Mullin: Montgomery will return to Warriors next season

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AvRN...ov=ap&type=lgns

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Mike Montgomery will return to coach the Golden State Warriors next season, top executive Chris Mullin said Monday night before the home finale in their 12th consecutive losing season.

Montgomery entered the game against Portland with a 67-95 record in two seasons with the Warriors, who hired him away from Stanford after 18 seasons as a top college coach.

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Mullin, who took over as the Warriors' executive vice president of basketball operations four months before hiring Montgomery, affirmed his commitment to the coach despite another underachieving season for a team that's missed the playoffs for a league-worst 12 straight years.

"I think Mike is learning a lot still," Mullin said. "That's to be expected. To me, the last 3-4 weeks, how the team has played in a tough stretch, they've shown a lot of professionalism in this last stretch here."

Montgomery, who signed a four-year contract worth $10 million in 2004, acknowledges his adjustment to the pro game has been bumpy.

With little practice time for a coach known for regimented workouts with the Cardinal, Montgomery has learned the NBA game on the job. Golden State will finish with nearly the same mark as last season's 34-48 club despite a 12-6 start to this season with the additions of Baron Davis and rookie Ike Diogu and Monta Ellis.

"It's more difficult not being able to affect change as much as you thought you could," Montgomery said. "You're pretty much set with what you have, with the players on your team. You don't have a lot of practice time to do things. It's been a challenge."

Mullin put the blame for the Warriors' latest dismal season on his own shoulders, vowing to make adjustments to Golden State's roster in the offseason.

<font size=""4"">Yet Mullin also pronounced himself happy with the Warriors' core of six veterans signed to long-term contracts</font>: Davis, Jason Richardson, Troy Murphy, <font size=""4"">Mike Dunleavy, Derek Fisher and Adonal Foyle.</font>

The Warriors have employed nine coaches in the 12 years since they last made the playoffs under Don Nelson in 1994, and Mullin believes continuity will be a key to improving Golden State's core of young talent. And with owner Chris Cohan firmly behind him, Mullin vowed Montgomery will get the chance.

"As the season winds down, I've got a terrible taste in my mouth," Mullin said. "And it's not going to go away until we do something about it."</div>

I'd like to know what Mullin has been smoking, I'd like to try some of it. If he's sincerely happy with Foyle, Dunleavy, and Fisher then I will have to say he is the dumbest and I mean DUMBEST GM EVAR. I just hope he's lying.



"All this money is making me tired."

 

Ah, come on. Just give this group another year. Playoffs for sure next year.

 

"Mullin: Montgomery will return to Warriors next season."

"Mullin also pronounced himself happy with the Warriors' core of six veterans signed to long-term contracts: Davis, Jason Richardson, Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy, Derek Fisher and Adonal Foyle."

This is a darthno. http://darthno.ytmnd.com/

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Gohn:</div><div class="quote_post">Ah, come on. Just give this group another year. Playoffs for sure next year.</div>

Dude... he said he's HAPPY with Foyle and Dunleavy..........

Playoffs for sure next year? Thats what we said last year. 12 years and counting.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting AnimeFANatic:</div><div class="quote_post">Dude... he said he's HAPPY with Foyle and Dunleavy..........

Playoffs for sure next year? Thats what we said last year. 12 years and counting.</div>

Haha, yeah. I know; I wasn't being serious. It took a lot of restraint to not use a smilie to show that I was joking.

 

I am starting to think that Mullin failed basic math and there is nobody around him to tell that we have some serious salary issue. Guess that happens when you surround yourself with your friends...

 

I like this quote the best:

"I think Mike is learning a lot still," Mullin said. "That's to be expected. To me, the last 3-4 weeks, how the team has played in a tough stretch, they've shown a lot of professionalism in this last stretch here."

Mully has no clue. Learning? The last 3-4 weeks? WTF??? They both need to go.

