In retrospect...

[SLAB]

I was talking about this with my dad the other day, and thought it would make a pretty valid discussion.

Looking back at the year for the Kings and what the Warriors are doing right now, do you guys think that the Kings should have made a play in trying to get Nellie.

I said no...I don't really have a valid point against it, it's just the fact I don't like Nellie.

My dad said "Heck yes!" and his argument for it was "Scoreboard."

What do you all think?

 

[Bricklayer]

At the time I did not think Nellie made any sense if you were going to can Adelman. We already had a very successful offensive minded coach who had gone further than Don ever has in the playoffs. Just made no sense to replace the one with the other. If you were going to can Adelman, then outside of just being a pair of dimwit highrollers looking for a yesman, the only way to justify it would be to go in a different direction. Youth, rebuilding maybe, radically different style of coach etc. Throw in Nellie's tendency to junk up the roster, and at his age his likely short stay, and it just looked like a dumb, pointless move. For a franchise that had made the playoffs 8 straight years, Nellie was not the guy who was going to take you further.

However, obviously after you see the mess we've gotten ourselves into, you would be hard pressed indeed to say we ended up being better off with Muss than Nellie. Hindsight being 20/20 and all that.

I still voted no, but if this year turns out to be only the first in a spiral, that could change. General point being that the easier/smarter way to "hire Nellie" was just never to fire Rick.

 

[gunks]

Rick to Nellie woulda been more of the same...Then again I'd take more of the same over what Muss brought to the table.

Nellie also gave the youth some burn on the Warriors...Biedrins and Ellis got lots more PT and showed for it....Kinda makes one wonder if Williams or Price coulda broken Nelson's rotation, and what they could have done with consistant minutes.

 

[BawLa]

You can always look back at any point and question the decisions you've made. The point is once you make a decision you have to stick with it for a period of time. Fortunately hiring a coach isn'y like electing a president.

I look back and think wow, Muss almost took us to the top of the draft. So looking back, should we have hired Wisenhunt? Or Ellie? Would one of them delivered us to Oden-land? Who knows.

I said no to Nellie, mainly because before this last season, we had a great offensive coach. We wanted to go defense, we just didn't realize that the offense would suffer so much. I don't think Nellie would have done much more with our team than Muss did. We would have scored more, and given up more points.

 

[Rain man]

I still think Nellie was wrong choice (although much better than Muss). What Nellie does is based on interchangeable parts and athleticism. He would have done well with Kevin/Ron/Cisco/Salmons, but I feel like the Miller/KT/SAR/etc... would have still been lost causes this year.

Would it have ben better than Muss- yes. Is it the long term solution- no.

 

[fnordius]

It depends on what we were trying to accomplish in the last year.

If the best thing for us to do was to realize that our lack of defense had very little to do with Adelman's coaching, then hiring Nellie would have been pointless. If we wanted a good coach, who was a lot like Adelman, but didn't have Adelman's background of friction with the owners, then he might have been ideal.

Nellie surely would have done a much better job than Muss did, but some fans and a couple of owners would probably go on blaming our poor D on the coach, so from that perspective we would have gone nowhere, we'd be as misguided as ever.

So I guess it all depends on how much you value the learning experience connected with totally sucking for a year. I think he'd be a better choice now, since anyone who can observe the obvious has learned from our mistake.

 

[nbrans]

The team would have been better than under Muss, but I don't think it really would have been a sustainable situation and in some sense it would have just prolonged the decline that Musselman accomplished more spectacularly all in one season.

 

[bibbinator]

The team would have been better than under Muss, but I don't think it really would have been a sustainable situation and in some sense it would have just prolonged the decline that Musselman accomplished more spectacularly all in one season.

That's one thing you've got to give to Muss: he did but an end to any more thoughts of rebuilding on the fly.

 

[Superman]

That's one thing you've got to give to Muss: he did but an end to any more thoughts of rebuilding on the fly.

At least we hope so. I still haven't seen anything from anyone of note to indicate that this is the case.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I don't think Nellie would have been much better. We may have made the playoffs with him as a 7/8, but with the injuries we suffered at the start of the season if this team opened up losing out of the gate I don't think it would matter who the coach was. I also think that if GS had wound up against Phoenix or San Antonio they'd be golfing by mid-week - a big part of his genius right now involves the luck of getting to coach against his old team.

 

[VF21]

At least we hope so. I still haven't seen anything from anyone of note to indicate that this is the case.

Petrie made a pretty bold comment on Grant's show shortly after the season ended. He actually used the word "aggressive" to describe the off-season activities to address the team's needs. I think that might be a fair indication, considering how Petrie's usual comments involve hens laying eggs or fingers pointing at the moon.

