A decade ago Sam Mitchell was the loud, wise-cracking coach of a Toronto Raptors team that was skidding out. Sam was always like that: he would joust with reporters and staffers, snap at softball questions, jibe and joke, a funny rascal, a pain in the ass. God, he was a pain in the ass.
But the talk I remember is a night in Orlando when he had returned from a funeral, his father-in-law’s. On the flight he had dreamed about his former Minnesota Timberwolves teammate Malik Sealy, who had died six years earlier. And before the game, Sam spoke quietly about death.