 

Keep in mind, the all-around praise is probably all just the usual lip service to keep fans, staff, and players from blowing up. If anybody wants to assume blame and should assume blame it's Chris Mullin because, like the article said, he was responsible for those offseason signings which make up the starting 5 and he's the one who wanted to try a different route with coaching. It's no secret that most fans are distraught over the Warriors setting the new nba record for most seasons absent from the playoffs (which is quite a feat) and that's why they had that big "apology" on the Warriors website for fan appreciation day. The "apology" was basically a "we regret we didn't make the playoffs, we're committed to get their next season" and it was signed by all the players. I'm sure the players understand it's not their fault they can't play together as a team because the effort was at least there (they just weren't very good as a team or was great at one aspect of the game), but they needed to let the fans know they are really trying hard. The last thing was the Warriors franchise need is total abandonment by its fans crying, "That's it! Enough!" The other thing is I don't believe the coaching is at fault either. If you look at our "core" players or starting five and our bench depth, it's the most inexperienced and craptastic collection of talent we've ever seen (of course us being fans we'd like to think Memphis or New Orleans has way less talent but they play better together and have some inside presence).

Simply put, our Warriors team is not a team. There's no chemistry and we have overrated starters. Most of our players would not start for a real playoff team. So I don't think it's fair to judge the coaching even though we know it's still "on the job training" just like with our GM Mullin and some of our players. Give a coach a real team with talent/experience and we have a shot at the playoffs. Just anything but our weak foundation that starts with Fisher/Dunleavy on the perimeter and Foyle/Murphy inside. That's some lousy vet play right there and of course we're begging rookies to come in, because we're tired of seeing what's out there.

http://www.nba.com/warriors/news/thank_you_fans.html

I guess in the end, whatever these guys say in the media, what matters is actual results and smart planning and a little luck to get those results. If you look at the Warriors history of general management and ownership, it's made some funky ass decisions in hindsight. And even though this is a rich man's game, you can't throw money at the situation to fix it because it requires the kind of thinking where you make a move to land several other good moves and you just can't do it if there's no salary flexibility, leverage or we have a GM with crazy hunches about certain guys. It's like chess, you think ahead several moves and you don't take your hand off the piece unless you're damn sure it's a move you won't regret. This whole Dunleavy, Foyle, Fisher thing was crazy. Sure it's hindsight, but even before they were signed, you could not imagine them getting paid so much for so long to do a role player's job at starter, especially with inconsistencies for the last several years and one guy being a 7-8 year bench player.

 

jblaze, what do you expect him to do? If he rips any player, that player's value becomes effectively 0, actually worse than that. He and his agent will start making a fuss and bringing everyone down with him. As a GM he has to put on a smile and look to make moves. In an interview about 3/4s of the way through the season Mullin said that we shouldn't expect the same team next year. No need to jump the gun, let's see what happens this off-season.

 

Well obviously, the GM isn't going to say precisely how he's going to solve the problems we have because like CH basically is saying, it can come back and bite him. Plus, I think Mullin can't make any dramatic improvements unless the opportunity presents itself. If there's no opportunity then it's bad timing. My guess is with the drafting of Monta Ellis/Ike Diogu/Biedrins any one of Baron Davis/Pietrus/Fisher/Foyle/Murphy/Zarko could be gone.

In terms of offseason moves, we could actually see a newly acquired center or a small forward or a prototype backup shooting guard. Or we could draft one, but if Mullin is serious about making the playoffs, he'll find some veteran talents that will fit and be consistent off the bench. Sort of like we had in 2003, but hopefully without all those injuries. Hopefully the young guys will be good starters or we'll have to find a veteran starter... that's hard to find. Anyway, it's all speculation. We just need a better starting five... We've got the most inconsistent and weak defensive starting five.

 

As long as our front court consists of Dunleavy, Murphy and Foyle. We'll never ever ever ever see playoffs guranteed.

