An area where I still disagree with Custodian is the Monty factor. We can point at this guy or that guy,can say there is a lack of D,or ball movement or the team lacks focus-leadership-attention to detail. When it's one guy who ignores the coach,or is apathetic,or simply makes mistake..yeah,fine,but when its TEAM,when flaws are team-wide or reflect a lack of cohesion,even a failure to motivate-direct-communicate---then I look at the coach. I went to a HS in the Midwest that is ALWAYS a power in Ohio football-Baseball-Basketball. Our teams have a dozen state titles since I went there. A LOT of guys went on to play major college ball,even pros. Ken Griffey Jr,Barry Larkin,Buddy Bell were multi-sport standouts. The coaches would always set standards. If you are a slacker,a screw-up...adios. There was never -ever the idea some guy was too gifted to be a team player,to follow the rules,to get away with just coasting. It worked. A coach has to establish the whole basic theme,to know what every player has-what every player needs. He has to persuade every player to give everything-to invest. He has to know strategy,tactics,skill development-but also needs to make that a practical application,to maximize what 14-15 guys can do as a TEAM. Monty? I think it's evident that a D+ would be a generous grade. It could be worse-but this IS the pros,not some small college in S Dakota. To even be an NBA head coach,a guy should be pretty damn good. Monty has trouble just SEEING that some guys deserve more play-some less. He can't seem to see that his gimmick D seldom works or that this team needs to be careful to not overdo the perimeter shots. Monty has the ability to park a guy who is not adjusting as needed-but Monty has to guide the process. If he's telling guys,slow down,look for the 3,then how do we blame players who just follow the plan?
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting REREM:</div><div class="quote_post">When it's one guy who ignores the coach,or is apathetic,or simply makes mistake..yeah,fine,but when its TEAM,when flaws are team-wide or reflect a lack of cohesion,even a failure to motivate-direct-communicate---then I look at the coach.</div> Well that point is definitely valid, but first you have to have a TEAM. A coach can't do sht if he doesn't have a team. Just look at Larry Brown and all those farts who run the Knicks organization. There's a reason why the Warriors have missed the playoffs for the last 12 seasons and there has been a constant or constants which prevent the Warriors from being a team. You could say lack of a foundation (inside/outside offense or good transition/halfcourt/help defense). Lack of teamwork (guys don't pass the ball or don't move off the ball or guys look lost). Lack of experience (guys don't know what to do to take advantage of their skills because they're still figuring things out) Lack of direction (it was obvious Mullin didn't know what he was building in '04, starting out with a mostly free salary cap where he spent it on Murphy/Richardson and then pissed away cap on Foyle/Fisher/Dunleavy. He didn't even intend to wait on Dunleavy's deal, whereas he intended to wait on Murphy/Richardson until they started complaining to the media). He also drafted Biedrins as a project for potential, not immediate contribution. How can one build a team if it's not ready to play now or doesn't fit in later. It's a "collection of talent" that doesn't fit.
The only reason I don't lay into Monty as much because I can guess its frustrating for him as it is for us to be dealing with something that is out of our control. The GM is the one who has all the power and puts together the teams. The ownership is behind the great ideas to hire Twardzick and Mullin and take a fan's money in return for a bad product. It's all driven by money rather than what basketball is really about. Good teamwork, competing to win it all and the upstairs planning to strive for a dynasty. If we don't have the kind of superstar that will elevate everyone else's game play, then it needs to come from the five guys on the floor that have enough dimensions to make others around them better. Right now we have guys who play like midgets, clumsy bafoons, lazy or stupid players or constantly choke at the line and get burnt in transition or halfcourt defense. Last time I checked, we weren't in a good position to outscore the other team if we did it at a low % from the field and at the free throw line and we also got our asses handed to us in transition defense or help defense. The only time we were prolific scorers was in these meaningless games where the low % three point shot made or broke our game. The team can't win if it doesn't score that well, own the paint, and lacks the physical/mental talent to play nba team or individual defense. It also why I'm so heavily against our current frontline. I'm sure Mullin is thinking that too because of Taft/Biedrins/Ike/POB. He's also tried to address the point guard situation because guys either can't break down defenses off the dribble, know when to pass it, or just plain can't shoot. If a point guard can't dribble penetrate or shoot the ball, that just makes a bad guard. Now, I just hope Mullin realizes what a potential dud he has in Dunleavy. He could very well go back to scoring 45%, 13.0 ppg, 5 boards, 3.0 assists or whatever he got in year 2004, but unless he can adequately break down defenses like a guard would and shoot the ball consistently, his effect from game to game will vary. That is the biggest problem when every game counts and his presence on offense could have turned the tide. We just don't need more role players. We need glue guys that can step up as potential secondary or third ranked scorers. We need a Joe Johnson or a Tayshaun Prince or a Boris Diaw badly. Somebody mildly athletic with a high basketball I.Q. and a knack for high % scoring (within the flow) every single game. Stronger finishers would be appreciated.
