<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Another player from the Warriors' Run-TMC days has joined the fold. Mario Elie, who played for Golden State for two seasons (1990-92) as part of an 11-year NBA career, has been hired as coach Mike Montgomery's assistant, the team announced Monday. Elie had his first experience as an assistant last season with the San Antonio Spurs, with whom he won one of his three NBA titles as a player in 1999. He also earned championship rings with the Houston Rockets in 1994 and '95. Elie played AAU ball with Warriors vice president Chris Mullin during their teenage years in Brooklyn, later joining him on the fast-paced Golden State teams of the early '90s. Those clubs also included Rod Higgins, now the Warriors' general manager, and Mitch Richmond, a team scout. Elie is the first assistant added to Montgomery's staff. There has been some talk in NBA circles that former Atlanta Hawks coach Terry Stotts might take a similar position, but the Warriors wouldn't confirm it. Today the club plans to offer fans a look at first-round pick Andris Biedrins. The 6-foot-11 power forward from Latvia will be introduced in a news conference at 12:30 p.m. at City Center Plaza in downtown Oakland. The public is invited. </div> http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file...29/WARRIORS.TMP
Mario Elie is a great pickup for the Warriors coaching staff. He played basketball back in high school with Mullin, though his pro career didn't pick up until near the end of his career. He endured traveling around Europe and came back and showed that he was a true basketball player, working hard on his game and improving in all facets. In his playing days, he was a great defensive stopper and excellent role player on offense, he could score or be a playmaker. I'm sure he's in line for a promotion after Monty's contract runs. Aside from teaching a few younger guys, there wasn't much of a reason to leave SA.
I love this pick up. He has some experience being in the SA organization and could help Monty adjust to the NBA game. He is also a person whom the players will respect.
Zhone, I don't think Mullin would have picked Montgomery if his mission was to replace him after 4 years if that's what you're implying in regard to Elie getting a promotion (to warriors head coach?). If not ignore this post. Otherwise, I have to argue why not go to Elie in the first place? Here's what I think: Elie could have had a reason to go to Warriors to both be with his friend Mullin and get more hands on coaching away from Popovich with trying improve a team that is notorious for losing. Now I think the warriors team has been badly coached for years and Musselman and his open offense system were way overrated IMO. It's like what playmakers A.J. and NVE said about his half court open offense being too predictable (take my word for it I don't have the sources at the moment). Basically, it was that good defensive teams can read the open offense of passing and cutting like a book and that's why second halves turn out to be disaster at times. And why have the warriors been such a high scoring team in the past before last season? Easy, they just push the ball everytime in the open court and use their freakish speed and athleticism for fastbreak buckets. It's not hard when you got Jamison and Arenas. Right now, they'll need Elie to be the temporary head coach (who has NBA experience) to work together with Montgomery (who is a great x's and o's guy who doesn't have NBA experience) coach a team and make them play better. I think the coaching titles are all formalities: Elie will be the real head coach behind the scenes with Montgomery, the strategy guy, eventually taking over that position once he learns the NBA as well as he does with College ball. The biggest obstacles for a guy like Montgomery, who is known for making a team considered less talented more competitive, is that he doesn't understand the NBA yet as well as he does College ball. I think Elie will play a major part in developing Montgomery's career and the team's players. Just for that alone he could very well be ready to move on and be head coach somewhere else if he is successful in Oakland. That I could see. But Montgomery has too much upside. Very few coaches have won the John Wooden Lifetime Achievement award or whatever it was and be considered one of the great college coaches. Hopefully he'll be like Larry Brown and not like Rick Pittino.
Monty is getting up there in years, and if he succeeds it should be his decision to continue coaching or not. But my gut feeling is that at 62, he could be nearing retirement. I don't dispute that he should be a great coach, and I don't think Elie should have been named head coach yet; he's still young and has a lot of strategy to learn. As for Elie's future, I meant more like a front office job further down the line with input into the Warrior's personnel decisions, like an assistant GM or special assistant, though the official title of head coach (along with the much nicer paycheck) is a distinct possibility.