I for one like Murphy and think that theres too much pressure on him, especially to be a force in the paint. The main reason why people rag on him for his lack of post game is because Foyle plain sucks at everything. No one really put pressure on Foyle to do anything in the paint, simply because he can't. If we had a center that could rebound AND score decently in the paint, would we have put so much pressure on Murphy to do so as well?

Murphy's problems are magnified due to Foyle being such a bad center. If Foyle could score in the paint Murphy's post game wouldn't be as big an issue. If Foyle could rebound, Ike's earlier lack of rebounding wouldn't have been such a big issue.

Foyle is bad and makes everyone arround him look bad as well.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting AnimeFANatic:</div><div class="quote_post">As long as our front court consists of Dunleavy, Murphy and Foyle. We'll never ever ever ever see playoffs guranteed.

I for one like Murphy and think that theres too much pressure on him, especially to be a force in the paint. The main reason why people rag on him for his lack of post game is because Foyle plain sucks at everything. No one really put pressure on Foyle to do anything in the paint, simply because he can't. If we had a center that could rebound AND score decently in the paint, would we have put so much pressure on Murphy to do so as well?

Murphy's problems are magnified due to Foyle being such a bad center. If Foyle could score in the paint Murphy's post game wouldn't be as big an issue. If Foyle could rebound, Ike's earlier lack of rebounding wouldn't have been such a big issue.

Foyle is bad and makes everyone arround him look bad as well.</div>

Murphy is horrible on defense to go without Foyle, though. Balance on both ends of the floor is what this team needs. The starting power forward doesn't need to hit threes, especially early in the game, but he should be able to play some defense and make small players think he's going to block their shot. I can see Ike as a good shotblocker, but Murphy? No. Not his game. He's also not going to be a banger. He's a finesse guy. That's just the way he plays. It's like asking Fisher to be like Brevin Knight or Steve Nash.

 

Mullin is just waiting for Ike & Biedrins to develop. He has a terrible gameplan and hopefully he's fired by the end of next year when we miss the playoffs again. Good player, awful GM/vp of whatever. Should of offered the job to Jerry West. Put down Mullin with the rest of the white clueless GM's McHale, Ainge and now Mullin.

 

Wish we had gotten Colangelo

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting CohanHater:</div><div class="quote_post">jblaze, what do you expect him to do? If he rips any player, that player's value becomes effectively 0, actually worse than that. He and his agent will start making a fuss and bringing everyone down with him. As a GM he has to put on a smile and look to make moves. In an interview about 3/4s of the way through the season Mullin said that we shouldn't expect the same team next year. No need to jump the gun, let's see what happens this off-season.</div>


I know he shouldn't be ripping any players I didn't mention what he said about the top 6 guys. But saying Monty is "learning" just shows me how ill-equipped he is as a GM. "Learning" is something a college freshman-junior does, not a highly paid NBA coach. He should of known his $hiet already and if he didn't then he shouldn't have hired him at that high of a price. College coaches never succeed in the NBA and Monty just had no chance, especially coming from lily white Stanford where he never had to deal with egos of very talented players. And the mere mention of these last couple weeks of truly meaningless bball should not even be close to being uttered. If he said something like Ellis and Diogu have progressed nicely with extended playing time I woulda been very cool with that. Right before and after the All-star break we had our chance to make a run, and they didn't get it done. In fact they crumbled under the pressure, i really dont give a rat's a$$ about our annual season-ending run that's only worsening our draft position and giving Mully an excuse to let Monty keep his job. Making excuses isn't going to get this team anywhere. And tic prices are rising next year, how ridiculous.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting jzblaze:</div><div class="quote_post">I like this quote the best:

"I think Mike is learning a lot still," Mullin said. "That's to be expected. To me, the last 3-4 weeks, how the team has played in a tough stretch, they've shown a lot of professionalism in this last stretch here."

