@LaAficion: MEX's NT HC @Cartwright_Bill says: "I live in Chicago. I'll follow players as best I can, I'll visit + they'll send me videos"

— Alvaro Martin (@AlvaroNBAMartin) September 26, 2014

This, a big contrast to Valdeolmillos who went to Mexico and coached in the national league as he once told me, “so I can be close to Mexican basketball. This is how you see players. I would have never found Francisco “Pako” Cruz if it wasn’t for me moving here”. (Cruz ended up a starter in the World Cup squad)

Then came the Central American and Caribbean Games.

To put it mildly, Bill Cartwright off to a rocky start as Mexico coach. The Central American and Caribbean Games hosts fell short of semis

— JEFF TAYLOR (@JeffreyNTaylor) November 28, 2014

Now, to be fair, he didn’t have much of a team, but still, he had to make it to the semifinals and he didn’t. With that much fire under his hiring, there was no way he was holding on to his seat after losing to Dominicana (understandable) and Panama (yes, Panama) at home. It was over.

The months went by and there were no news on the head coaching front coming from Mexican land. Internally, though, there was a growing sense of security around the fact that Gustavo Ayon, team captain, was NOT going to play this summer in the 2015 FIBA Americas Championship to be played in Mexico. We were doing a feature for the Liga de las Americas with team member Hector Hernandez and when a colleague asked him about the continental championship he answered, “I’m not going to play there and neither are Gustavo (Ayon), Jorge (Gutierrez) and Orlando (Mendez). Why would we play? There’s no rhyme or reason to it”.

We were shocked. He said it so bluntly, without any hesitation at all. These dudes were really serious about not suiting up for the biggest international championship in the Americas, to be played in their homeland.

A couple of weeks after that, the news broke out that Eddie Casiano was hired as their new head coach. This one made sense. Casiano, a former Puerto Rican national team star, had become a young exciting candidate for the position when he won two championships in the Mexican national league and one in the Puerto Rican national league in a span of five years. People were clamoring for him in the island, the federation wasn’t, and Mexico got him.

Nobody said a thing. He was a right choice. It was time to move forward with Eddie at the helm. His first order of business: to meet with Ayon as soon as his Real Madrid duties (Euroleague, ACB) were over. He was very clear on the fact that if you get Ayon, the other chips will fall and was speaking the right message about this being “his time. The FIBA Americas in Mexico is Gustavo’s championship”. He repeated the same thing to every media outlet that interviewed him at the Draw, as if he was beginning his conversation with the captain right then and there.  

But then, a month ago, craziness ensued and in a matter of weeks the championship moved to Mexico City and most importantly, there was a change of command at the top of the Mexican sports pyramid.

Let me stop here to explain said pyramid.

Mexican sports are run by two big entities: the Mexican Olympic Committee (COM) and the Sports and Physical Culture National Commission (CONADE). Basketball is “supposed” to be run by a national federation under the endorsement of those entities. “Supposed”, I said…“supposed”.

Don’t that the firing of Valdeolmillos, eight months ago, came from the Mexican Olympic Committee in a press conference at their headquarters and now, well now…

A new director was appointed to CONADE on April 16. He immediately made it clear when talking about basketball that his mission was to get Gustavo Ayon back on the national team and he was set on the fact that to make that happen Sergio Valdeolmillos had to be rehired.

Ayon publicly declared that was not the case.

2/2 mi regreso a la selección no depende del regreso de Sergio. Depende de un buen proyecto de desarrollo del basquetbol Mexicano.

— Gustavo Ayon (@AyonGustavo) May 1, 2015

But the director did not flinch and this past Wednesday announced Valdeolmillos was back with the team. Wow Mexico, wow.

Even though I vehemently defended the fact that Valdeolmillos should have not been fired back in September, my mind immediately went to Casiano. He was fired before he even got the chance to coach a single game; unfair to say the least.

Some questions are left unanswered after all this back and forth. Who is the decision-taking entity in the country? Is it COM, who fired Valdeolmillos/hired Cartwright/fired Cartwright/hired Casiano? Or is it CONADE, who just hired Valdeolmillos? And then, how is this new Valdeolmillos-era going to go when so many of the people that were there when he was insulted/fired are still in place? Does it matter?

It is very clear that this is not how these things should be handled. Hiring/firing a coach should be a process, but winning comes before anything. And if this means that the full team (Ayon included) is back, playing at home, then Mexico in my opinion is the favorite. If the team picks up where it left off last year under Valdeolmillos, it has an opportunity to be truly dominant this summer.

If they end up winning, it will be exactly like the happy “telenovela” endings and everything will be forgotten. Unfortunately.