62 isn't that bad. Unless he develops some heart problems, I think he could go on as long as Hubie Brown. That guy is old. Also what about Jack McKeon of the Marlins. You're never too old to kick someone's ass at coaching. It's a mental game. Phil Jackson's zen could have worked had he used it earlier before his heart troubles.
I agree with Rudeezy. When I first read this I thought, great, if Monty fails horribly, Elie, the person Mullin REALLY wanted as coach would be there to take over. I think Monty was a Cohan guy, not a Mullin guy.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Zhone:</div><div class="quote_post"> But my gut feeling is that at 62, he could be nearing retirement. </div>I don't think he would have left the college ranks if he was planning on retiring in the near future, it just wouldn't make much sense. If these players can stay healthy than there will be no excuse for Monty not to suceed and I believe he will. He is a great teacher and is good at developing talent.
I guess I never thought about Montgomery possibly failing and then having Elie take over. I think Montgomery will be the real deal but that's a good safety measure in case Montgomery turns out to be a bust and fails to live up to the hype.
I don't think Musselman's offense was that bad. He had one of the highest scoring teams his first season and did well scoring for what he had last year. He might not be an offensive genious, but he's not bad neither. Also you have to add that there haven't been players that could handle the ball on this team neither. So you can't have a huge passing team, that doesn't go with the stregnths of his rosters. There just weren't a lot of players who played at the same times due to injuries and trades that you could have wanted handling the ball on the Warriors over the past 2 years. There might be Arenas, Avery Johnson, Nick Van Exel, Speedy Claxton, Dunleavy, Cliff and maybe you can edge in there Jason Richardson. So expecting this team to be a Sacramento Kings basketball team, is sorta cruel expectations for Musselman. Also I doubt Montgomery was a Cohan choice because Montgomery didn't even know Cohan before his press confrence. And from all the Mullin quotes, Mullin sounds like he chose Mike. Chris Cohan might like the decision, but I don't think it was Cohan's idea in the first place. And I have no idea how much of an impact an assistant coach can have on a team. But I hope that Elie is a good choice, I don't see anything that says he'd be a bad addition.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Clif25:</div><div class="quote_post">I don't think Musselman's offense was that bad. He had one of the highest scoring teams his first season and did well scoring for what he had last year. He might not be an offensive genious, but he's not bad neither. Also you have to add that there haven't been players that could handle the ball on this team neither. So you can't have a huge passing team, that doesn't go with the stregnths of his rosters. There just weren't a lot of players who played at the same times due to injuries and trades that you could have wanted handling the ball on the Warriors over the past 2 years. There might be Arenas, Avery Johnson, Nick Van Exel, Speedy Claxton, Dunleavy, Cliff and maybe you can edge in there Jason Richardson. So expecting this team to be a Sacramento Kings basketball team, is sorta cruel expectations for Musselman. Also I doubt Montgomery was a Cohan choice because Montgomery didn't even know Cohan before his press confrence. And from all the Mullin quotes, Mullin sounds like he chose Mike. Chris Cohan might like the decision, but I don't think it was Cohan's idea in the first place. And I have no idea how much of an impact an assistant coach can have on a team. But I hope that Elie is a good choice, I don't see anything that says he'd be a bad addition.</div>Yeah I'm surprised I didn't catch that earlier about the comment that Montgomery was a Cohan guy. Cohan would never be in the decision making process because he doesn't know a darn thing about basketball. He wouldn't know the different between a nba basketball team and a junior high jv squad. That's why he lets the GM's make all the decisions and that's not good when we've had some pretty incompetent GM's over the past decade (St. Jean wasn't that bad though). The worst of all was Twardzick. He seemed to bring a black cloud over any franchise he goes to. Just look at the Magic. BTW I still think Musselman had no control or competency over how to run a good offense. But that's not entirely his fault. He was used to working with shooting guards assigned to play as point guards. And you know how Arenas, Jamison and Richardson love to run the break. Now if we can play Pietrus at times to help run with Richardson I'll be happy because last year we hardly got any easy fastbreak buckets because NVE and Dunleavy are too slow. That would fix the low scoring problem with guaranteed easy points or trips to the foul line.