Mully has no clue. Learning? The last 3-4 weeks? WTF??? They both need to go.</div>

I usually take this as a GM talking, but in this case, it really starts to make me angry. This is the exact same regime that basically gave Muss a pink slip when the season was still going. Despite we lost Arenas and Jamison for nothing and lost Murphy, NVE and Foyle majority of seasons due to injury, Muss' 2nd season club was overachiving and took every game with intensity, which this year's club couldn't even dream of, and ended the season with 37-45. However, Mullin and Rowell came out in public and said Muss' club was 'underachiving' and not developing young talents properly repeatly. And, when this year's club was dramatically underachiving despite far more talents on the roster, virtually eliminated from PO long time ago, young players only emerged after we were realistically eliminated from PO, and at best 34-48 record, it's to be expected??? Exactly what kind of justice is in there? Once you made a public speech, whether you like it or not, or regret or not, it does become a measuring stick for your future actions. But, in this case, Mullin toasted Muss no matter what he did, because he didn't pick Muss, and Monty is saved no matter what he did, because he picked Monty. Even ignoring series of poor moves this regime made, this use of extreme double standard really makes me sick...

 

If Mullin likes the core so much, he should do it a favor and bring in a coach that runs a system that the players from the core can actually understand and succeed under. How many times this season did someone like Murphy and Mike Dunleavy criticize the team's offensive system?

What this team needs is winning leadership. Where does the leadership lie on the Warriors? Sure Jason Richardson brings leadership, but he has yet to show winning leadership. Baron Davis is a star-talent, but he still hasn't learned just yet to be a great leader. Derek Fisher hardly brings any leadership too.

Basically the decision to bring back Mike Montgomery, is that Chris Mullin just assumes that some type of winning leadership will be created by the players. This is the expectation for a roster that is one of the youngest in the league and a roster that still is finding out how to play with eachother. No, I am not so high on this decision. Promote an assistant coach if you want to keep some stability. The players seem to respect the assistants more anyway, such as Mario Elie who is always the first one up during a time out to give a player a tip and to give some encouragement. Or maybe Keith Smart who is a study rat who just gives 110% in all that he seems to do, who also seems to have the respect of players like Pietrus. Remember, it was Montgomery who has been surprised all year by how these young guys have been performing, and still he wouldn't play them enough or correctly. This compared to the assistants who were not surprised at all by the performances by the guys like Ike and Monta. Other candidates could also be Silas or what's his name, the analyst from TNT who coached the Bulls, Wizards, and I believe the Cavs?

And ditto to what you, Kwan, just said. It was disgusting how the Warriors dealt with Musselman in his final year here.

 

Why is it so wrong that Mullin puts the blame on himself rather than Monty? Could any coach in the league get this group of players into the playoffs? Muss had Cliffy, Boykins and Cardinal. Now you can say that he Made these guys, but in retrospect, all three of those guys could play. Also, Speedy was pretty damn good himself.

This team had no real pointguard except for a handfull of games, no real front court all year. And don't give me any of that "if he played the young guys" garbage. Rookies rarely are ready to come in and play, He was trying to get Biedrins and Ike in, but the guys just couldn't stay on the floor at the beginning of the season, and Montay was deferring to Fisher all the time.

Now, if you honestly believe any word Mullin is saying right now, get angry. The truth of the matter is, no GM, not even Isiah, can look at this roster and think that it should've made the playoffs, or are comfortable with it's core. There will be some shaking up this off-season. My guess is that the team will sacrifice depth for balance in the starters, and they'll look to pick up a piece at the trade deadline to make a push. Now, there's a chance that Monty may decide to step down on his own, but like I said in an earlier thread, enless you can get a Chuck Daly, Larry Brown, etc... I don't think a coaching move is or should be made

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting CohanHater:</div><div class="quote_post">Why is it so wrong that Mullin puts the blame on himself rather than Monty? Could any coach in the league get this group of players into the playoffs? Muss had Cliffy, Boykins and Cardinal. Now you can say that he Made these guys, but in retrospect, all three of those guys could play. Also, Speedy was pretty damn good himself.

