Grantland interview with Malone

[Padrino]

i didn't feel like starting a new thread for this (mods feel free), and i also didn't feel like chucking it to the nba forum (again, mods feel free), but in this thread we've spent a bit of time talking about mike malone, so here's a great Grantland interview he just did. he discusses everything from the nuggets, to his time with the kings, to almost becoming a cop. here's some of the relevant kings-related questions/answers:

The story goes that you won over Cousins by praising him publicly — “he’s our All-Star, he’s an All-NBA player” — but getting on him hard in practice. Is that true?

I don’t believe in throwing players under the bus. Some coaches will coach through the media. I don’t believe in that. I’m gonna protect our guys. But in practice, and in meetings, if you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing, I’m gonna let you know it. DeMarcus and I are similar. He’s a big African African guy from deep down south, and I’m a skinny Irish guy from New York City. But we had the same makeup. We’re very competitive. We hated to lose. When things weren’t going right, I wasn’t afraid to get on him.

The stories of DeMarcus’s practice tantrums are legendary. Were you ever worried that things might go too far?

No. I have to be who I am. When people ask DeMarcus about me, I think the things he respected about me was that I was always honest. If you’re dishonest, you’re done. You’re out. I never tried to B.S. him. I was real. If he messed up, I got on him. If he did good things, I praised him. I believed in him.

That relationship was constant work. Constant. But we came to a deep respect.

Were you ever actually approached about playing 4-on-5?

[Laughs.] It came up. I was approached. I’m a defensive guy, and I know you can’t defend well if you only have four guys out there.

You started 9-6, DeMarcus got sick, you started losing, and then you got fired. Did that surprise you? When the season started well, did you allow yourself to think you might have found a long-term job — a team that could grow together?

When I got the job, it was a four-year plan: By the time we moved into the arena, we were gonna be a playoff team. I thought that was a great vision. I shared in that vision. Getting fired caught me off-guard. Being around the NBA my whole life, you understand security is not one of the pros of being a coach.

But we had a team that bought in. That believed in me. And you saw, once I got fired, that team went into a tailspin. I felt awful for Ty Corbin. It was a lose-lose for him. But it just got out of control, and it validated the job that my staff and I did.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/q...2010-playoffs-and-the-art-of-managing-boogie/

i miss this guy.

 

[VF21]

Moved for clarity. We've gotten pretty lax lately about turning threads in multi-topic discussions.

 

[lawlman91]

Guy has helluva job security now

 

[Dime Dropper]

This really cuts. He should be our coach. Holy crap, Mike gets it. And he's Irish. What's not to like?

****, we could have built something real here. I'll never forgive PDA, whether it was his fault or Vivek's. Either refuse to fire him or resign.

I'm still pissed and this feeling is not going to pass.

Mike is going to have success no matter where he goes. He knows what works.

And he's right about Nurkic btw. Doesn't have the talent of cuz, but is big and skilled and has the right mentality. Mike is going to mould him into a force. Nurkic is going to be a beast.

 

[kingsboi]

Kings....where forever living in the past happens.

 

[lawlman91]

Mike is going to have success no matter where he goes. He knows what works.

I disagree. He hasn't shown that yet for a fact, but I am hopeful that he does. He's a man with good character.

But even if we don't know a lot about him, I would take the risk to stay with him simply because he can build a culture and because he connected with DeMarcus Cousins.

 

[Bricklayer]

Kings....where forever living in the past happens.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. -- Santayana

And this particular "past" has directly threatened our future. We are still paying for it to this day.

 

[kingsboi]

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. -- Santayana

And this particular "past" has directly threatened our future. We are still paying for it to this day.

The question here lies was this Vivek's doing, Pete's or Mullin's? if it's the latter two...then we should see positivity. If it's Vivek...we might be doomed to repeat stupidity at its finest point.

 

[KingsCitizen]

I like Malone. But come on guys start living in the present.

Karl is our coach now and everyone from Vlade to Karl are promising that they will eventually settle the stuffs that may have offended Cuz during the summer.
So why don't we start supporting everyone rather than keep bring this "how I wish Malone is still coaching the Kings" kind of attitude.

On basketball records alone, Karl > Malone.
Malone was efficient in using DMC but not with the rest of his squad. That's why everything fell apart when Cuz went down.
Karl on the other hand, keep the ego issues aside, was handed a pretty mediocre squad in Denver but still won Coach of the Year and bring that undersized but pesky lineup to the playoffs.

So yeah, I'll officially jump off the Malone wagon and start pushing the Karl wagon toward a better road.

 

[Big Cuz 15]

can't believe you brought up the basketball records as a measuring stick. mike is 44 and george is 64. he's got 20 years on him and got lucky with a few teams that had talent. mike wasn't even given a talented team to push his win total up. smh

 

[Capt. Factorial]

can't believe you brought up the basketball records as a measuring stick. mike is 44 and george is 64. he's got 20 years on him and got lucky with a few teams that had talent. mike wasn't even given a talented team to push his win total up. smh

Yeah, how dare someone point to Karl's actual coaching record to try to argue that he's a good coach. Anybody can get lucky and have a career .596 win percentage, 21 consecutive winning seasons (for three different franchises) and make the playoffs 20 out of 21 years.

