By Jim Taylor
TrailBlazers.com

Tualatin, Ore. – Sitting behind his desk at the Trail Blazers practice facility, Nate McMillan barks out, "Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy," in describing the insane schedule he’s been keeping since the regular season ended in April.

You might have thought McMillan’s vacation began the day after the season ended, but that’s simply not been the case for this road warrior.

Once the season was over, McMillan, along with general manager Kevin Pritchard and the rest of the basketball staff went straight to work preparing for the NBA Draft. The player evaluation process was made slightly easier when Portland landed the No. 1 pick in the draft, which meant a simple choice between Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. However, the Trail Blazers had several other draft picks and that meant a steady stream of pre-draft workouts.

The day after the draft, McMillan and his son Jamelle traveled to Arizona State University to attend the younger McMillan’s college orientation. After two days there, McMillan flew back to Portland to begin a weeklong training camp in preparation for the NBA Summer League. Then it was off to Las Vegas for 11 straight days of summer league action and 11 straight days of temperatures soaring between110-115 degrees.

McMillan then got a brief two-day respite back in Portland, but then returned to Las Vegas for four days of the USA Basketball camp. "Basically I came back, changed my suitcase and flew right back down to Las Vegas," said McMillan, an assistant coach for USA Basketball.

Despite having to travel to "The Strip" a second time, McMillan, who doesn’t like gambling, still managed to enjoy himself as he got to coach the white team in a superstar scrimmage against Mike D’Antoni’s blue squad.

"It was a great game, better than the all-star game," said McMillan. "I haven’t had a chance to coach an all-star team, but to scrimmage and coach the Olympic team, it was a great opportunity. We had fun."

McMillan then caught a late flight back from Las Vegas and the next morning tipped off his own weeklong youth basketball camp that concluded Friday and for the first time in a long time the Trail Blazers head coach suddenly has some time to kill – well, sort of.

"It’s been busy and I’ve logged a lot of miles on the plane," said McMillan. "I’ll take off right after camp today to see a friend, Gary Payton, who’s renewing his 10-year vows, and spend some time with him this weekend and then I’m going to try and get a week to spend some time with my family."

If all goes according to plan, the McMillan’s will spend the down time back home in North Carolina with family and friends celebrating Nate’s 43rd birthday.

McMillan will then return to Portland just in time to pack yet another suitcase and head back to Las Vegas with the national team to compete in the FIBA America’s Championship from August 9 – September 3. That’s right, close to another month in the desert.

"The last two years have been just…," said a smiling McMiilan pausing mid-sentence remembering next year’s Summer Olympics commitment in China. "Next year will be even worse. Next year we’ll be in Beijing from mid-July through September."

And, even as hectic as this off-season has been for McMillan, he can hardly wait to pick up the whistle and get started coaching his own team again.

"Yeah, I’m looking forward to getting back out there with our guys," said McMillan. "It’s going to be fun. It’s Nate’s nursery. We’re as young as we can be, but it will be fun."

And that’s probably the best perk of all for the Trail Blazers road weary head coach. Well, that and all those frequent flyer miles.