On June 28, the Warriors have the ninth pick in the 2006 NBA draft. With anxiety over their drafting position now relieved, the Warriors can get down to the business of deciding who to choose with old number nine. First though, they ought to give some long, hard thought to who is going to do the deciding.
Unfortunately,the Decider is a bit preoccupied right now with his own messes, so GState's candidates for the next round of Medal of Freedom awards -- owner Chris Cohan, VP of basketball ops Chris Mullin, and GM Rod Higgins -- are going to have to handle things on their own again this year. Y'uh-oh.
Cohan is apparently dead set on supplanting Donald Sterling as the most inept owner in recent NBA history. Since becoming majority owner of the team in 1995, the Warriors have never finished above .500, have not made the playoffs once, have burned through seven head coaches, and have done jack squat with 11 straight lottery picks.
As a businessman, Cohan has done quite well for himself. His initial outlay of $119 million for the club is now worth $243 million and attendance has increased each of the last four years -- this year the team set the franchise's single season attendance record. On the court though, it's been the same old sad story. Players and front office execs come and go, but the long-term character of an organization, its commitment to winning, comes from the very top, from the owner's box. In this regard, Cohan has been a complete failure.
Mullin's reign as head Veep has been uneven, at best. Since taking over in 2004 from Gary St. Jean, possibly the worst front office hack in the history of professional sports, Mullin has managed to pull off the Baron Davis deal, but he has also severely limited his future options by signing bench players Adonal Foyle, Mike Dunleavy, and Troy Murphy to huge, unwieldy, and virtually untradeable long-term contracts. And he has yet to nab an impact player in the draft. Still and all, Mullin has his fans.
Rod Higgins has his own draft skeletons. While assistant GM of the Washington Wizards in 2001, Higgins was involved in selecting high school player Kwame Brown with the first overall pick. In Higgy-baby's defense, a certain basketball god with the initials M and J was probably the genius behind that pick, but Higgins is on record as being satisfied with using the number one overall pick on Brown. And how much faith can Warriors fans have in a guy who's drafting strategy is based on finding lucky pennies in airport parking lots?.
The first thing the brain trust needs to do is show coach Mike Montgomery the door, ASAP. Montgomery is out of his league at the professional level, 68-96 in his two years at the helm. He seems to have no discernible coaching philosophy -- quick, how would you characterize the Warrior's playing style in 2005-2006? What was their predominant game plan? More often than not, Montgomery's game plan consisted of watching Baron hoist up whatever shot came into his head.
Nor has Monty displayed any real knack for coaching personnel. For the first few months of the 2005-2006 season, he stuck rigidly to a lineup that included dead weight like Dunleavy and Foyle, giving almost no time at all to Ike Diogu, Andres Biedrins, Chris Taft, or Mikael Pietrus. After the wheels started to come off in December and January, Montgomery flailed randomly through lineup after lineup while the team slid off the playoff map, again.
The team did suffer a steady string of injuries throughout the course of the season, from Diogu's hand injury in the preseason to Baron's season-ending jimmy leg. Even so, the Warriors had the horses to be competitive. Think of what Jerry Sloane or Mike D'Antoni or Phil Jackson or Avery Johnson or even Eric Musselman could have done with last year's Warriors team. Montgomery was badly, badly outcoached by his fellow Western Conference coaches en route to finishing 13th of 15 in the WC.
One name that comes instantly to mind is coaching vagabond Larry Brown. Brown has been making a lot of noise about wanting out of his current gig with the New York Knicks, and some buzz points to the Warriors as the next potential stamp in his NBA passport. Brown and Cohan are neighbors in buffy East Hampton, NY, so carpooling would be a snap. And the Warriors present just the type of challenge that Brown looks for in a coaching gig. Unlike Phil Jackson, who only accepts a coaching job if the team has at least one of the top ten players in the history of the league, Brown takes on the downtrodden and turns them into winners. Who is more downtrodden than the Warriors?.
The Warriors apparently aren't interested in considering Mario Elie for the top job. Elie has spent the last two years on the Warriors bench and brings the experience of three NBA championships, which is an intangible that Montgomery cannot provide. The defensive-minded Elie knows what it takes to win, and he's a fiery motivator. This team needs fire and direction. Why not Elie?
Whether it's Brown, Elie, Keith Smart, or even freakin' Alvin Attles, the Warriors need a strong new coach if they are going to have any different results in 2006-2007 than they did last year. And it would be nice if that coach had some input into the draft. So far though, the front office looks content to stand pat with Montgomery and hope for a magical transformation next year, much to the dismay of the faithful.
Coaching does make a difference. Look what Brown did with the Pistons (and the 76'ers and Pacers before that). The man's success is no accident. Look what Pat Riley has done this season with the Miami Heat. A new coach with vision, energy, and leadership can make a difference.
For the Warriors to get better, Cohan, Mullin, and Higgins have to show a little vision, energy, and leadership themselves, and that could be a problem.
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Uh.... look what Larry Brown did with the Knicks this year. He's just coasting on his rep at this point.
Hold up D-ren.
Based on this past season alone you are ready to declare Larry Brown a washed-up used-to-be who is now just collecting a paycheck and using his rep to get good tables at NBA City? Really?
Brown may have a short shelf life, but he always produces. His record shows that he takes on losing teams, spends the first year tearing them down and remolding them in his image, and then brings home the results in the second and third years (if there is one, which is dubious).
And, he won it all just two years ago! When did Phil Jackson last win it all? Is he done? Pat Riley? (Well, he may be done)
Let's not even mention the fact that Isiah Thomas has once again shown that he knows exactly how to f$%* things up. What did you expect Brown to do with the random collection of journeymen Isiah has assembled in NYC, and at massive, massive cost may we add. He and Chris Mullin have quite a race to the bottom going.
Brown may have some health issues that could limit his future ability to bring the energy and passion his coaching style is built around, but he can still coach and his is not the type of personality to coast on his rep.
Larry Brown really wants to win, and he usually does. He has taken the Clippers to the playoffs, and in 2000, he dragged a mediocre 76'ers team into the NBA Finals. He is the only coach to win an NCAA title and an NBA title.
The Warriors need this type of influence on their collective experience, and they need it now.