I also find it amazing that ESPN has time to post THIS but is unable to even have a snippet about Mullin's departure.
Wow, 29 POUNDS of marijuana and he gets off with a wrist slap? Are you kidding? Don't they put people in jail for like...ounces? Anyway, yeah the Warriors will never draw the attention of ESPN. How much do you bet what triggered the article was the fact that Blount used to play for the Lakers and Bulls, as well as involving drugs, that's what makes something newsworthy to ESPN. But to be fair, ESPN did repost an AP article about Mullin: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4159807
Agreed. That article is pretty biased (from Mully's longtime friend). While it has merit he also admits that some of the things stated there are conjecture on his part with no legit info. If anything I think it kind of quells the rumors that Nellie ousted Mully like he allegedly does at every stop hes been at in the NBA. According to that guy Mully and Nellie were never good pals like many fluff pieces claimed when Mully first hired Nelson. It makes sense. Mully is an alcoholic and Nellie had a damn Bud Light in his hand during a press conference during the We Believe run. That guy says Mully hired him only because he was a good coach. And I disagree with the author's claim that Nellie is no longer a good coach. Look at how Monta, Randolph, Beli, Morrow, Biedrins have come along under him. He did actually coach us to two winning seasons out of 3. And this season, while we were very bad, you can't blame him for losing his best player (Baron) then losing the next in line to be the man (Monta) as well as having a ton of other injury issues with Jack, Beans, Mags, Wright, Beli all missing a lot of games. At least we're going into next season with what appears to be a good, high potential starting PF in Randolph who Nellie changed from a selfish young fool at the beginning of the season to a hard-working mauler by season's end.
oh boy, is anyone as jaded as I am right now? Something has to change in the Warriors. Or history repeats itself all over again...
Yeah, the author did use Nellie as a scapegoat a bit. I always have a hard time believing any author that quotes a person from their own memory. The only quotes that seem valid these days are the ones that are recorded and/or witnessed by several sources.
Hmm... I guess you missed the part where Mullin didn't want to extend Nelson. Maybe he wasn't directly involved in Mullin's ouster, but then again maybe he was. Nelson broke up Run TMC after trading Mitch Richmond. Not only that Nelson traded three # 1 draft picks for Chris Webber and then after one year, got into a tiff with CWebb, and traded him. He got into a tiff with Al Harrington and the Warriors ended up trading him too soon. Not only that, they got stuck with Jamal Crawford in an already crowded backcourt. This past season, Nelson had to open his fat trap and made it near impossible to get value in return for Jamal Crawford. Sheesh. It looks as if Nellie fan boys will continue to believe it was just Cohan and Rowell .
To add to that, I just heard Steinmentz on the radio today who added to Nellie's role in all of this. He basically said that he believes that Nellie saw what was going on between Mullin and Rowell in the front office and put himself in a position to succeed and gain control. He said Nellie "knew where the wind was blowing", he knew Mully was gonna be on the way out and Mully and Rowell were having problems working together even before the Baron Davis contract. Nellie finagled a contract extension out of Rowell since he saw that Rowell was overriding Mully and pulling the strings. Steinmentz concluded by saying that Nellie now has 100% control of the franchise. Hes the decision maker. He can do anything he wants and no one will stop him. Hes got his right hand man at GM, hes got a 2 year, 12 million contract extension and the W's aint firing him because they don't want to pay that much in dead weight. Now the entire front office seems to be on the same team so at least we have that going for us. We've had 0 winning seasons without Nellie in the last 20 years. 0 playoff appearances as well. The team has never been relevant at all under Cohan when Nellie wasn't around. Nellie isn't the one who orchestrated the Crawford deal and would anyone have handled the AH situation differently? Dude was HORRIBLE in GS. He wanted out and Nellie didn't give a shit- he would have just as gladly continued to play him sparingly and let him opt out or expire. As for Webber, he was being a baby when he played here, Nellie wasn't having it. Webber forced his way out of here. Sure Nellie could have been more appeasing but thats not who he is. He did the same thing with AR and it appears to be turning out for the best because AR got his head out of his ass and we didn't appease him when he was whining for playing time and/or a trade.
If any, Mullin will probably end up in NY. Mullin has a close relationship with NY's GM, Walsh, and Mullin made number of moves with him including Jackson and Harrington trade when Walsh was in Indiana. For whole Mullin thing... Mullin's biggest flaw was that Mullin was the worst at politic in Warriors organization. If you look at Mullin's overall achivement, you can say it's not that impressive, because he created a gigantic mess in just one year, and he spent more than half of his tenure cleaning his own mess. However, if you split his work before hiring Nelson and after hiring Nelson, you can see that he improved quite a bit as a GM. We ended up with the best two seasons in last two years. And, despite Davis' departure, we still ended up with tons of young raw talents. Despite his works, he got squeezed out by Rowell, because he doesn't seem to be good with politics, and Cohan is idiotic enough to choose Rowell over Mullin. Then that weasle, I mean Rowell... He first sent Davis packing. We do not know whether he rejected Davis' extension from Mullin or offered that ridiculous 'incentive' based extension to Davis. Either way, it does seems like Rowell is directly responsible to Davis leaving. Then, he came out and said Mullin will be evaluated based on 08-09 season as if we had any chance to make PO after Davis left. He was probably trying to build a reason to fire Mullin. But, Rowell was even bad at that since everybody knew Mullin didn't even get that chance, and Rowell pretty much took Warriors over in 08 season. Despite all those circus, I wouldn't be nearly angry if Rowell was halfway decent GM. It turned out that he was an absolutely horrible GM so far by signing Maggette, resigning Jackson and Nelson way too early, and made no trade except Harrington-Crawford trade. I was hoping that he will at least create a good caproom situation, since he is suppose to be a 'business man'. Turned out that the only thing he could do was not Cohan paying luxury tax. His first year rivals Mullin's first year, and I wonder if Rowell has what it takes to clean up his own mess. Not that we didn't know this would happen, but it still hurts to think that Rowell is in charge. I wonder who's more popular/smart. Bush or Rowell...
