The day before the first practice? Unless this was totally planned by management, it's kind of screwy. Why wouldn't he have done it over the summer? I hope it's a formality and that they have already had a replacement planned for him. If he's just dropping it out of the blue, that's lame after what the franchise has done for him...
The article on ESPN says he wanted to coach this year but Lacob didn't want him back. Once he knew Lacob didn't want him back he lobbied for Lacob to pick Smart as the headcoach. Now apparently its being reported that Smart is getting a multiyear deal. I'm not really a big fan of this move. Smart is virtually as much of a lame duck as Nellie IMO. Its possible he could end up being a good coach but I'm not that confident in that happening. Hopefully with this move we'll see plenty of Lee playing his natural PF alongside another big. I just don't see the point in giving Smart a multiyear deal. We're stuck with a lameduck coach in 10-11 no matter how you slice it but I question whether we would can him after this season if hes mediocre or just plain bad. After paying Nellie 6 mil for this season plus Smart's salary would they really pay Smart's multi year salary and another coach when they seemed so hesitant to go over the lux tax?
"Riley's the GM, Rowell keeps job but power will be limited. Still a mistake to keep him. RT @Shinehart So is Riley/Rowell staying in power?" http://twitter.com/timkawakami Lacob is really pretty limited because of how effing long the NBA is taking to get this deal done. Its too late to really sign an exec or coach away from another team now. I just hope that we'll make all positions completely open next offseason unless the Warriors are unexpectedly a very good team. Like a team that gets at least to the second round of the playoffs good. Anything less and IMO you have to open all positions for evaluation and bring in the best possible candidate. Sucks that Rowell is still here but at least he can't hurt the product on the floor. Riley if nothing else has completely re-shaped the team (presumably in his image). Let's see how his moves work out. Funny that he outlasted Don Nelson when so many were saying hes nothing more than a puppet. So far I'm unimpressed by Lacob.
Really disappointing at every level. Go get Kerr to GM. He's the one that wanted Curry. He can go get a solid coach later. Let Nellie wrap this year up until you get someone. Bringing Smart back is a horrible move. This feels very Cohan-like.
I am surprised the announcement came out so early. Then again it really has not come out. It seems more like a leak out via rumor. It seems clear that Lacob and company have not had their stuff together. I think they would have been more decisive with at least the gm and coach. But they weren't. Furthermore they are just recently adding (perhaps necessary?) minority owners from smart-mart. As far as the actual move, I think it has a chance of working. He's the defense focused guy and that may be helpful. Perhaps it would be better if he had time to bring in his own assistants and to better plan his systems. But it will just be a new question mark and dynamic to look for this coming season.
Through Marcus Thompson's twitter he said many of the players supported Smart and he will be focusing a lot more on defense. I hope this situation doesn't turn out like the Suns one when they hired Terry Porter, but time will tell.
I've met Don Nelson and he's a truly good guy, and devoted to the game. His career is probably done, but it was a good ride. He was a really good player way back in the old days, too. He really loved small ball and had good regular season success with it. A .557 winning percentage. His teams made the playoffs 18 times, 12 of those advancing beyond the 1st round. With Golden State, there is a fairly long list of guards that he coached that became elite, and continued to be elite even after they moved on to other teams. Nelson gets a bad rap for not liking big men, yet he played the 20 year old Biedrins 29 minutes per game in 06-07 when the Warriors lost to Utah in the semis. He played the 19 year old rookie Anthony Randolph 19 minutes per game. Those guys had potential, but suffered injury problems at very young ages. When he coached the Bucks in the 1980s, he played big guys like Bob Lanier, Mickey Johnson, Len Elmore, Harvey Catchings, and others who were pretty good bigs of that time. When Terry Cummings joined the team, he became the team's star from the PF position. Those teams lost in the ECF a lot (which is actually pretty good), and the knock on him was that his "small" teams couldn't win in the playoffs.
I liked Smart when he took the reins. He actually played 2 bigs together. At least that will be a first for Warriors fans in years. Hopefully we can get a better long term vision at some point though, with GM and coaches. But this isn't necessarily bad for now.
