Western Notes: Lakers, Love, Curry, Grizzlies
Jeanie Buss will have have a hand in helping Mitch Kupchak and Jim Buss find the team’s next head coach, report Mike Bresnahan and Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times, who add that the three Lakers executives will present a recommendation to the other four Buss siblings — Joey, Jesse, Johnny Buss, and Janie Buss Drexel — once the list of coaching candidates is narrowed down.
A person familiar with the team’s coaching search tells Mark Medina of the L.A. Daily News that eliciting the input of other members of the Buss family doesn’t imply that the next Lakers head coach will be decided by committee. “Does that mean (everyone involved) will decide who the coach is going to be? No…It’s not like there’s going to be seven people making that decision.”
Here’s more out of the Western Conference tonight, including more from the purple-and-gold:
- According to Medina, the Lakers anticipate that the feedback of the four other Buss siblings will address logistical issues, such as the length and amount of the coaching contract, rather than the selection of the coach.
- The Timberwolves want Kevin Love to stay in Minnesota, but team GM Milt Newton is confident about moving forward if they can’t find a way to retain the star big man. “If (keeping Love isn’t) the case, you best believe we’ll be a better team based on what happens.” Newton also says that plenty of teams are “planting seeds early” on the trade market right now to let other clubs know what their intent is (Twitter links via Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune).
- Stephen Curry spoke about his raw feelings concerning the Warriors ouster of Mark Jackson, but he hasn’t lost faith in the organization and is anxious to continue his dialogue with new coach Steve Kerr, as the star guard told reporters today. Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle provides a transcript, which also includes Curry’s comments supporting a new deal for Klay Thompson.
- Grizzlies head coach Dave Joerger said that he’ll have input on the process of hiring a new general manager in Memphis, reports Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal. “The plan is not going to be revealed. But the process has begun.”
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Steve Kerr, Joe Lacob On Deal, Curry, Warriors
Steve Kerr thought at one point that the Warriors preferred to hire Stan Van Gundy instead of him, as ESPN.com reports, but when the Pistons swooped in and hired Van Gundy, Kerr became Golden State’s clear-cut No. 1 option. Kerr appeared to be leaning heavily toward the Knicks all along, and it was “agonizing” for him to say no to Knicks president Phil Jackson, as Kerr told Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group, but he wound up accepting a five-year, $25MM offer from Golden State. The deal is devoid of team or coach options, as USA Today’s Sam Amick tweets, and a source tells Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports that Stephen Curry, a vocal supporter of Jackson, is excited about Kerr (Twitter link). Kawakami scored a one-on-one with the new Warriors coach, while Amick spoke with Golden State co-owner Joe Lacob. The full interviews are tantamount to required reading for Warriors fans, and perhaps Knicks fans, too, and we’ll pass along a few highlights from them that detail how the deal went down:
Kerr on the relationships that led him to Golden State:
“What helped is that I have previous relationships with Joe and Kirk and definitely Bob. Bob and I have known each other for years–he was Robin Lopez’s agent; I drafted Robin in Phoenix, so we spent some time together then. So I knew Bob. And I’ve known Joe actually a long time through a mutual friend, a venture capitalist in the Bay Area. So we’ve been on golf trips together. The familiarity for sure was helpful and it helped everybody relax and just sort of … be themselves. I’ve been preparing for this for the last year. I knew I wanted to coach and I had some prepared materials that I showed them. But more than anything we just talked about the opportunity and the team and the possibilities. We were just all very comfortable with one another.”
Lacob on his relationship with Kerr:
“I knew him through friends — and through golf, quite frankly. I’ve been on golf trips with Steve before, so I know him socially for many years. He’s best friends with one of my best friends and some other people, so I’ve known him, but not necessarily that close or that professionally as has been portrayed. He is certainly somebody who we have always liked, sort of a great, intelligent guy. So he was on our list, and when we decided to make a change he was on our short list of people who we wanted to talk to.”
