Heavy is the tag of “interim” when it comes to coaching in professional sports.

In almost every instance of an interim coach taking the reins of a club, it’s been preceded by the dismissal of a permanent coach – almost exclusively midseason – who, for one reason or another, couldn’t do with his players what was expected of them. Normally, that interim coach is a member of the fired coach’s staff, promoted to steady the ship in the absence of, oftentimes, the person who got him the job in the first place.

After a disappointing 8-9 start to the 2008-09 season, the Toronto Raptors parted ways with the reigning NBA Coach of the Year, Sam Mitchell, on Dec. 3.

Following an 0-3 start, including the worst opening night performance in NBA history in a 124-76 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, the Phoenix Suns fired head coach Earl Watson on Oct. 22, 2017.

On both of these occasions, Niagara Falls, Ont.’s Jay Triano stepped in as interim coach and in doing so with the Raptors, he became the first Canadian head coach in NBA history.

“It’s not an easy position to ever be in,” Triano told TSN.ca. “And I had to evaluate both times whether or not I wanted to keep coaching and both coaches were great. I think there’s something about the fraternity of coaches where they want you to take [the interim job]. It’s not like, ‘Screw them, let’s all leave.’ ”

In becoming an interim coach, Triano explains, you need to straddle the line of effecting change without disrespecting the outgoing coach or regime.

“It’s how are you going to make change, but at the same time, be respectful?” Triano said. “Because [the players] obviously all had a relationship with Sam and Earl and you can’t go in there killing guys. You worked for them and they were the guys that hired you. How are you going to go in there and make change and do something positive to turn things around because, obviously, there needs to be a change made? I find it one of the toughest things to do. I don’t think you do it overnight. I think you do it through changing up how we’re going to practice, what the focus is going to be and through communication.”

But there’s another thing to consider as an interim coach – is there a way to get that tag removed? It’s almost impossible to divorce yourself from the idea that taking this underperforming squad and getting them to gel in a way your predecessor couldn’t is a means to permanency. The following May after becoming interim coach, the Raptors made Triano permanent on a three-year deal. This past summer, Triano interviewed for the Suns’ permanent position, but was passed over in favour of Igor Koskokov.

Triano believes you can’t afford to get ahead of yourself in that position.

“I think you need to be the person that you are – that got you to that spot,” Triano said. “Being hardworking, people recognize that, being completely honest with everybody because you have to win [over] the players if you’re going to be successful. But you also have to understand that it’s the organization that determines whether they’re going to keep you or not. I think just being fully transparent with everything and open with communication, those are the big things.”

Triano recounts his experiences with the Raptors, Suns  and his life as a pioneer of Canadian basketball in Open Look, his memoir that was released this week through Simon & Schuster.

“They approached me and said you have some interesting stories and an interesting life,” Triano said of the genesis for the book. “Basketball in this country has taken off and you’ve been kind of a pioneer, the first ever Canadian coach, and people should know how it started. We’re gonna have 13 NBA players [this season] and you were the first Canadian to be a coach. And that’s gonna grow, so we want to document this.

“We started talking about it, found out more about it, my life and the fact that I knew Terry Fox at [Simon Fraser U]niversity and I got to coach Steve Nash. Those two guys, to me, are two of the greatest Canadian heroes of all-time and I’ve had a relationship with both of them. We need to tell this story. How did it start? Where did it come from?”

In writing the book with Michael Grange, Triano, now 60, says the process allowed him to take stock of his life and career and recall the events and people who helped get him to where he is today.

“It brought back tons of memories,” Triano said. “It brought back tons of people that I’d say, ‘Man, if I hadn’t met that guy or if that coach hadn’t have pushed me, I might not have had the luck to be doing what I’m doing right now.’ I also look back and go, man, I was a pretty lucky guy. Everybody says luck is preparation meeting opportunity, but I was always prepared and unafraid to try different things. And this book is another one of them. It’s humbling a little bit.”

Triano’s life in Canadian basketball – first as a player from 1977 to 1988 and then as a coach from 1998 to the present – is now in its fifth decade and his nascent days with the program are a far cry from the one that’s now fronted by NBA stars like Jamal Murray and the burgeoning talent of R.J. Barrett.

“There were like 15 guys and on the national team, travelling around the world in the ‘80s,” Triano recalled. “We would sit around talking about how each one of us had a key or a code to a gymnasium or a janitor who, if you gave him a couple of bottles of wine, would leave a door open. We’d sit around and talk about that. Now, kids don’t have that opportunity. You can’t get into a gym. You have to have supervision.”

For his time as a player on the team, Triano had only one coach – the legendary Jack Donohue – and he credits him with helping to shape the way he views the game today.

“I saw the national team play when he was coaching and that became my dream and I did whatever I could to try to find my way onto the team,” Triano said of Donohue. “I did it for 11 years and in those 11 years, his success – you know, we talk now about trying to get to the Olympics, well, we were a top-five team...we were [always] in the picture. Now it’s like a fight to get there, but that’s because basketball’s grown all over the world. It’s growing here, too, but we’re a little bit behind. But we’re gonna get there and it’s gonna be great.”

Aside from his duties with Canada Basketball, Triano is back in the NBA as an assistant with the Charlotte Hornets, a role Triano says he relishes.

“Being a head coach is not the most fun thing I do,” Triano said. “It’s not fun. It’s not basketball. I love being an assistant coach because it’s basketball all the time. You don’t have to do all the other things.”

An offer to join first-year coach James Borrego’s staff was an opportunity that Triano found hard to pass up.

“I didn’t know him at all when I got the job and he called me and said, ‘Listen, I need to have somebody who’s been a head coach before, who’s been through this grind, who’s been around the league for a while and who knows the ins and outs of the league. Do you want to be that guy?’ ” Triano said. “I said for sure. I think there probably were other opportunities for me, there was a lot of change [around the league this off-season], but the way he called and presented it to me, I wanted to be part of something new in Charlotte. I like going to the East. It’s closer to home and it just made a lot of sense in a lot of different ways and I could get back doing what I like doing. “

The fact that the work that assistant coaches do on an NBA staff often goes unheralded doesn’t bother Triano at all.

“Within the team, I think people understand who [we are] and what we do,” Triano explained. “It’s a full day three days ahead of time devoted to a scouting report based on personnel, watching plays, building the report to give to the coach who’s still thinking about the game in Miami the other night, but still has to have this one on his desk in preparation. The amount of video, the amount of interaction with players – we each have like two or three guys that we take to watch film with them. So you gotta pull the film, you gotta get on the court, replicate situations with other guys on the court to help them develop their skills.”

Development is so crucial to the modern NBA in a way like it has never been before, Triano contends, thanks to super teams and a power imbalance across the league. Teams that aren’t contending today might be able to do so tomorrow if they focus on players’ growth.

“There’s a lot of teams who are gonna go, well,  Toronto, Boston and Philly are going to be the teams in the East and everybody else is rebuilding,” Triano said. “And in the West, it’s Houston and Golden State and everybody else is in the development phase. That has become the big thing, too. How are we going to develop the young players that we draft? In Phoenix, in Portland, it’s like, this isn’t a destination. We have to, through draft or trade, get these guys and then convince them that they’re getting better. So that’s the big thing – how are we going to develop?”

Personally, Triano hopes to develop an audience with his book.

“Where Canada Basketball was and how it’s slowly turned into this giant,” Triano said of what he wants anybody reading it to take away from it. “I feel so old writing this book because it goes back and you can’t believe some of the stuff – the way we used to travel with the national team and so on. Now it’s booming, but it was pretty darn good back then...even when we had short shorts.”