I don't want a coach that wins. I want a coach that talks tough and gives a good postgame interview in a Brooklyn accent. That's far more important than a .368 career win percentage.

 

[Padrino]

Yeah, how dare someone point to Karl's actual coaching record to try to argue that he's a good coach. Anybody can get lucky and have a career .596 win percentage, 21 consecutive winning seasons (for three different franchises) and make the playoffs 20 out of 21 years.

I don't want a coach that wins. I want a coach that talks tough and gives a good postgame interview in a Brooklyn accent. That's far more important than a .368 career win percentage.

i think his point was that the measuring stick is unfair, since we know exactly what george karl is at this point in his career: a great regular season coach who can get you into the playoffs, but isn't likely to get you very far in the playoffs, whereas the jury's still out on mike malone, and thus it's rather disingenuous to suggest that "everything fell apart when Cuz went down" due to a head coaching deficiency rather than, say, viral f***ing meningitis. mike malone very well could have been the coach that heralded the next era of success for sacramento kings basketball. we'll never know. and by the way, george karl posted losing seasons in his first two years as head coach of the cavaliers, with a .41 career win percentage before being fired by cleveland in the middle of his second season. let's not pretend that anyone knew what kind of coach karl would go on to become based on such a small sample size. hell, he barely got the warriors above .500 in his first year as their head coach, and was fired in his second year with that team, too, after they sunk into the basement of the western conference...

 

[Capt. Factorial]

i think his point was that the measuring stick is unfair, since we know exactly what george karl is at this point in his career: a great regular season coach who can get you into the playoffs, but isn't likely to get you very far in the playoffs

Yes, and we might add probable Hall-of-Famer to that resume.

whereas the jury's still out on mike malone

Yes.

But the measuring stick seems quite fair to me. Karl has coached over 1900 games in has career and has a .596 winning percentage. Malone's much-referenced hot start to last year resulted in a 9-6 record, which translates to a .600 winning percentage over 15 games. Outside of those 15 games, his career wining percentage is .330 over 91 games.

Karl is a proven great coach, Malone is not proven. Malone could turn out to be something, but maybe not. Proven vs. not proven is a fair measuring stick in my book. What may be a bit less fair is the characterization that a coach who has led his teams to a nearly .600 record in over 1900 games "got lucky".

 

[miltonap]

Why does everyone keep saying 9-6? We were 9-5 before we were 9-6 no? Not a big deal but yea

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Why does everyone keep saying 9-6? We were 9-5 before we were 9-6 no? Not a big deal but yea

Because Cousins went out with viral meningitis after 9-6.

 

[Bricklayer]

Yeah, how dare someone point to Karl's actual coaching record to try to argue that he's a good coach. Anybody can get lucky and have a career .596 win percentage, 21 consecutive winning seasons (for three different franchises) and make the playoffs 20 out of 21 years.

I don't want a coach that wins. I want a coach that talks tough and gives a good postgame interview in a Brooklyn accent. That's far more important than a .368 career win percentage.

George Karl was 51-88 when he got fired midway into his 2nd season as a coach.

He was still only 109-176 by the time he got fired from his 2nd coaching job, after 4 years as a coach.

Anybody who in those bygone days, like let's say for instance decisionmakers in 1989 for a little NBA outpost we'll call the River City Royals, who went around and said "look! 109-176! That Karl guy can't coach!" and then said "But now here we have Dick Motta, and now THIS is a coach. Look at all those games he's won! He won a title!" was obviously a bleeping idiot making a serious miscalculation.

And you don't get to can a coach after he carries your water for you for a full year when you aren't even TRYING to win and shuffle through 2 dozen bodies in constsant chaos, ignore his personnel requests, tank for the last month, and then when he does turn things and starts to win you immediately fire him and then point a finger and say "look at that win %! He can't win!"

That doesn't work.

 

[KingsCitizen]

Well what doesn't work is when you keep rooting for someone else to coach your team when that guy has already signed a contract with another team.

What doesn't work is you keep salting on the tiny wound keep scratching it when you could have just waited and let it heal.

That doesn't work.

 

[lawlman91]

We need to sometimes remind ourselves about Malone, but we shouldn't keep talking about it to the point that people like KingsCitizen start disliking Malone. Padrino's post was appropriate, but the recent Malone hype needs to die down, and then come back some other time.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

George Karl was 51-88 when he got fired midway into his 2nd season as a coach.

He was still only 109-176 by the time he got fired from his 2nd coaching job, after 4 years as a coach.

This is true, but for every George Karl who started out with a poor record and turned into a Hall of Fame worthy coach, there are hundreds of coaches who started with a poor record and turned out to not be any good. We can't say whether Malone will turn out to be great or not and I certainly acknowledge that he could.

My whole objection (if you trace it back) is to the idea that you can't use Karl's record as a point in his favor. Karl's record is most certainly a point in his favor.

 

[KingsCitizen]

We need to sometimes remind ourselves about Malone, but we shouldn't keep talking about it to the point that people like KingsCitizen start disliking Malone. Padrino's post was appropriate, but the recent Malone hype needs to die down, and then come back some other time.

I LOL at you, lawlman91. Please read the thread before putting stuffs in my mouth. I clearly made my statement that I like Malone. But we need to move on because the guy has already signed a contract in Denver.