Kerr on the draw of Stephen Curry, whom Kerr, then Suns GM, tried to acquire in 2009:
“It was huge. I talked to him tonight and I told him this is retribution for that deal falling through back in ’09. [Laughs.] A big part of the pull was not just Steph but the whole roster. It’s a really skilled, talented team. They’ve done a lot of good things the last couple years, they play both ends which was very important. This is not a renovation by any means. This is more just this team has done great things the last couple years and let’s try to build on that. I love the mentality. I think Mark really instilled a defensive identity and the emphasis on rebounding. He did a lot of really good things. That makes my job a lot easier. I’m able to build on that rather than starting to try to build a foundation. The foundation is already there. It’s really an attractive job.”
Lacob on player support for Kerr:
“[Curry] is extremely supportive. That’s all I can tell you. We got Steve Kerr because of our players. We have great players, great character individuals. They all want to win, and I can just tell you that they’re very supportive.”
Kerr on whether he’ll have front office input:
“Yeah, but not as a decision-maker and I wouldn’t want that. I’m going to have a busy enough job as it is. I think to me the healthiest situation for any coach is to have a say, but not have the ultimate decision. I think that’s what the GM is for and I got a really good sense from all the guys that it’s about a consensus. And I’ll be part of that.”
Lacob on hiring another first-time coach:
“Yes, it’s true, [Kerr] has not coached before. But this is what management is all about. You have to be able to pick people, and he is incredibly prepared…Every detail you can imagine. He knew our roster in and out. He had assistant coaches he wanted to go after. It was like a tour de force. Look, at the end of the day I know he knows a lot about basketball. We’re taking a little bit of a risk on his coaching ability, but we did that with Mark and it worked. So it’s just about finding the right fit for the organization and a guy who has extremely high potential, is a hard worker and is very prepared. That’s what we have got.”
Warriors Notes: Kerr, Hoiberg, Jackson, Curry
The Warriors will take their time finding a new coach, as Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group hears, and he sees it as an indication that the team won’t land Steve Kerr if the TNT broadcaster is anxious to take a job soon (Twitter links). There’s more on Golden State’s coaching search as well as the future of their ex-coach amid the latest on the Warriors:
- Kerr, Fred Hoiberg, Stan Van Gundy and Kevin Ollie are in the first tier of Warriors coaching candidates, Kawakami believes (Twitter link).
- Ousted Warriors coach Mark Jackson says he’d like to coach again and cited the “great jobs available” at present in an interview Wednesday on ESPN New York 98.7 FM, as Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com notes. Jackson, who played for the Knicks, said New York hasn’t contacted him about its vacancy. The former point guard is reportedly a candidate for the Lakers job.
- The deadline trade that sent Kent Bazemore to the Lakers angered Stephen Curry, who yelled “It’s a business!” as he ran past a press conference in which GM Bob Myers was announcing the deal, according to Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher.
More Fallout From Mark Jackson’s Firing
Mark Jackson said in a radio appearance this morning on The Dan Patrick Show that if the Warriors hadn’t fired him, he would have resigned or demanded changes, as Sports Xchange notes. Here’s more on the reaction to Jackson’s ouster in Golden State:
- Former assistant coach Darren Erman was worried that Jackson was speaking ill of him behind his back, Grantland’s Zach Lowe writes, which suggests that was the reason that Erman reportedly taped the conversations of other coaches. The Warriors are investigating allegations that another assistant coach was also recording conversations within the organization, Lowe reports.
- Warriors co-owner Joe Lacob doesn’t think that the decision to fire Jackson will cause Stephen Curry to sour on the organization, and Lacob says he took the star point guard’s support for the coach under consideration. Lacob made those comments and more to Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group, Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle and Monte Poole of CSNBayArea.com, and Kawakami provides a transcription.
- Lacob also told the reporters that GM Bob Myers made the decision to fire Jackson, though he admits that he had the power to overrule him. Myers said he didn’t consult with Curry before he pulled the plug on Jackson, reports Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group.
- Criticism that the team should have given Jackson an extension last summer is “unfair,” in Lacob’s eyes. Still, it appears the dissolution of extension talks proved pivotal to Jackson’s future with the Warriors, Kawakami tweets.
- Lacob told the reporters that he didn’t require Jackson, who commuted to his job from Southern California, to move to the Bay Area, but he thinks that he’ll insist that his next coach live close to work. On-court expectations will be high for the next coach of the team, Lacob asserts.
- Lacob suggests that while Jackson succeeded in connecting with his players, the coach could do a better job of “managing up and sideways,” seemingly pointing to Jackson’s tension with management and much of the Warriors organization. Still, he insists his relationship with Jackson was generally friendly.
