Moore: Nathan Hale's manufactured title not worth celebrating

Nathan Hale forward Michael Porter Jr., right, drives around Garfield guard Jaylen Nowell during the first half of the Washington state boys' 3A high school basketball championship, Saturday, March 4, 2017, in Tacoma, Wash. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) less Nathan Hale forward Michael Porter Jr., right, drives around Garfield guard Jaylen Nowell during the first half of the Washington state boys' 3A high school basketball championship, Saturday, March 4, 2017, in ... more Photo: Ted S. Warren/AP Photo: Ted S. Warren/AP Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Moore: Nathan Hale's manufactured title not worth celebrating 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

I really thought nothing could top Bellevue High's football shenanigans, but Nathan Hale's basketball team and University of Washington head basketball coach Lorenzo Romar have done it.

Some are celebrating the Raiders' 29-0 season and Class 3A state championship, which they wrapped up on Saturday with a 68-51 win over Garfield at the Tacoma Dome. Seattle Times columnist Matt Calkins called Nathan Hale the best Seattle basketball team of all-time, and he might be right, but who can possibly endorse how it all happened?

A look at the timeline of absurd developments:

In May 2016, Romar hired Michael Porter Sr. as an assistant coach, raising eyebrows from every breathing person -- aside from those who bow down to Washington and think it was an excellent move.

The eyebrow-raisers thought Porter was hired because his oldest son, Michael, is the best high school player in the country, and if his dad was on Romar's staff, it would guarantee that he'd play collegiately for the Huskies.

Porter could not have been hired on his resume alone. A Division I men's program rarely hires an assistant coach from a women's program, and Porter spent the previous three years as an assistant for the Missouri women's team.

We learned, though, that Porter and Romar are good friends who go way back and are so close that Romar and his wife are godparents to Michael Jr. In fact, as we found out from a Christian Caple story in The News Tribune, Romar was in Porter's wedding and gave Michael Jr. his first teddy bear.

I would still argue that there must have been better assistant-coaching candidates in the country than Porter. The eyebrow-raisers stand by their claim that Porter was hired simply because his son could transform the Washington program.

(By the way, my eyebrows are raised so far they've become part of my scalp.)

But Romar contended -- almost laughably in Caple's story -- that if we understood the roots of their friendship, you wouldn't question his motives.

Lorenzo, just because you're friends with someone, it doesn't automatically qualify him to join your staff, particularly someone with Porter's experience. If Michael Jr. was the country's best cribbage player and stunk at hoops, I'd buy your premise.

More galling details: Porter was given a $300,000 salary, which according to Caple's story makes him the highest-paid assistant coach on the staff by $100,000. In whose world does that make sense?

Jen Cohen's world. Caple quoted the U-Dub athletic director as saying there was at least one competitive offer for Porter from another Power 5 program, which raised Porter's leverage, keeping in mind that it's leverage he wouldn't have had if his kid couldn't do so many incredible things with a ball.

On top of that -- yes, there's more -- the Huskies didn't have room on their staff for Porter so they had to demote another assistant, Brad Jackson, who took on a newly created role and bogus title of "special assistant to the head coach." In this role, Jackson is technically part of the team, but is not allowed to coach players at practice.

He might be a "special assistant" to Romar, but I'd call Jackson the fall guy and an undeserving one at that. Before coming to Washington in 2012, he led Western Washington to a 518-229 record and 19 postseason appearances, including a national championship in his final season.

Eyebrow-raisers, however, note a glaring hole in Jackson's resume: Jackson's kids have used up their college eligibility or aren't good enough to help save a Division I head coach's job.

Romar told Caple that Jackson was OK with Porter taking his job, explaining that "Jackson is a great team guy. He wants us to do well. He had always said if coach Porter could come on, it would be great."

Now think about that for a second. Let's say a guy takes your job, gets paid twice what you were getting and is not nearly as qualified as you are. No one alive is that much of a team player. I'd like to give Jackson six shots of tequila and see what he really has to say about that.

In Caple's story, Porter was heralded as being proficient in coaching backcourt players and transition defense. If you saw the Huskies improve in either area while finishing 9-21 on the season, including a dreadful 2-16 mark in Pac-12 play, raise your hand.

Just what I thought.