... And, Nelson is also responsible for creating run TMC to begin with. No question Richmond-Owens was a horrible trade. But, Run TMC wasn't going anywhere, and Nelson took a gamble. Besides, just a year after, Nelson made up by drafting Sprewell. - I do blame Nelson for half of Nelson-Webber fiasco. While it's true that Webber was immature, Nelson should have put more effort to cope with Webber. I would make Webber for Hardaway and 3 picks trade anyday though. - Nelson gave a finger to both Harrington and Crawford, and those were strange to say the least. And, you can also say that it did hurt their trade value. But then, Nelson could have taken a easy way out by rolling Jackson, Maggette, Harrington/Crawford 35 minutes and accumulate wins as fast as possible, so that he can pass Wilkin's all time win record. It would make vets happy, and Nelson could just say the built-in excuse like "We are just giving our best". Instead, Jackson had a surgery which bothered him for last two years (wink, wink), Maggette was disappeared quietly for last 15 games, and Crawford was banished. That opened the door for young players like Randolph, Morrow, and Watson, and allowed us to get the better pick. Really, if Nelson only cares for himself and don't give you-know-what to Warriors, he could have played vets and get few more wins. Also, the difference between Webber and Harrington/Crawford is that Harrington/Crawford conflict happened purely because of basketball reason. While they are productive players, does anybody actually miss them when they were gone? - I don't see lining up Nelson's past mistakes has anything to do with Mullin's departure. I mean what's the correlation? Besides, if you want to evaluate somebody, shouldn't you also line up his positive works? Like Bucks era, Run TMC, accumulation of talents like Hawdaway, Sprewell, Owens, Webber, Mullin, Gatling, A. Johnson ect in one team, constructing Dallas from nowhere, and our two years run? Really, if those were the 'worst' mistakes in Nelson's long coaching/GM career, it only illustrates how he has been a good coach/GM till now. - Nelson certainly didn't back Mullin. However, it's also hard to see that Nelson masterminded everything to gain power especially at his age or his energy level. Besides, if I have to choose between Nelson and Rowell as GM, I would go with Nelson 24/7. I mean, who wouldn't?
Last point first. You got your wish. I hope you realize that Nelson is pulling the strings now and it's not Riley. If things don't work out, then Riley gets the blame and not Nelson. The press conference sounded like one of the weirdest ever. Let's say the LA Lakers management suddenly became dumb and started acting like Warriors management and held a presser like that, then I would think it was hilarious. The thinking that Nelson was somehow involved with Mullin's ouster, and not just Rowell's dumb move, is because he got right hand man, Larry Riley, hired and now he's become the GM without the actual title. All this while dumb Rowell did not consider anyone else. Also, Rowell approved the extension and Mullin did not want to extend Nelson. I think Mullin had it right. As for the current GM, I wish Rowell considered the assistant GM with San Antonio or someone from the OKC organization.
Well from Cohan/Rowell's POV signing Riley accomplishes two things; a) you now have one solidified unit in every aspect of the organization. Cohan, Rowell, the GM, and the coach are now all cohesive and working together. There's no more conflict or drama and everyone is working with one another to get shit done. Essentially, Nellie the the bball mastermind. I know you think that means we're going to be horrible but IMO thats not a bad thing. Just look at Nellie's track record that Kwan posted. b) Why the hell would any GMs want to come here? We just completely screwed Mullin who everyone seems to agree was doing a good job. They know once they get here they'll be restricted by cheap ass Cohan, overruled by power-tripping Rowell, and possibly conflicting with Nellie who's going to do things his way. Plus Cohan is cheap and the price was right with Riley, and hes got some experience being the top guy in the front office. All in all I don't see much difference in swapping Mully with Riley (or should I say Nellie) right now. Mully was an ok GM, Riley appeared to be an ok GM with Memphis though some of you may disagree. Nellie is a pretty good GM IMO. It seems like a lateral move right now and if nothing else we have eliminated the drama from the front office. Let's wait and see what happens. I don't think swapping Mully for Rowell/Nelly = the sky is falling.
Let's not forget that Riley comes cheap. He's the lowest paid executives in the NBA in contrast to Nelson who's one of the highest paid coaches. I don't think cohesiveness has anything to do with it, but this is it. Riley has little past history of success and that announcement by Rowell said it all. To paraphrase, I know what you guys (media and fans) are thinking, that we are hiring Larry Riley because he's a tool. No, we're hiring Larry Riley because he's the future. Yeah, he's younger than Nelson and he's also their tool (when I say tool, I mean he's someone who can be manipulated by both Nelson and Rowell). Any of the aforementioned executives would jump at a chance to come here. It would be a great opportunity for them and because of the dearth of GM jobs in the NBA. If they were successful, experienced GMs, then it would be a different story, but then you're probably talking about guys who would be on the outs such as in ATL. The point was that we should get an executive who would draft defensive players and get a head coach who preaches both offense and defense and not just focus on player matchups, small ball and weird player rotations.
