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Buckner's Losing It With Mavericks  December 12, 1993|MARK
HEISLER  Management Secrets of Attila the Hun's Son: Unlike his
revered Indiana mentor, Bob Knight, Quinn Buckner, the rookie
coach of the Dallas Mavericks, has never kicked his son.  Of
course, this isn't a fair comparison since Buckner doesn't have
a son playing for him.  In other ways, however, Buckner has
managed to come off as an NBA version of the IU-Tollah,
railroading players, ignoring administrators, turning up his
nose at the press.  This adds up to the biggest miscalculation
since Knight offered a referee on the other side of the court a
chair. Buckner's players aren't teen-agers on scholarship but
young men with multimillion-dollar contracts. His front office
delights in his struggles with his players. The press is
covering it without asking him for guidance or volunteering to
ghost his autobiography. I don't think we're in Bloomington any
more, Toto.  Everyone thought the Maveric