I love this talk about "team". Watching the World Cup finals today, I was thinking about the coaches of this sport. Soccer really is a players' sport. Coaches are semi-important, but not very much. The commentator was talking about the French players coming together after some struggling performances and getting back on the same page, away from the manager. I also remember one of the soccer analysts saying how managers and referees are the ones to always blame for underachieving teams(agh my ability to quote or paraphrase things from a few weeks ago is terrible; but I believe it was something like this). Anyway, I thought it woudl be interesting to compare soccer managing, which honestly I don't know much about, and basketball head coaching. My theory became that the saying that the NBA is a players' game fits best for soccer. However my saying would be that NBA/basketball is a TEAM sport. To connect this back to this thread and the arguement at hand - Mike Montgomery has done the job that he has. The players have done the job that they have done. I have doubts to really bash the players for not performing or trying to form a team, because they all seem like Jason Richardson or Antawn Jamison(he seemed to have started this strong work ethic for this team, that was passed to JRich and Murphy, to everyone else it seems. Also inexperience is a key to this roster as well. It's not something that can just be swept into the closet and forgotten about. The roster and team have gone through a lot of change over the recent years. My biggest arguement against Montgomery is the lack of roles that were given to his players by the head coach. Custodianrules2 you mention how this team hasn't been competitive in the last 12 years. But the most competitive this team had been was under Eric Musselman who always gave each player a role on the team, no matter what your contract or experience on the team may have been. Shawn Lampley got his role about one or two days after being added to the roster. This also made a successful bench for those teams. One of the biggest falts on Mike Montgomery is his lack of ability to get production from his bench for 82 games a season(well for his case for a majority of the season). The lack of roles even effected the starters when players like Mike Dunleavy criticised the team for playing too much streetball and when he said he didn't feel part of the team, and didn't know or find his role. Troy Murphy also stated confusion on his role in the team's offense. The difference between Ike Diogu's exaggerated help defense in the post compared to Troy Murphy's non-existant effort on help defense in the post showed confusion on what the PF's responsibility on defense was and is. Baron Davis getting criticism for being a ballhog is reflected to Mike Montgomery appearing unprepared and assigning Baron Davis to be his horse to carry his sleigh on offense the whole year, similar to how it was at the end of the previous season. I mean at the end of last season, there seemed to be two different lineups. One was the rookies and second to third year players of Monta, Pietrus, Zarko, Ike, and Biedrins and the other one the usual 6 of Baron, Jason, Mike, Troy, Foyle, and Derek. One of the ways the Warriors could help themselves by bringing in a couple of vets who know how to win as a top contributor and who know how to play the game of basketball while also getting rid of a "financial" mistake could be by dealing Murphy for Michael Finley, Brent Barry, and I would also try to get Luis Scola in the deal as well. Both of those players are good vets who know how to shoot, pass, defend a little bit, lead, and are cheap contracts that expire in a year or two.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Clif25:</div><div class="quote_post">Custodianrules2 you mention how this team hasn't been competitive in the last 12 years. But the most competitive this team had been was under Eric Musselman who always gave each player a role on the team, no matter what your contract or experience on the team may have been. Shawn Lampley got his role about one or two days after being added to the roster. This also made a successful bench for those teams. One of the biggest falts on Mike Montgomery is his lack of ability to get production from his bench for 82 games a season(well for his case for a majority of the season). The lack of roles even effected the starters when players like Mike Dunleavy criticised the team for playing too much streetball and when he said he didn't feel part of the team, and didn't know or find his role. Troy Murphy also stated confusion on his role in the team's offense. The difference between Ike Diogu's exaggerated help defense in the post compared to Troy Murphy's non-existant effort on help defense in the post showed confusion on what the PF's responsibility on defense was and is. Baron Davis getting criticism for being a ballhog is reflected to Mike Montgomery appearing unprepared and assigning Baron Davis to be his horse to