 

[Bricklayer]

I don't think Nellie would have been much better. We may have made the playoffs with him as a 7/8, but with the injuries we suffered at the start of the season if this team opened up losing out of the gate I don't think it would matter who the coach was. I also think that if GS had wound up against Phoenix or San Antonio they'd be golfing by mid-week - a big part of his genius right now involves the luck of getting to coach against his old team.

1) Nellie had to deal with a helluva lot worse injuries than we did this year. So did most of the league actually. But the Warriors were missing their two best players for huge chunks of the season, and had a major trade thrown in as well.

2) and despite that, and their own struggling start, once they got healthy Nellie rallied them down the stretch much as Rick did for us last year. If you're aneophyte coahc, maybe you lose the team off the slow start. But as a long time vet who knows how to press buttons you still have a chance.

3) the third part is certainly true. This is all about matchups. But the Warriors charge down the stretch was accomplished over everyone, not just the Mavs. Might well have the best record in the league in April (reg season + playoffs combined).

 

[Superman]

Petrie made a pretty bold comment on Grant's show shortly after the season ended. He actually used the word "aggressive" to describe the off-season activities to address the team's needs. I think that might be a fair indication, considering how Petrie's usual comments involve hens laying eggs or fingers pointing at the moon.

:: said in the voice of Davy Jones ::

Did he now?

Of course, living in Southern California precludes me from hearing anything like that, but I'm glad to know that Petrie came out and said that.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

1) Nellie had to deal with a helluva lot worse injuries than we did this year. So did most of the league actually. But the Warriors were missing their two best players for huge chunks of the season, and had a major trade thrown in as well.

Ok I'll confess to not watching or caring about the Warriors much this season so I'm strictly speaking from the view that Bibby and Miller were never quite right at all this season. Bibby showed flashes in the final two months but was still terribly inconsistent. But our lack of having any proper backup at either of these positions is what doomed us.

2) and despite that, and their own struggling start, once they got healthy Nellie rallied them down the stretch much as Rick did for us last year. If you're aneophyte coahc, maybe you lose the team off the slow start. But as a long time vet who knows how to press buttons you still have a chance.

I think firing Rick was wrong but I'm not sure he would have regained the team last season without the Artest shakeup.

As for this season, my belief is that the Maloofs were genuinely convinced they had a contender this year. And when the team opened off with some ugly games and an offense that was painful to watch they went to Muss and told him to start working in the old offense and it was at this point that he completely lost the team. By the All Star break they were openly talking about firing him so he was dead man walking.

But even if the Maloofs are completely innocent unless the Kings had opened up strong any coach would have faced scrutiny from all corners compared to the strong finish they had with Adelman and the prior years of success.

On the other hand Nellie was Mullin's guy in GS and the expectations were a lot lower - I doubt the Warriors start was particularly worse than any other recent start of theirs (but like I said I didn't really pay attention). So the players knew he wasn't going anywhere and he came in commanding a lot more respect to begin with.

I could be way off base but my biggest fear is that next season if we don't start off strong the new coach will quickly fall out of favor as well dooming us for years. In fact I hope I'm completely wrong because unless Petrie pulls a few rabbits out of the hat I don't feel too good about our chances next year.

 

[vfettke]

yes yes yes. when the coaching search began and Nelson's name was mentioned as a candidate, i was hoping we'd get him. he's a little arrogant, and totally crazy. but he knows how to coach and would have fit well with the types of players we have. we complain about the lack of big men on our team, well, with Nellie, who needs a big man?

besides, he wanted to coach our team. even after the Warriors hired him, he stated that he had wanted to coach us. our loss, i suppose

 

[Oscar]

Not jumping on the Nellie/Warriors bandwagon.

 

[quick dog]

Did not Nellie call the Maloofs before the Musselman acquisition looking for a job. What a friggin mess.

Watching Matt Barnes and the Golden State guys beating the Mavericks on TV causes a minor flood of emotions for me. Barnes was just one in a series of former Kings that I liked. We get to see some of these former Kings in the playoffs. Is this relevant to draft choices and the upcoming NBA draft? I think so.

What is the point of making good draft choices if management lacks the patience, or foresight, to develop fledgling talent? Petrie's (sic, the Maloofs) player-decisions over the past five years have, on the whole, turned out to be pretty ordinary. Granted, the Maloofs manage their money and team better than the Nicks owners. The Kings organization has successfully traded away some lame players, but they are still carrying some salary-anchors, the results of questionable past decisions.

How would you like to be Philadelphia after the Webber deal and all their other trades?

How about the Nicks? Couldn't happen to a better franchise.

Best of all, what will mark Cuban do if Matt Barnes and the boys close out the Mavericks in the first round? $93M

I wish the Kings had Don Nelson right now. Baron Davis would be OK also.

