At first glance, Rick Carlisle and Chandler Parsons don't have much in common. Carlisle is a 56-year-old family man who lives peacefully in Dallas when not working, playing the piano and flying single-engine airplanes in his free time. Parsons is 27, with a glamour-filled playboy lifestyle, a supermodel girlfriend, a side gig as a model and an affinity for vodka Red Bulls.
Their paths crossed, of course, two summers ago, when the Dallas Mavericks stole Parsons away from the Houston Rockets on a three-year, $46-million deal.