carry his sleigh on offense the whole year, similar to how it was at the end of the previous season. I mean at the end of last season, there seemed to be two different lineups. One was the rookies and second to third year players of Monta, Pietrus, Zarko, Ike, and Biedrins and the other one the usual 6 of Baron, Jason, Mike, Troy, Foyle, and Derek. One of the ways the Warriors could help themselves by bringing in a couple of vets who know how to win as a top contributor and who know how to play the game of basketball while also getting rid of a "financial" mistake could be by dealing Murphy for Michael Finley, Brent Barry, and I would also try to get Luis Scola in the deal as well. Both of those players are good vets who know how to shoot, pass, defend a little bit, lead, and are cheap contracts that expire in a year or two.</div> A lot of these collective problems become a vicious cycle because they're all related and intertwined with one another. The perception of what is the bigger problem is a constant debate on these forums and elsewhere. But this all ties back to the position the GM put the current coach in when he made commitments to certain players and how ex coaches might have made done a few things well in front of fans, but did lousy in other things away from the fans. The GM didn't offer much in the way of helping star players or coaches IMO. This definitely all ties to the roles that we currently don't have that we definitely need on our team that nobody can fill immediately off the bench (low post footwork, interior defense, consistent rebounding, knowing the play sets). Also, it relates to the types of viable combinations on the floor that can stay honest defensively or offensively. It's really hard to compete without a playmaking point guard healthy or one that can shoot or not having that aggressive frontline to compete with the rest of the Western Conference's frontlines. We could define a bunch of roles with these players, but if the rookies aren't ready to step in consistently, or players' roles conflict with other players' strengths it's going to be hard to win. Also, if vets need to be moved this offseason, that could easily affect what happens in the short term. In fact, I'm glad they played Fisher up over Ellis because maybe the Jazz wouldn't have taken him if he was just a seldom used bench guy. Plus, face it, Ellis does a few nice things, but we haven't seen enough of him whereas coaches work with these guys a lot more than we do. He's talented, but let's not hype him up as a franchise savior. We do that with Biedrins/Pietrus/Richardson/etc/etc I think without trying every possible combination of players out there, we pretty much figured out what kinds of combinations that could work using these guys, but none of them solve our ability to score dominantly from outside or in the paint or at the line and none of them can defend in transition, on help D, on weakside D, or man-to-man or post D. These guys demonstrated that they don't really move well off the ball to confuse defenses or play well in a motion offense to get organized. These are things these guys should know because sometimes the defense will set in despite being a very good transition team. They'll need to figure out how to break a defense down using teamwork and good shooting and physical skills. In our case, whether running slow or running fast, we would still would struggle at the line, making defensive stops in transition, scoring inside the paint, finding mismatches, drawing double teams, and knowing where to pass the ball or what the foul situation was. Just because a player with a scoring mentality and passes okay, doesn't mean he is a decision-maker or a dominant scorer that you can trust to make things happen. It's why we sort of have to be patient until we find that balance in how we can maintain pace and we have that ability to change our lineups to respond to or gain the lead against the other team. Because we are unbalanced, it's harder to play certain ways without getting smoked offensively or smoked defensively or both. I agree it is a player's game and only until we develop a team that can "coach itself", do we start even worrying about the coaching because a team that can't win in the regular season shouldn't even worry about the coaching situation, which really starts to matter in the playoffs (because talent is a lot more evenly matched after first round). As long as the coach can keep some order, not ruin anybody's confidence, and not turn everybody off then I am fine. I'm tired of these lame duck coaches who lose even more respect among the players because their losing causes the coaching to be held into question and the management won't support the coaches. Also coaches stressing out young guys doesn't help, even if we see it as "tough love". We also do know obviously, that we've had issues at point guard, small forward, center, and sometimes power forward and that's the majority of the team with few guys able to step in right away off