- Jackson and Kings coach Michael Malone, Jackson’s former assistant, used to share the same agent, who negotiated the title of Warriors associate head coach for Malone behind Jackson’s back, according to Kawakami. When Jackson found out, he took the title away and changed agents. That begat the tension between Jackson and Malone, Kawakami says (All Twitter links).
Western Notes: Jackson, Curry, Sterling
With the Warriors being eliminated from the playoffs last night, speculation about coach Mark Jackson‘s job status has begun. In regards to his future, Jackson said, “I don’t get caught up in it. I have total confidence and total faith that I will be fine even if I’m a full time pastor,” tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports.
More from the west:
- Stephen Curry weighed in on Jackson, saying, “I love coach more than anybody. For his job us under scrutiny and question is unfair. It would certainly be a shock to me,” tweets Spears.
- Curry also said, “He [Jackson] deserves to be our coach next year,” notes Spears (Twitter link).
- A league source told Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link) that Jackson doesn’t have one Golden State front office ally who’ll make a case to ownership to keep him. “He’s on an island,” the source said.
- The Donald Sterling situation proves that no words are private anymore, writes Mitch Albom of The Detroit Free Press. Albom’s article examines the legality of the recording as well as what this means for NBA owners in the future.
Warriors Owner On Jackson, Thompson, Barnes
Warriors co-owner Joe Lacob didn’t necessarily expect to contend for a title this year, but he did envision the team becoming a “serious competitor” for a top-four finish in the Western Conference, as he tells Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group. Golden State is in sixth place, four games back of the Clippers and Rockets, who are tied for fourth. The Warriors are just two and a half games up on ninth place Memphis. It’s left Lacob a “little disappointed,” but “not overly concerned yet,” he says. With plenty of trade rumors surrounding the Warriors, Lacob had much more to say to Kawakami, and while the entire piece is worth a read, we’ll share the highlights here:
On coach Mark Jackson:
“Of course there’s pressure on him. Just like there’s pressure on the players, there’s pressure on Mark, too. There’s on me, pressure on (GM) Bob Myers … and you know what? We should all be happy we have that pressure, because the truth is that means we’re relevant. If there’s no pressure and no expectations, that means we’re in rebuild mode and still coming. I don’t think that’s the case. We’re good. Whether we are achieving our expectations or not, we’ll look at the end of the year and see what we did. Maybe he is feeling it a little and he should be feeling pressure. That’s a good thing. I feel the pressure for this team to perform. We’ve invested a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of thinking, a lot of effort, and we’re going to continue to do so. I certainly feel pressure and some weight of expectation and I’m very happy to feel those things because it means we’ re getting somewhere.”
On how he’ll assess Jackson and others:
“I think you’re always evaluating everybody, whether it be the players, the coaches … it’s hard to know, if you don’t quite win a few games you should, is it the coach’s fault? Is it the players’ fault? It’s hard to say. I think we’ll have to look back on a body of work at the end of the season and look at that and make an evaluation. I do think our coach has done a good job; we have had some big wins, a lot of wins on the road, and that’s usually a sign of good coaching. But some things are a little disturbing; the lack of being up for some of these games at home, that’s a concern to me.”
On the team’s approach to the trade deadline:
“Very aggressive. I don’t think I would answer that differently any year. Honestly, I don’t even know how you think about it any other way. You should always be very aggressive, should always be looking to improve your team. Now it’s not clear we’ll be able to do that. There’ve been a lot of discussions, that’s what I hear around the league, but we’ll just have wait and see. We’re not going to make a move just to make a move. Certainly there are certain parts of the roster that we’d like to improve. No matter how good we are, we’d probably have that attitude. There’s no real limit on what we can do. Bob Myers has the ability, he knows, to propose anything to ownership, even if it means going into luxury tax, if means using those trade exceptions. We’ll consider all things.”
On the assertion that everyone except Stephen Curry and Andrew Bogut is available for a trade:
“That specific statement has been out there. But I think we’d be very reluctant to trade any of our core pieces; we like our core. And our young core players–Curry, Klay (Thompson) and (Harrison) Barnes — a lot of teams like them because we’re getting specific trade proposals on a daily basis about those players. We are not anxious nor are we likely to make a move involving those players. Everyone wants what we have, young pieces. And we also have some important veteran players in our core and you need a mix of the two. … It’s obvious we need to get a little better, need a little more bench production and we need to jell a little more. We just haven’t quite hit our stride. Hopefully we hit that; we’ve got 30 games left to do it and make a strong run to the playoffs.”