 

[VF21]

If you recall, Matt Barnes had to go with Webber and Michael Bradley (whatever happened to him, BTW?) to make the money match...

 

[RaY Z]

If you recall, Matt Barnes had to go with Webber and Michael Bradley (whatever happened to him, BTW?) to make the money match...

i believe he plays in the ACB league in Spain... i have no idea how is going though...

 

[PoundForPound]

they wanted to go defense. that eliminated nelly. end thread.

 

[fnordius]

they wanted to go defense. that eliminated nelly.

Well, so they might have thought.

If they really wanted defense, they needed to change the roster.

 

[Kingster]

That's a hard one. Would they have ended up with a better record with Nellie? Probably. Would that have been a good thing? Probably not.
But, what I would have liked to have seen would be Nellie and Petrie team up on personnel decisions. THAT would be a nice combo. The more brain power on personnel, the better, especially with this team.

The unanswerable question is how he would have dealt with Artest. He's not exactly "controlling" Steven Jackson, a poor man's Artest when it comes to mental adjustment, so I don't think he would have controlled him. What he might have done, however, is suspend him early on, in order to regain control of the team. He might have had the internal power within the organization to do so, whereas Muss was a newbie who was just happy to be there and didn't want to rock the boat. Weighing the pluses and minuses, yes, it would have been a good decision to hire him.

 

[VF21]

According to Gavin, as quoted by Ailene Voisin in an article I just posted, he'd vote yes.

 

[nbrans]

According to Gavin, as quoted by Ailene Voisin in an article I just posted, he'd vote yes.

If Gavin's voting yes, I'm even more confident in my no vote.

 

[Ryle]

Let's not make this out to be some fantastic job that Nellie did. The Warriors improved by 8 games from last year and I think the majority of that can be contributed to when they were finally healthy down the stretch and went 16-5 to finish out the season.

I think alot of the credit needs to go to Mullin for getting rid of Dunleavy and Murphy and replacing them with Harrington(who hasn't done squat in the playoffs) and Jackson who has won a championship and provides a bit of toughness to a team that was known to be soft.....kind of like the Artest factor from last year.

Nellie has done a good job with these guys but they are a talented bunch that seemed to come together at the right time.

 

[Jerryaki]

Let's not make this out to be some fantastic job that Nellie did...Nellie has done a good job with these guys but they are a talented bunch that seemed to come together at the right time.

nellie's also the one who's helped them to 3-2 series against the 67-win Mavs. part of coming together is the coach's doing.

i'd like to see who we get with our draft pick. if someone good, then not getting nellie was a good route (since he would've certainly got us some more wins!).

 

[Ryle]

nellie's also the one who's helped them to 3-2 series against the 67-win Mavs. part of coming together is the coach's doing.

So, without a healthy Baron Davis do you think Nellie could have gotten the rest of the guys in the same position??? I think not.

They are healthy and have been for the last part of the season which had alot to do with it.

 

[Jerryaki]

So, without a healthy Baron Davis do you think Nellie could have gotten the rest of the guys in the same position??? I think not.

flip that around, if muss were their coach with a healthy baron davis, would he have gotten them to that point? probably not, he'd be playing foyle at the center and trying to half court them or something.

 

[Kingster]

Let's not make this out to be some fantastic job that Nellie did. The Warriors improved by 8 games from last year and I think the majority of that can be contributed to when they were finally healthy down the stretch and went 16-5 to finish out the season.

I think alot of the credit needs to go to Mullin for getting rid of Dunleavy and Murphy and replacing them with Harrington(who hasn't done squat in the playoffs) and Jackson who has won a championship and provides a bit of toughness to a team that was known to be soft.....kind of like the Artest factor from last year.

Nellie has done a good job with these guys but they are a talented bunch that seemed to come together at the right time.

I just have a hard time believing that Nellie had nothing to do with that trade. If you had Don Nelson on the bench, as a GM, wouldn't it be almost irresponsible to not ask him his opinion on personnel matters? Whether he initiated the trade, or whether he was consulted about it, or both, I have no idea. But I've got to believe that he was very much involved in it. AT THE VERY LEAST, Don Nelson was involved in this trade because Nelson determined that the guys who were traded to Indiana (Dunleavy, etc) did not fit with his vision on the team that he wanted to put together. So, he must have had discussions with Mullin, which led one way or another to the trade.

 

[Geoff]

So, without a healthy Baron Davis do you think Nellie could have gotten the rest of the guys in the same position??? I think not.

They are healthy and have been for the last part of the season which had alot to do with it.

<tongue-in-cheek>Did a coach do something to diss you in a former life Ryle? You don't seem to rate 'em very highly