 2 in reply

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Part 2 of Jim Rosborough Q&A

Channing Frye, Richard Jefferson and Andre Iguodala — all participants again in this year's NBA Finals — last played at Arizona when Lute Olson still coached the Wildcats.

That's now more than 10 seasons ago. Olson coached his last game in the 2006-07 season. Jefferson will turn 37 on June 21. Frye is 34 and Iguodala 33.

Those three players are more than or as many as what half the teams in the Pac-12 had all season in the NBA, including ASU, which had only James Harden. Arizona had 12 former players overall compete in the NBA this season.

RELATED: Rosborough Q&A on team chemistry and the one-and-done dilemma

Programs such as Baylor, Oklahoma, Purdue, N.C. State and San Diego State had two or less former players on NBA rosters this season.

Why is it that players recruited and coached by Olson are still playing, and not only that — for championship-caliber teams? And keep in mind Jason Terry is not talking retirement yet after his 18th season in the league.

His longtime assistant coach Jim Rosborough addressed that question and others pertaining to the players he helped mold into elite-level participants in the NBA.

Q: The NBA Finals alone show that Arizona's players have great staying power in the league. Why is that?

Rosborough: I think we really, really had a good staff that was very, very demanding in practice. This started with the head guy but he had good assistants, and a good associate head coach (himself) — a good looking associate head coach (laughs). Well, I heard this a lot of times ... scouts and assistant coaches say, 'Man, if you come out of Arizona, you know the terminology. You've been well-schooled defensively. You know how to play. You know how to play defense.' Defensively, they were exposed to everything that was demanded. They learned the fundamentals and executed the fundamentals from ball-handling every day to screening out in the lane. Our style of play was such for developing guys. We let them play. We let them put the ball on the floor. We let them penetrate, pull up for 15-foot jumpers and take 3's if they were open. They didn't have to go running around worried about shooting 3's. I'm not condemning anybody else. I'm just saying that's how we played. Of course we wanted good shots. Offensively, it was a good system for the guys and defensively they were exposed to everything you could expose them to. We were demanding on the fundamentals. I've heard that from NBA coaches, scouts and assistants. I've heard that our guys were really well prepared. And on top of that, they're good players. And on top of that, they've handled themselves well. They have been good team guys. They haven't caused problems for owners.

Q: Does anything surprise you about how Frye, Jefferson and Iguodala are still playing at a productive level?

Rosborough: I don't want to say surprised because he's a good athlete, but Richard Jefferson is still very capable. He's been a little up and down in the playoffs. I saw quotes from LeBron James that guys like Richard and Channing stay professional. James said things like Channing didn't play in a series too much but he knows he will be important for them in the next one.

Q: Anything stick out schematically that is keeping them in the NBA this long?

Rosborough: With Richard, I think he's taking care of himself. In over the last six or seven or eight yearsm I think he's really worked hard in the offseason. He's staying in good shape and so on. They also get smarter as they get older. He's taken good care of himself now more than he probably did when he started in the NBA. He's a good athlete. He's got a good feel for the game. He's on a team that can really use him and likes him. I think LeBron really likes Richard and Channing. I think both of those guys been really good for LeBron. They can laugh. They're smart. They're intelligent guys. They're good locker-room guys.

Q: What do you think of the way Frye has shown endurance after the issue with his heart with Phoenix (that made him miss a season) and his lack of opportunities with Orlando?

Rosborough: Channing is a little bit younger. He has the one thing that Lauri Markkanen has — he can shoot the basketball. He's a decent athlete, not a great, great athlete. He can run. We made him run. I don't know if he is a great, great defender, but he is smart enough to know what to do in the league and he can shoot the basketball. He can stretch the defense. Every now and then he can pull a 25- or 26-point game out. He is absolutely a smart basketball player. He's taken care of himself. He watches his diet. Everything you see or hear or read, he has prepared himself for life after basketball. He's a smart kid. I think he really worked at keeping himself at top shape and it shows.

Q: What is the key for Iguodala's sustainability?

Rosborough: You look at that guy, he's a rock. He's taken care of himself. He is another team-first guy, a terrific sixth man. Being a sixth man may have extended his career a little bit because he's playing 26 or 28 minutes a game instead of 35 or more. That may have been a reason extending Richard out the last couple of years. He hasn't taken that 35- to 40-minute pounding. Channing, too, he's been a reserve. Richard, the same way. Maybe it's saved their bodies a little bit because that game's a grind boy.

Great story my
Javier Morales
@ allsportsTucson.com