Romar gets most of the blame, but Porter is part of a staff that coached the Huskies to a school-record 12 losses in a row.

The only thing I'm fine with in this fiasco is understanding that the Porter family needed to live somewhere in the Seattle area. They chose a neighborhood close to Nathan Hale High School, so there's nothing fishy there.

But with Porter and his younger brother Jontay joining the Raiders, why did five other players suddenly transfer to Nathan Hale too? Even if those kinds of transfers are allowed in the fine print of the state high school guidelines, I'd say two things on that:

Change the guidelines. It still doesn't make it right.

Nathan Hale was 3-18 last year. I don't think anyone was in a hurry to transfer to a 3-18 team until Porter Jr. got there. And who in his right mind thinks former UW and NBA star Brandon Roy would have become the head coach if Porter was playing somewhere else?

Talk about the definition of funny business, ensuring Porter's connection to the Huskies by having an ex-Husky coaching at Nathan Hale. As soon as Porter's younger brother Jontay is gone, Roy will be too.

Excuse me if I'm not in the mood to congratulate Roy on a job well done. Asked by Calkins, the Times' columnist, about the possibility of Nathan Hale's championship being manufactured, Roy said: "Periodically it would get brought up, but it's not going to take away from what we did."

Please. Of course it does. If they had won the state title with the Porter brothers and the nucleus from last year's 3-18 team, I'd attend the victory parade in Lake City. But it wasn't.

Maybe most of the Nathan Hale students think it's cool that their school won a state championship, but I've talked to two who think otherwise, disillusioned by this ridiculous notion of players transferring in for one season of artificial greatness. The students feel like their senior year was spoiled by adults who allowed it all to happen.

They don't feel like the transfers are really part of the Nathan Hale they've known for the last four years. It might say so on their jerseys, but those players are not from Nathan Hale. The Porter kids don't even go to class there because they're home-schooled, showing up only for practices and games.

I wonder how the sophomores and juniors who were on last year's 3-18 team feel about this. Many of them did not make this year's team because of the transfers, and if they did, they didn't play as much as they would have otherwise.

As for Roy's role in the Nathan Hale nonsense, let's not for one second assume he's a great coach in the making. He could be, but I wonder how he would have done at Ballard this year. You and I could have coached Nathan Hale to a state title with the players Roy had.

Now Nathan Hale's season is over and the Huskies' is about to end on Wednesday in the Pac-12 tournament with a 13th consecutive loss. With guard Markelle Fultz -- the projected first pick in the NBA draft -- and decent role players, the Huskies had more than enough talent to post a better conference record.

It's clear to most that a coaching change needs to be made, but that would amount to a $3 million buyout of Romar's contract and the possibility the Dawgs would lose Porter and four others who are part of one of the best recruiting classes in the country.

Never mind that Romar has not accomplished much with other one-and-done first-rounders and NBA players from the past. Why will it be different with Porter and Garfield's Daejon Davis and Jaylen Nowell?

I'd argue the Dawgs would be better off to lose Romar and the entire recruiting class and hire a coach who could turn red-chippers into a highly competitive team, one that's even capable of winning a national title.

I know you need talent to win, but coaching makes a bigger difference. I'll take a great coach with mediocre players over a bad coach with great players every day of the week.

Here's the other thing: It's more fun for the fans watching your team develop with players who spend three or four years with the program. When you watch Fultz next year, will you really think of him as a Husky?

In 2008, Washington State had one fringe NBA player in Kyle Weaver, but Tony Bennett led that team to the Sweet Sixteen. The Cougars played great defense; the Huskies rarely play defense at all.

I don't think it's Fultz's fault. He looked like a team player to me. Something's just strangely amiss with the Huskies, and it's baffling because Romar has taken teams to the NCAA Tournament before (though not since 2011).

In the past I've had all kinds of respect for Romar, but he lost me with the formation of the Nathan Hale pipeline. You might call it a sign of the times; I call it a complete charade.

Whatever the case, it looks like his team has quit on him, and I have too.

The Go 2 Guy also writes for 710Sports.com and KitsapSun.com. You can reach Jim at jimmoorethego2guy@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @cougsgo. He appears weekdays from 3 to 7 p.m. on "Danny, Dave and Moore" on 710 ESPN Seattle.