Warhawk said:
Oh, so you mean hiring Bill Russell as coach was a great idea? Or Larry going to New York - shoot, that worked out well, didn't it?
Point is, it has to be a match with the team and the coach. I trust Petrie and the Maloofs to do a good job to make a match that will work. Who do you think will look like the biggest fools if it doesn't? The Maloofs. They are not going to intentinally screw this up, and unintentional screwups can happen no matter who they choose for a variety of reasons.
Nobody has any idea how well received Mario would be in the locker room any more that Whiz.
no. bill russel was not a good coach, but neither was the kings team that played under him any good. and no, larry brown is not a good coach for the knicks, but neither is the team that played under him any good. point is that the ownership and GM's are different in all of those situations. here in sacramento, we have owners that love their team and want to win and we have one of the best GM's in the league. however, the owners are extremely emotional and undeniably reactionary, and they move with and without the full cooperation of their GM. good move in the artest case. bad move in the adelman case. bad move in the case of the hiring of john whisenant.
new york is the joke of the league. more specifically, isiah thomas and larry brown are the joke of the league. that team is going nowhere fast. the kings, on the other hand, are a team poised to enter into elite status again. changing coaches when you finally start to build continuity was a bad move to begin with, but hiring a completely inexperienced coach to that mix is icing on the cake of ineptitude. like i've said, i do not rule out the possibility that john whisenant does what few coaches in nba history have done in their first year on the bench: win. however, there is no indication that he will. there is no indication that he can lead a team full of
NBA players to the playoffs. do you know why there is no indication? because he doesn't have an ounce of experience in the nba. he never played and he hasn't coached. that simple but oh-so-true fact puts the kings at a disadvantage from the start.
a veteran team is only as good as the veteran coach behind it. a young team can thrive with a young and
relatively inexperienced head coach, because they are all on the same page. the kings players, on the other hand, are
miles ahead of john whisenant, and he's gonna have to play catch-up in his first couple of seasons, and i don't foresee it going well. people can claim all they want that they have a
feeling that it could work out. well i don't give a **** about a "feeling." i want my team to win. and i see great potential in this team, but it starts with the coach.
you are right that nobody has any idea how the lockerroom would look with either whisenant or elie, but i'll take my chances with elie everyday of the week and twice on sunday. the man played in the nba. he can actually relate to the players. he's coached at the assistant level in the nba for two seasons. he has a feel for the nba bench and the nba lockerroom, not to mention the fact that he has a great hard-nosed no-nonsense attitude. whisenant has none of that, except possibly for the attitude, and this is no rookie team we're talking about. if you want to start a genuine youth movement, fine. bring on whisenant. but if you want to win, bring in somebody who knows what it takes to win at the nba level, and has tasted victory at the nba level. mario elie fits that description, if you ask me.