Voisin interviews Coach Malone

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I think Voisin did an excellent job. And I liked Malone's answers...

The phrase "change the culture" has become such a cliché. What does it even mean?

It is a cliché. What I mean is that when you want to change culture, you change people. When the players come back in September, they're going to get a sense that things are different when they're around our staff. They can see how hard we work, how committed we are. I'm running sprints last week with DeMarcus Cousins and Travis Outlaw, and they said, "Coach, we've never had a guy run sprints with us.
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Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/01/5698662/ailene-voisin-qa-with-kings-coach.html#storylink=cpy
 
Great article! I really enjoyed reading the following quote from Coach Malone in this article:

Everybody talked about the Kings' lack of defense, but the one glaring thing that I saw on offense was that we were a selfish team. The ball didn't move. It was guys playing for themselves. That's not winning basketball, and it transferred to the defensive end. It was five guys playing as five individuals. And the best teams I've been with, on defense, it's five guys working as one. On offense, it's passing up good shots to get great shots. It's a simple game.

The last thing is, it comes down to habits. Who is creating the proper work habits every day? I was talking to Johnny Salmons. He said, "Coach, we were in a lot of close games. We have talent." I said, "You know what the problem was, Johnny? You were in a lot of close games, but the end of games, what happens? All your bad habits come out if you're a lazy team, if you're not disciplined, if you're not unselfish." It was exposed for the world to see.


Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/01/5698662/ailene-voisin-qa-with-kings-coach.html#storylink=cpy
 
Read it first thing this AM. Great interview, good read on the coach. Also, some of comments are informative like Jimmer is not a PG and Hayes doesn't yet have a role and Salmons is a SF, etc. several of those comments I read as "we're not done yet".
 
pshn80 said:
Read it first thing this AM. Great interview, good read on the coach. Also, some of comments are informative like Jimmer is not a PG and Hayes doesn't yet have a role and Salmons is a SF, etc. several of those comments I read as "we're not done yet".
Click to expand...

King Baller said:
Great article! I really enjoyed reading the following quote from Coach Malone in this article:

Everybody talked about the Kings' lack of defense, but the one glaring thing that I saw on offense was that we were a selfish team. The ball didn't move. It was guys playing for themselves. That's not winning basketball, and it transferred to the defensive end. It was five guys playing as five individuals. And the best teams I've been with, on defense, it's five guys working as one. On offense, it's passing up good shots to get great shots. It's a simple game.

The last thing is, it comes down to habits. Who is creating the proper work habits every day? I was talking to Johnny Salmons. He said, "Coach, we were in a lot of close games. We have talent." I said, "You know what the problem was, Johnny? You were in a lot of close games, but the end of games, what happens? All your bad habits come out if you're a lazy team, if you're not disciplined, if you're not unselfish." It was exposed for the world to see.


Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/01/5698662/ailene-voisin-qa-with-kings-coach.html#storylink=cpy
Click to expand...

Can't read it because you need a subscription. I believe that legality still makes a difference.
 
I think the article shows a renewed effort on Voisin's part to be a reporter and not just someone along for the ride. Her questions were relevant and it seems a competent coach gives much better answers, especially when you compare those answers to what the media got for the last couple of years.
 
Malone can only do so much when the FO is working against him. It's great he's committed to a culture change and improved defense, yet talent is what wins in this league. Giving him less talent to work with than we had last year and just as many, if not more pieces which don't fit while making both our backcourt and frontcourt worse defensively doesn't strike me as a successful strategy.

If we had Thibs or Doc as head coach they'd likely be saying something similar. But, they can only do so much when they want to improve the defensive foundation and their top 4 guards are Vasquez, MT, MLM and IT. And they can only do so much when our FO doesn't replace even an Aldrich level defensive presence down low and a huge portion of the mins from our bigs will come from Cuz, PP and Landry.

It's great Malone is saying the right things, but it takes all of two seconds to look at our roster and realize the FO hasn't given him any help and it's going to be quite tough to accomplish his goals given what he has to work with. BTW, I think culture is overrated. A team with a poor talent level while aiming to have a positive culture doesn't mean a whole lot. Remember when GS traded Webber and attempted to improve their culture by shipping off the malcontent? How'd that work out? No playoffs for years. Wash did the same, shipping off Webber and other "bad influences" to improve culture. How'd that work out? Not so well either. Positive culture doesn't last all that long or mean all that much if you're not winning first and foremost. Don't forget that when we started our gold era we brought in poor cultural pieces in Webber and Vernon Maxwell. Talent trumps culture. Get the talent first, then work on culture, or have a coach who's confident enough in his ability to handle questionable pieces. The great coaches/GM's are more than willing to bring in questionable pieces. They can handle them. From Rodman in Chi to Artest in LA to Oakley/Mason in NY to Birdman in Mia to even Pop taking on Stephen Jackson to give him a chance. Guys like Rondo and WB are ****ing headaches.