the bench!!! There's just guys on the Warriors with less strengths than there are liabilities and those liabilities get us outproduced offensively. Even with Jamison/Arenas/Richardson/Dampier/Murphy with productive bench guys like Boykins/Sura, we still got smoked because we had nothing up front, just guard play and no defense. Collectively as a team, we've always just sucked even worse. Without a franchise player, an anchor in the paint, or a team direction, we needed so much more balance to play both ends of the floor because nobody is going to really elevate each other's play or make them score or defend easier. When it's all guard dominated and no playmakers, the ball hardly moves inside, lower % shots are taken to spread the floor when they can't drive, and it just becomes like summer league ball where guys are playing for numbers and aren't finding the big man in the post (because mainly we don't have one). So I think unless we have that good team that can respond to different types of challenges and set the tempo in a game consistently through both up/down games, the coaching matters more in just keeping the team calm. In the playoffs, I want to repeat "everybody is good after the first round" and the rosters were tested through a marathon of games in responding to and outproducing the majority of nba teams in their conference. When we make the playoffs, that's when we can start nitpicking and analyzing certain game situations, much like with the Dallas team and Avery Johnson putting in stonehands Dampier on that last play in game 6. The other problem I have with blaming the coach for why our players suck together as a team is: It's one of the few jobs where you get to be boss, but you don't get to choose your own employees and how long they're going to stick around (Fisher/Foyle for 5/6 year deals at ridiculous salary + Dunleavy the Gm's golden boy). If I say Coach Clif I want you play Dunleavy, Foyle, Fisher because I just signed those guys last year for 6 years each and your only depth on the bench will be euroballers who can't shoot free throws and a bunch of soft big men that play like they're only 6'2", what the hell can you possibly do but follow orders and give minutes where expected? You can try as many combos or assigned roles to the chagrin of impatient fans and the biased media, but it's never going to work unless you have the roster that can respond or take charge and be dominant one end of the floor. I'm a big fan of the Warriors, but I can't be a rah-rah fan of what they've put together. The future as always looks bright because of the draft, but we may not get what we had hoped for. Over time, we get to see more things and get a clearer picture of how our roster is looking.
I added up the Warriors having a total of 10 lotto picks on the roster now. What I'm figuring is that those 10 were widely seen as able to be avove average NBA players. I'd agree there are going to be a few turkeys in the barnyard,that,of 10 lotto picks,getting a couple of duds-odds favor that. Getting 10 duds in 10 picks...odds are very much against that. Now WE FANATICS...yeah,,we are..see90% of the Warrior games. We see other teams maybe a half dozen games if they don't go far in the playoffs. There's at least a dozen guys in the East I can't say for sure I ever saw. There are also assorted stars I see a few games a year-and see clips on sportscenter when they do well. . We get a full on view of every flaw or blunder by the W's players-never see most of the similar bad moments by players on other teams. It's a question of perspective. There's no question that every player on the Warriors can and should improve some skills,that applies to most players in the NBA. I see no player here who's got some agenda besides winning. I think they all know all the classic concepts-You need D,you gotta play as a team,you don't quit--etc. Add that to them being young,recent lotto picks-because they HAVE tools-and it seems you can fix problems,you can build skills. You can come up with tactics suited to the guys we DO have. Trade? Yeah,I'm okay with trades-but if we underrate the future of who we have-and overrate the future of who we trade for...you can count on a trade that does more harm than good. The roster now ranges in age from 20 to 26. Aside from the new Utah refugees-most guys on the roster are potential starters in the NBA, (maybe not here...) Seems time is on our side. We ranked #21 of 30. We have the stuff to be about average...#15-16. A lot of teams have 4-5 guys who'd probably not make our roster. Maybe I'm optimistic...maybe I'm even underestimating. A Coach has to shape individuals into a unit. These are not guys who grew up togather,playing as a unit since jr high,nor were they collected by some traditional sense of who's a "Warriors Type" player. It appears we do need Monty (or the next guy) to step up,to really DEFINE teamwork-to insist on it,preach it and teach it. We need better X's and O's...a bit more efficient-a lot more tuned to the talent.