I believe this was Lacob's plan from the beginning. Don Nelson has too much baggage to allow Lacob's 1st year as GSW owner to be soured by any potential drama. I understand that and appreciate that. Lacob can control the likes of Rowell and Riley since they're in the front office but he can't control what's on the court or in the locker room. Although I naively felt Don Nelson would have a successful year with this new team, I can't complain with this move. His time has been up for quite some time. He's been grooming Keith Smart for this moment for two years now, maybe more. I don't think it's fair to judge Keith Smart yet. His tenure with the Cavs was as interim coach and that team was horrible. The games he coached while Nellie was sick is a wash, IMO, since he still had the same (bad) pieces to work with...let's face it, last year's team was bad on paper as it was on the court. His rotations were pretty similar to Nellie's and maybe worse (Sorry AO, I don't recall him going "big" for any long stretches) and subsequently went 1-4. It might have been that he was just taking instructions or he didn't want to do anything "radical" like playing a traditional lineup because it might have been blatantly disrespectful to Nellie. Either way, he got the gig now. When I listen to Smart talk, I see a lot of Larry Riley in him. Very honest and likable. The players gush over him too, including CJ Watson, Pietrus, et al. All those guys love him. I can't confidently say that about Nellie. I think everyone respected Nellie but I don't know if they all liked him (I think Steph Curry liked him though). My initial concern with Smart is his x's and o's knowledge as Nellie is renown for being a wizard in that category, but the more I think about it I'm not too worried. He's been under Nellie for 6 years...I think he gets the gist of his playbook and the way he calls plays in critical moments. The more important thing is, will Smart emphasize defense? I'm certain that they'll still be a run-n-gun offense, but how will he implement a better defensive scheme and how much is he willing to sacrifice on offense to do so? I'm curious as to why Lacob is working on a multi-year deal with Smart since he hasn't proven anything yet and since we're headed for a lockout. But, I think it's probably because Lacob has confidence in him and also he doesn't want his head coach to be in lame duck status from the beginning (I got the last part from Geoff Lepper via Twitter). Next Monday's media day should be very interesting.
Tweet from Marc J. Spears: Ok, I'm starting to be more ok with this. I always thought Price and Cheaney would make for good head coaches. Perhaps this is part of what gives them more visibility
Matt Steinmetz says that Sichting is a very underrated. "Jerry Sichting's got basketball pedigree. And as a coach, he's just like he was as a player: underrated." "Sichting also becomes Warriors best perimeter shooter. And, yes, I know Ws have Curry. Someone older than 35 help me here." "Been around Warriors long time so I'm conditioned: Sichting would probably be assistant to take over for a fired K.Smart"
I like Cheaney as a coach and Mark Price as an assistant too. I've read interviews with J-Rich and Monta where both said Calbert took them under their wing and really helped them adapt to the NBA game as rookies. Nellie had to go either way. This roster is brand new so we can't run another year of smallball and then completely switch it next year. Now it'll be traditional basketball from the beginning regardless of whether Smart is still here after this season. Besides, this roster has the pieces to really take advantage of a traditional style of basketball since we actually have a starting level PF, depth up front, guys who can rebound with the best of them. The three biggest things to like about Smart are a) he'll play a PF/C combo and keep Dorell Wright at SF, b) although I do doubt him hes had a ton of time served under Nellie and was around even before then and on other teams- hopefully he can replicate the things Nellie was great at and shore up the things Nellie never cared much about, and c) Nellie strained a lot of relationships here in G-State. Leaving out all the players who left it seemed apparent that Monta and Biedrins were discouraged by him. With Smart there will be a fresh start and hopefully these guys will be re-energized and ready to buy in.
Wow. Man, it felt like winning the playoffs when I heard the news. I'm going to buy some Mumms and make a Mimosa this morning. And then run around in my underwear with the huge foam #1 finger. Nope, I don't think they make that finger. Say something nice. Ok, Nelson. We Believed for one year. Mahalo and Aloha. How do you say don't let the door hit you in the rear end when you leave in Hawaiian? Well, it's not like Nelson got fired.
I've met Nelson, too. Sure he's a "good guy," but there was a side of him that took advantage of you or made jokes at other people's expense. I can't disagree that his style of ball wasn't fun to watch.
It's time to move on from small ball. I don't think one can win a championship in today's NBA with Doug Moe ball. As for why Lacob didn't do this earlier, it's because he wasn't the owner yet. Smart deserves a chance and that's why he's getting the multi-year. It wouldn't be fair to him if he did not to get a new contract. It's not like Nelson was fired mid-stream and he had to take over. This is Smart's BIG break. It's a clean start for him.
He's still not the owner. I'm sure he's been wanting to do this long ago, but couldn't get Nellie to come to the Bay till now for a face to face, which is the least Nellie deserved.