I see two plans from our organization which work against one another. To me, there's culture, then there's a winning culture. Latter means much more than the former. A change in culture and an improved defense, giving us the foundation to win and create a winning culture goes against what increasingly looks like a tank job and march to the lottery. Can't create a winning culture while while gunning for a top 5 pick.
 
rainmaker said:
Malone can only do so much when the FO is working against him. It's great he's committed to a culture change and improved defense, yet talent is what wins in this league. Giving him less talent to work with than we had last year and just as many, if not more pieces which don't fit while making both our backcourt and frontcourt worse defensively doesn't strike me as a successful strategy.
Click to expand...
I think I understood the interview differently.

It seems to me that Malone was highly involved in all the moves that transpired and it was not as if the FO had worked against him. He admitted he was consulted by PDA along the way and in fact was sort of working both as a GM and coach before PDA was hired. Now I am more confused and tend to think that we hired another sweet talking coach who will say the right thing and will do a different thing. Or worse, a coach that is so confused and does not know how his plans could be realized.
 
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Glenn said:
Can't read it because you need a subscription. I believe that legality still makes a difference.
Click to expand...

Glenn to be clear I am just running the standard download of Firefox as it comes out of the "box". I'm not overtly doing anything but reading that article. But as always YMMV:)
 
The Bee allows free access to their articles provided you do not exceed 30 articles in 30 days (I might be wrong on the exact parameters on this). If you go to Twitter, you can find a Sacramento Bee tweet linking you to Voisin's article. I believe that link (posted by the Bee) bypasses their own activity filter.
 
King Baller said:
Glenn to be clear I am just running the standard download of Firefox as it comes out of the "box". I'm not overtly doing anything but reading that article. But as always YMMV:)
Click to expand...

I use FireFox and a big pop up (below) blocks my ability to read. Don't have a clue what YMMV means. I access SacBee through their daily post to my email box. Whether I get to read or not seems to vary from month to month. All I know is what I see and will try the variety of ways of getting around this notice as suggested by members of this forum.

Thank you.

Capture.PNG
 
rainmaker said:
Malone can only do so much when the FO is working against him. It's great he's committed to a culture change and improved defense, yet talent is what wins in this league. Giving him less talent to work with than we had last year and just as many, if not more pieces which don't fit while making both our backcourt and frontcourt worse defensively doesn't strike me as a successful strategy.

If we had Thibs or Doc as head coach they'd likely be saying something similar. But, they can only do so much when they want to improve the defensive foundation and their top 4 guards are Vasquez, MT, MLM and IT. And they can only do so much when our FO doesn't replace even an Aldrich level defensive presence down low and a huge portion of the mins from our bigs will come from Cuz, PP and Landry.

It's great Malone is saying the right things, but it takes all of two seconds to look at our roster and realize the FO hasn't given him any help and it's going to be quite tough to accomplish his goals given what he has to work with. BTW, I think culture is overrated. A team with a poor talent level while aiming to have a positive culture doesn't mean a whole lot. Remember when GS traded Webber and attempted to improve their culture by shipping off the malcontent? How'd that work out? No playoffs for years. Wash did the same, shipping off Webber and other "bad influences" to improve culture. How'd that work out? Not so well either. Positive culture doesn't last all that long or mean all that much if you're not winning first and foremost. Don't forget that when we started our gold era we brought in poor cultural pieces in Webber and Vernon Maxwell. Talent trumps culture. Get the talent first, then work on culture, or have a coach who's confident enough in his ability to handle questionable pieces. The great coaches/GM's are more than willing to bring in questionable pieces. They can handle them. From Rodman in Chi to Artest in LA to Oakley/Mason in NY to Birdman in Mia to even Pop taking on Stephen Jackson to give him a chance. Guys like Rondo and WB are ****ing headaches.

I see two plans from our organization which work against one another. To me, there's culture, then there's a winning culture. Latter means much more than the former. A change in culture and an improved defense, giving us the foundation to win and create a winning culture goes against what increasingly looks like a tank job and march to the lottery. Can't create a winning culture while while gunning for a top 5 pick.
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There you go, that's the positive attitude... (can't get the smiley face to work. so far, not totally happy with new format)
 
rainmaker said:
Malone can only do so much when the FO is working against him. It's great he's committed to a culture change and improved defense, yet talent is what wins in this league. Giving him less talent to work with than we had last year and just as many, if not more pieces which don't fit while making both our backcourt and frontcourt worse defensively doesn't strike me as a successful strategy.