Then I think Mullin should be coach because he put together the team. If we put Coach K from Duke on the Warriors, he'd get the same crap and he'd have to end up recruiting his own guys just to make things work in Warriorland. And when I mean Coach K's own guys, he'll find guys that can handle the nba athletically, but he'll have star players that can play both inside and outside and good role players. We only play outside and I think our role players don't contribute to our stars' games. It's outside, outside, outside and we're not even good at outside. If we played inside, the only way we can do that is if one of our guards posted up or we dribble penetrated, but that often requires trips to the foul line with all that contact or having to shoot the ball well because there's nothing inside. That is hard game to do if not all big men can shoot outside. Another thing is defensively, our best players suck. Most notably is Troy Murphy who can't guard worth crap in help defense or protect the basket. At least I've seen Richardson run the length of the floor to get back in time to stop a fastbreak or deny Kenyon Martin from getting an easy dunk over Foyle and Murphy's weak paint D. It's just hard to blame the waiter when it's the chef who cooked it up. Customers only see the waiter, but not the Chef in the kitchen spitting in the food and not washing his hands.
I'd think coach K would spot what any given player needs to change-and persuade him to get 'er done. I think coack K would quickly...as in last year-early..figure all the strength's and weaknesses...and tailor the offense and defense to that. Given that it is the pros-and we are building-he'd realize that all those lotto picks on the bench MUST be made into standouts. That is where we get better. Trading six for a half dozen is not going to get you a big leap,overall. Often you are trading wins now for wins later---or the reverse. Could coach K teach Murphy to be a better defensive player? Hell yes,you'd see results in about a week. Give him a month-he'd turn Murphy into a center and Monta into a point G. Good coaches DO that. If we have the same gripes at season's end we had at the start...or in the case of THIS season...3 times as many at the end.. .then it seems the coach is kind of limited. Lets just say COACH X is a real poor coach,his ideas are lame,he can't communicate, he can't motivate ,he can't teach basics, he can't watch a game and seem to tell who's a good player or who sucks. He manages to confuse his players and misdirect them. So-somehow coach X suddenly gets a whole batch of blue chip talent, a real lucky windfall. What happens? A great team? No. You'd get a frustrating mess-flashes when the talent could surface-but a lack of "Team" a bunch of guys with every bad habit still in the way, aimless,erratic. ...well...kind of like the Warriors. So...as an observer you watch some games and try to evaluate the players. how do you do that? How can you sort out the effects of bad coaching from what's deeply wrong with a specific player. Won't good players steered by a bad coach tend to....suck? That is OUR dilema--is it the chicken or the egg,a bad coach or a roster full of bad players. Take the variable out of the equation. Get a good coach-----then decide which players are the keepers. The egg comes first...not the chicken,a logical extension of evolution that's not as obvious as it ought to be.
Good point about the GM wanting/telling a coach to play some players more. Does he say play the high price guys so we can justify those deals? Does he say-play to win NOW,cause otherwise we won't be here to see the future? Does he say mix in these young players-we didn't draft them to sit and watch,people buy tickets to sit and watch.