This team had no real pointguard except for a handfull of games, no real front court all year. And don't give me any of that "if he played the young guys" garbage. Rookies rarely are ready to come in and play, He was trying to get Biedrins and Ike in, but the guys just couldn't stay on the floor at the beginning of the season, and Montay was deferring to Fisher all the time.

Now, if you honestly believe any word Mullin is saying right now, get angry. The truth of the matter is, no GM, not even Isiah, can look at this roster and think that it should've made the playoffs, or are comfortable with it's core. There will be some shaking up this off-season. My guess is that the team will sacrifice depth for balance in the starters, and they'll look to pick up a piece at the trade deadline to make a push. Now, there's a chance that Monty may decide to step down on his own, but like I said in an earlier thread, enless you can get a Chuck Daly, Larry Brown, etc... I don't think a coaching move is or should be made</div>

There is nothing wrong with GM covering coaches or players back. That really should be a GM's job. The problem is that Mullin already put extremely tough measure on Muss to fire him before, and now he is using extreme soft measure on Monty. Whether you are in public or at home, once you set the example, your future actions should follow the example you set before. You just can't fire one guy, who made $80,000 sales, despite he had to use his two legs to make a sale, while give another guy a bonus and say "He is still learning", when he only made $40,000 in same time span and he could use cars and airplane to make sale. And, I am disgusted at the use of extreme double standard.

If what you are saying is that Muss had better club then this year's club, and Mullin managed to make this team even worse after dumping nearly $350 mils on Davis, Richardson, Dunleavy, Murphy, Foyle and Fisher, while getting rid of Dampier, Robinson, Speedy, and Cardinals, he should be fired immediately. First, I believe 75% of the blame should go to Mullin for his poor managements, and there is no question that this club is less balanced than Muss' second year club. However, in terms of raw talents, this club is far superior than Muss' second year club. Not only Muss lost Arenas and Jamison, he also lost Foyle, Murphy and NVE due to injury. He literary had only Dampier, Robinson, Dunleavy, Richardson and Speedy to use at that year. To make things worse, Speedy got injured when we were in PO hunt, causing costly 9 games losing streak. Compare to that year, only Davis was injured when we were realistically out of PO, and Monty had one year in his belt, and he had every talent to utilize. And, if you have tons of raw and unbalanced talents, coaching is really important to use those pieces properly. Look at Lakers. You can easily say that Lakers actually got worse by trading Butler and Atkins for Brown, and you can make an argument that their front court is even worse than ours. Lakers is also quite unbalanced club. But once Jackson became their head coach, Lakers won 10 more games with one game remaining. Yes. I do believe this current club has enough raw talent to make PO with right coaching. We have obvious weakness and obvious strength, and it was a matter of how we minimize our weakness while emphasis our strength. That really never happened with this club.

Also, good coaches usually bring some players out of nowhere. Yeah, players like Boykins and Cardinals look good now because Muss unearthed them and used them right. If they didn't meet Muss, I seriously doubt that they are enjoying nice NBA careers with fat contracts they are receiving, and most likely, the would be in NBDL or Europe. In contrast, exactly which players really improved under Monty? Richardson and maybe Biedrins in Monty's two years. And, since Richardson improved every single year, I am not even sure the credit goes to Monty either. In other hand, players like Dunleavy, Murphy, Pietrus, Zarko remained same or actually got worse in two years span.

What I want to know is instead of this season being destined to be doomed, which positives Monty left to save his job in his two years span. Indeed Titanic was destined to go down. But, I would like to see a captain, who stays calm and do whatever he can possibly do till the last moment, instead of crying "Help me!" for 6 hours in his cabin then jump onto the first available lifeboat. It has been two years, and regardless of record, there should be number of positives Monty provided. If not, we really should look for a replacement?