If we had Thibs or Doc as head coach they'd likely be saying something similar. But, they can only do so much when they want to improve the defensive foundation and their top 4 guards are Vasquez, MT, MLM and IT. And they can only do so much when our FO doesn't replace even an Aldrich level defensive presence down low and a huge portion of the mins from our bigs will come from Cuz, PP and Landry.

It's great Malone is saying the right things, but it takes all of two seconds to look at our roster and realize the FO hasn't given him any help and it's going to be quite tough to accomplish his goals given what he has to work with. BTW, I think culture is overrated. A team with a poor talent level while aiming to have a positive culture doesn't mean a whole lot. Remember when GS traded Webber and attempted to improve their culture by shipping off the malcontent? How'd that work out? No playoffs for years. Wash did the same, shipping off Webber and other "bad influences" to improve culture. How'd that work out? Not so well either. Positive culture doesn't last all that long or mean all that much if you're not winning first and foremost. Don't forget that when we started our gold era we brought in poor cultural pieces in Webber and Vernon Maxwell. Talent trumps culture. Get the talent first, then work on culture, or have a coach who's confident enough in his ability to handle questionable pieces. The great coaches/GM's are more than willing to bring in questionable pieces. They can handle them. From Rodman in Chi to Artest in LA to Oakley/Mason in NY to Birdman in Mia to even Pop taking on Stephen Jackson to give him a chance. Guys like Rondo and WB are ****ing headaches.

I see two plans from our organization which work against one another. To me, there's culture, then there's a winning culture. Latter means much more than the former. A change in culture and an improved defense, giving us the foundation to win and create a winning culture goes against what increasingly looks like a tank job and march to the lottery. Can't create a winning culture while while gunning for a top 5 pick.
Click to expand...

what are you even talking about. Who is this malcontent you're alluding to that was shipped out? No playoffs for years? ??? like what we've been doing now and has nothing to do with the new regime. What does defensive foundation have to do with who is on the floor. It is about having high expectations that players will do what they're capable of doing. Whether they fit and can live up to those expectations is another thing. Players better hope they can do other things.

What are the goals and strategy for this team next year? So far it looks like a classic case of rebuilding. Wins and playoffs aren't important. They're not aiming for the best defense in the league title. Again who is this "bad influence" that we got rid of in favor of idyllic NBA culture. If you ask most people, we kept our talented but temperamental player, and it even looks like we might be building around him. And that guy knows nothing about winning culture in the NBA. The front office knows more about winning in the NBA than most guys on the roster.
Prince_XY said:
I think I understood the interview differently.

It seems to me that Malone was highly involved in all the moves that transpired and it was not as if the FO had worked against him. He admitted he was consulted by PDA along the way and in fact was sort of working both as a GM and coach before PDA was hired. Now I am more confused and tend to think that we hired another sweet talking coach who will say the right thing and will do a different thing. Or worse, a coach that is so confused and does not know how his plans could be realized.
Click to expand...

They have never stated they were doing anything other than rebuilding. None of the moves made are contrary to that. This team is rebuilding. The only one confused would be you.
 
Packt said:
what are you even talking about. Who is this malcontent you're alluding to that was shipped out? No playoffs for years? ??? like what we've been doing now and has nothing to do with the new regime. What does defensive foundation have to do with who is on the floor. It is about having high expectations that players will do what they're capable of doing. Whether they fit and can live up to those expectations is another thing. Players better hope they can do other things.

What are the goals and strategy for this team next year? So far it looks like a classic case of rebuilding. Wins and playoffs aren't important. They're not aiming for the best defense in the league title. Again who is this "bad influence" that we got rid of in favor of idyllic NBA culture. If you ask most people, we kept our talented but temperamental player, and it even looks like we might be building around him. And that guy knows nothing about winning culture in the NBA. The front office knows more about winning in the NBA than most guys on the roster.
Click to expand...

Think Rain is referring to the culture change that they have talked about and emphasized - and how they only want certain high quality guys who want to be playing basketball and working hard (Vivek said something along those lines).
 
Packt said:
what are you even talking about. Who is this malcontent you're alluding to that was shipped out? No playoffs for years? ???
Again who is this "bad influence" that we got rid of in favor of idyllic NBA culture.
Click to expand...
Your reading comprehension is shockingly poor.

