<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Stop the presses, alert your member of congress, wake up Garry St. Jean and tell him to smell the demotion. The Warriors finally picked a leader Thursday, after a decade of rebellion, disarray, intra-office blood-letting and many, many losses. Of course, it's possible that Chris Mullin isn't the perfect choice for the franchise's super-extra-special new title as executive vice president for basketball operations. But it took about three seconds for Mullin to show that he is smarter than Dave Twardzik (not difficult), savvier than St. Jean (again, not a problem), smoother than P.J. Carlesimo (I repeat myself) and gutsier than all of them put together. And now that I think of it, putting that clownish corps together is how the Warriors ended up with their current, unfathomable 10-season streak of missing the playoffs. ``You know one thing about me? I'm a bit of a risk-taker,'' Mullin said after the news conference at the Oakland Coliseum Arena to announce his ascension. That's a good thing, I replied. Jerry West is a risk-taker. Joe Dumars. Donnie Walsh of the Indiana Pacers, one of Mullin's former teams and the closest thing to a model franchise for him. Risk-taking is how you play the game, how leaders act.</div> <div align="center"> link </div> You have to register to read the article so I quoted most of it. I really hope Mullin is a "risk taker".
I seriously don't know how Mullin is going to be able to turn this franchise around in a year. It will probably be by the all-star break next year to get his plans in full-action, especially if they let Musselman go and if Dampier and/or Foyle don't come back. He's said that he likes this core, and he wants them to play a lot more together. He also seems to want to win games and have his players develop. I am thinking Musselman would be the best coach for Mullin's plans. Also if he likes this core so much, it's going to be difficult for him to trade to get someone that will turn this team around as a player. This offseason will be crucial to see what direction this team wants to go, with the draft, free agency, and the coaching situation. I am guessing this team is looking to do something next offseason, with this offseason being the start of a new direction. And I think having Musselman around will get this team to build off of last year's successes instead of starting over AGAIN, with a new coach.
One of the problems with Muss is that he likes to play the veterans on the team whereas Mullin wants to see these young guys in the game developing, even at crucial times in the games.
Mullin also likes wins. And you aren't going to win games with players who can't play defense and who's 4th quarter FG% is atrotious. And I think a lot of the "young" players that Mullin wanted to see play more was basically Dunleavy. And Dunleavy averaged 31 minutes per game, and that is quite a bit of playing time I think. And he started almost every game last season as well. Also it's not like the Warriors were extremely young neither. The only young players the Warriors had were JRich and Dunleavy who were part of the core(both whom got many minutes) and Murphy was also part of the core but he was injured(even though when he was healthy he played a lot i thought), and Pietrus is their youngest player, but nobody really expected him to play that much neither. And Cardinal and Claxton i guess are somewhat young but both are in their 4th or so season, so they aren't that young. When i look at this roster and thinking back to all the healthy bodies they had, it's not like there were a ton of young players like some seem to think. Another thing Mullin was talking about was respect. And I think Musselman has brought a ton of that to this franchise. Muss has done everything that this franchise has asked in being competitive and giving this franchise some respect. If Musselman goes, they better know that what they are getting is only going to improve this team. That's pretty much what I'll say on their coaching situation. Also i think that it would be best for Musselman and for the franchise if they made their coaching decision within the next week or so. But who knows with the Warriors.
I agree with you Cliff, Muss has came in here and done a great job. I really have no complaints as to the playing time that Muss distributed. He didn't coach for the future, he was coaching to win now. I really respect that. I think we all had some times when we questioned Muss' coaching strategies but I think we all agree that he deserves to coach another season here in Oakland.
