<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Eric Musselman acknowledged Wednesday that he had been fired after just two seasons as coach of the Warriors. The Associated Press reported that he will be replaced by Stanford's Mike Montgomery. A Mercury News source said Montgomery had not yet agreed to accept the job but that a deal is expected, barring a last-minute breakdown. ESPN.com reported late Wednesday that a source close to Montgomery confirmed that there are ongoing negotiations between Montgomery's representatives and the Warriors on a four-year, multimillion-dollar deal. Musselman told the Associated Press that he received the news of the firing from Chris Mullin, the team's new executive vice president of basketball operations, around 7:15 p.m. Wednesday. Stanford spokesman Gary Migdol told the Associated Press that Montgomery met with his players Wednesday to discuss the Warriors' situation. ESPN.com reported that Stanford Athletic Director Ted Leland abruptly left a Pacific-10 Conference meeting in Los Angeles to return to campus. While Montgomery may not be gone yet, Stanford has a good idea about the top candidate to replace him should he go to the Warriors -- Nevada's Trent Johnson, a former Montgomery assistant who led the Wolf Pack to a Sweet 16 berth in March. In spring 2003, when Montgomery spoke briefly to UCLA about the opening created by the firing of Steve Lavin, Leland commissioned a report to rank the best options should Montgomery bolt. Leading the list: Johnson, who was very popular in the department during his Stanford tenure, and Gonzaga's Mark Few. Johnson recently pulled himself out of consideration for the Utah vacancy and signed an extension with Nevada. </div> http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews.../8711186.htm?1c
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Now this, this is downright stupefying. And it might even turn out to be a fine move in the long run. But for right this second, Mike Montgomery's resignation at Stanford to take the Golden State Warriors from Eric Musselman is still more stupefying than anything else. For one, it's bold, very bold, so bold that it seems almost like a story ripped from the satirical on-line paper The Onion. Montgomery? The Warriors? How? Why? What? The Warriors, as we know, don't normally do bold. They don't normally do much at all, frankly, but bold -- never. For two, it is such a departure for Montgomery, who knew he would only be the coach at Stanford until three weeks after he died. He had built a national power out of a program that most people suspected was run out of the admissions office. He made people believe he could do it, then he did it, and after that, he kept doing it, over and over and over again. </div> http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c...SPGD76OR6B1.DTL
Was it bold? or was it dumb? I think that there have been very bold moves in the past, such as drafting Pietrus, signing Musselman, and trading Jamison. I think that Mike Montgomery can bring in a lot of good things for the Warriors idealy. He always seems to get a lot from his big guys(very similarly to Musselman), he has an offensive system, that could help this team alot with two high post players with Murphy as one of those post players, and freeing the lane for JRich and Speedy. And Stanford seemed to play good defense most of the time. So in a way, this move I guess isn't so bad. And maybe Mike can get one of these raw big men, such as Ramos and turn him into a decent NBA big man like the Collins brothers and like Bourchardt(without the injuries), if not a lot better. However the skeptic in me is wondering if he can reach his players 82 games a season. That will be Mike's big challenge. I think keeping Cliff and Avery Johnson could help in that area. Also another question is, Is Mike really an upgrade over Muss? I guess only time will tell how good and bold this move was. It could turn out to be very bold and dumb, very bold and good, or just very bold and get you nowhere i guess.
What?? I'd expected the Warriors to pick a more experienced coach, instead of another rookie. Shocker no doubt.