At what point did I refer to a malcontent that we shipped off, a bad influence we got rid of or us not making the playoffs as a result? When I say GS shipped off Webber to improve culture and ended up being much poorer for years afterwards, or that Wash shipped off Webber and other bad influences such as Rasheed to improve culture and ended up being terrible for years afterwards due to lack of talent, exactly how, in your mind, did that somehow equate to me saying the Kings shipping off malcontents and didn't make the playoffs as a result?

Seriously.....
 
Rain still complaining? We lost great individual talent, but in the "team player" department we lost a few scrubs... Big deal. I don't think we're going to be good this year, but I don't think we would have been good with what we had either. It's not like any of them played well together. It was terrible basketball on both ends of the floor. Who cares that our offense was middle of the pack. It wasn't fun to watch and it was VERY inconsistent.

Hopefully the "change of culture" will bring with it ROLES.

And yes, I believe that with good coaching this team could become better defensively (With the current roster) than it was last year with 5 individuals on the floor.
 
As mentioned by a few already, the culture change is probably referring to being more professional and embracing the team concept...wholeheartedly. If Malone can improve the Warriors defense, then he can improve the Kings defense. Warriors had few players with a defensive reputation.
 
Gary said:
Rain still complaining? We lost great individual talent, but in the "team player" department we lost a few scrubs... Big deal. I don't think we're going to be good this year, but I don't think we would have been good with what we had either. It's not like any of them played well together. It was terrible basketball on both ends of the floor. Who cares that our offense was middle of the pack. It wasn't fun to watch and it was VERY inconsistent.

Hopefully the "change of culture" will bring with it ROLES.

And yes, I believe that with good coaching this team could become better defensively (With the current roster) than it was last year with 5 individuals on the floor.
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The only problem I have with this point of view is what seems to be the implicit presumption that Malone could not have established roles or developed "team basketball" (an utterly nebulous term, with so many different meanings as to almost be meaningless, IMO) with who we got rid of.
 
dude12 said:
As mentioned by a few already, the culture change is probably referring to being more professional and embracing the team concept...wholeheartedly. If Malone can improve the Warriors defense, then he can improve the Kings defense. Warriors had few players with a defensive reputation.
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Exactly they had curry, Thompson, Barnes, lee, and bogut starting. Malone still managed to get a top 15 defense, 1st in defensive rebounding, 3rd in opponents field goal, and 7th in opponents 3 pt %. With a line up like that getting that kind of defensive production is miracles.
 
Which ironically brings me right back to: Coach Malone IS the culture change.

Seriously, if you said, ok, rate the culture change of the Kings front office, and said, 8 out of 10!

And then you said rate the culture change of the most defenseless group of players in the NBA, and said er...3 of 10. Well 8+3 = 11 of 20. The 8 is a given, it was here no matter who we brought in for him to coach. If we bring him a better group, if we have the ability to evaluate players enough to go uhoh...we've got like 1 defensive player in the entire rotation, and instead make moves to make the players a 5 our of 10, or a 6 out of 10, or heaven forbid an 8 out of 10...well, then its 13, 14, 16 of 20 instead, and maybe you have something going.

No matter how you evaluate the coaching/front office "culture change", the change would have been bigger and better with better players, or better fitting players.
 
Bricklayer said:
No matter how you evaluate the coaching/front office "culture change", the change would have been bigger and better with better players, or better fitting players.
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Instead we let Evans, Douglas, and Aldrich go. It wasn't that difficult to have a team that suited Malone's skills yet, in consultation with Malone, we let the heart of our defensive possibility go. I'm puzzled.

Malone MUST be the culture change as it isn't the players.
 
A hardwood floor, a backboard, a broken-in net, add a basketball and maybe 5 or 9 other players and you have makings for a good time. Maybe some add culture but I never new it to be necessary.

I wonder how the Sacramento Kings are going to play this year? I wonder if they'll be fun to watch? I guess I'm look"ing forward to seeing it all. And why not, it's my game, it's basketball. I wonder how Velasquez and Mbah aMoute will pan out as starters with Thornton, Thompson and Cousins? Of course I don't like Thornton but he might fool me and do some good. A big and important task will be to win an early home game and an early road game. We'll need some success to help keep the players pumped up and playing their best. Just two months away from the return of this fun to Sacramento.
 
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Mbah a Moute is a better defender than anyone on the team last year. I'd be shocked if Malone wasn't on board with the Landry signing. And clearly, the FO/management views things as a work in progress. I'm looking forward to seeing how things play out.
 
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