The point is coach K ain't King Midas. He picks his own guys unlike NBA coaches who have GMs pick for them. We've been through this argument before and I can't be convinced that "the teacher" is a poor teacher, when I know we've got some limited mental capacity type students. I think you can only teach an average kid up to a certain point, where no matter what you do, they ain't going to be geniuses averaging 1500 on the SAT's with a 3.8 GPA. So what happens if we're trying to improve the average of students and their grades and test scores so that they are competitive against any other group of kids? We either hope they have the potential to learn and get better or we get more guys who can compete at that higher education level right now and not in the future where it may never happen. One thing has to do with the other. I'm not blind about our coaching situation, nor do I need some kind of validation on LIVE TV Fox Sports Network about what our players can and can't do. The coaches and the general management know more about what they have and don't have short term and what they can win with. It's their long term vision I'm worried about. Only the players out there can help themselves improve and the coach can only work with them until the players are actually capable of succeeding in the first place. That takes time and patience and we need some guys who are ready to go now to help win and serve as good examples of how to play. Mullin has tried to be positive, throwing in a lot of blind faith, but he just doesn't have a team for the short term. Also, the idea of Murphy suddenly playing defense is funny. Ever since the guy got his big deal, he's been like Boozer all the way on the defensive end and in terms of toughness. He won't help out on help D, he won't take an intentional foul to save a layup, he won't make stops at the basket, he'll ignore certain guys when he has the ball. If you're telling me coach K can suddenly change all that I wouldn't believe it. Let's see what we have in the rookies, but let's not act like limited role players can suddenly become stars in the paint or capable of playing the defense we expect from big men just because they average a double double. And btw the egg didn't come first, because who laid the egg? Is anybody here agnostic or non-committal enough to admit we don't truly know which came first unless we were actually there back in time? That's just jumping to conclusions. You know that brings up how fans aren't always there to really see what goes on behind the scenes with guys like Ellis/Pietrus/Biedrins/Ike/etc at practice or an intended play, but yet they form as bad of a conclusion as the media does sometimes. Or what about if we didn't see these guys play for the rest of the game after they fouled twice and it was obvious they were getting lost our outmuscled! It must be Montgomery and the fact he wants to lose or he's an incompetent bafoon! Meanwhile, Mullin sure knows what he's doing when he took a rookie college motion offense coach and gave him a center and a point guard that are incapable of doing anything in that type of offense and locking them up for 6 years each. Great... There's a reason why things are the way they are and it starts at the very top with the planning and decisionmaking that went into all this. I can't help feel it was doomed since day 1 when Mullin went bonkers on Foyle signing. I don't care how we cut it Murphy's upside is pretty overrated and Coach K or Coach Kickass couldn't fix this guy into becoming Tim Duncan or Brad Miller. He's just not it. Getting a double double doesn't means he's elite or his intangibles propel the rest of the team the way playoff starters do. I think he's solid and nothing more. He'll probably start for some teams, but definitely not center. He's not even as good as Mehmet Okur in posting up or blocking shots.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting REREM:</div><div class="quote_post">Good point about the GM wanting/telling a coach to play some players more. Does he say play the high price guys so we can justify those deals? Does he say-play to win NOW,cause otherwise we won't be here to see the future? Does he say mix in these young players-we didn't draft them to sit and watch,people buy tickets to sit and watch.</div> Well considering how much Mullin paid for some of his guys, I'm sure he's told Montgomery how many minutes he wants from them to at least give them a chance to earn it or get their values up. Remember when Foyle would not even play in '04 over Clif Robinson because he sucked that badly? I mean look at when Mullin signed Fisher for 6 years and he's already dropped him after 2 years. I don't care if Fisher was unpopular he still did a lot of things that our guards couldn't do to win 4th quarters and we already had fewer than 2 guys who could actually shoot. I want to reiterate that Fisher was a huge mistake because Baron Davis or possibly Monta Ellis is proof that something better can come along than tweeners like Fisher/Foyle/Murphy and yet Mullin jumped on Fisher/Foyle + Dunleavy the following year to get continuity/mentally stable vets, but he overpaid big time.... That's already hard to get something good for them unless they are expiring deals, we get crap for them, or they were actually market price and covetted by some other team. Mullin has to decide on a direction and fans have to be patient not to jump on Harrington-like deals. It didn't seem like Mullin had a clue in '04, but his drafts are showing he is trying to do things the right way for the long term and hopefully not caving in to short term needs with bad long term solutions. Our big men lineup won't help us win many games if it's going against the style our guards play. Dunleavy rebounding from a bad year could help the guard play. Same with Pietrus. But I have little faith in our veteran big men, which I'm sure Mullin feels the same way by now.