Pacific Notes: Warriors, Suns
The Warriors and Suns clash tonight, and the winner will come away with the better record and second spot in the Pacific Division, good for the 6th playoff seed. Let’s look at some of the notes from these Pacific rivals:
- The opinion of rival executives is that the Warriors would be willing to trade any of their players other than Stephen Curry and Andrew Bogut, per Sam Amick of USA Today. Amick says the Warriors have one of the most aggressive front offices in the NBA, and GM Bob Myers acknowledged the possibility of making moves with their “healthy amount of assets” in a Q&A last month.
- Curry talked to Jerry Zgoda of The Star Tribune about the 2009 draft, where he was passed up by the Timberwolves for point guards Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn. Curry says his first choice to land was actually with the Knicks: “I wouldn’t have known what would have come to pass here or in New York, which is where I kind of had my sights set on going in the draft. I would have tried to make the best of wherever I landed.”
- Curry also said that playing alongside Ricky Rubio would have been fun, had the Timberwolves chosen him instead of Flynn: “The dynamic of that combination would have been fun, I’m sure. But it didn’t work out that way. Looking back, this is a spot here where good things definitely have happened.”
- Curry also dismissed the idea that the Timberwolves were hesitant to draft him due to his preference for a warm weather destination: “It is nice to be in the Bay Area, where it’s 65, 70 degrees today. But even in New York and the East Coast, it’s snowy and 12, 20 degrees… I had the same situation here as with Minnesota: I didn’t come work out for the Warriors, met with the GMs back then. I would have been happy to be in the league and not have been some spoiled little brat who manipulated his way into the league somehow. I would have been cool whenever I was drafted.”
- If the Suns can land a star, they’d prefer a perimeter player, per Amick’s piece. This is one reason Rudy Gay has their attention in addition to the reports of interest in post players Pau Gasol and Thaddeus Young.
Warriors Owner On Offseason, Iguodala, CBA
Warriors owner Joe Lacob sat down with Sean Deveney of the Sporting News earlier today to disucss several topics, including how he feels about the improvements made during the offseason and how the new collective bargaining agreement will affect his decision-making moving forward. You can read some of the highlights from the Q&A transcript below:
On how much the team has improved since last year:
We have improved this team on paper. Perhaps even substantially. We’re still a very young team. We have a young core that hopefully begins to organically grow and get better. We added key free agents, we added size, we added depth. We’re pretty interesting. We have very good shooting, we have very good height and depth. We’re a big team now. We have, at any time, we can put out five individual defenders that are really good defenders. We couldn’t do that a year ago.
On how he thinks the team will stack up against the rest of the Western Conference:
There are some really good teams in the West. But I think we are right there in that group. We believe we are right there. We feel that, if we stay injury-free, we can be a contender to finish in the Top 4 in the West and get homecourt advantage and from there, you see what happens.
On the significance of being able to add a top-tier free agent like Andre Iguodala:
We started a process whereby we wanted to make a run at improving through the ways that you traditionally improve a team. Draft, we have bought draft picks all three years we have been involved here. We wanted to have more shots at bringing in players. Free agency, we wanted to be in the conversation every year. (Andre) wanted to come here and came here for less than he would have gotten somewhere else. It was emblematic of the way he sees our franchise and the changes we have made. We have made it clear we want a championship. We will spend the money. I said I would be willing to go into the luxury tax for that, and we would have. It wound up that we did not have to do it that way.
If he's worried about keeping his young and talented core together under the new CBA:
As time goes by, we will have some challenges in that regard. We will have to deal with that as those situations occur. Steph Curry is signed up for the long term—the long term is four years in the NBA now. (Klay Thompson) is in his third year, (Harrison Barnes) is in his second year. So it is not an urgent problem right now. But eventually, that could become a problem, how do you keep them? It is not going to be a monetary issue because this ownership is willing to spend whatever it takes to build a championship here and be extremely competitive every year. That isn’t something I even think about, we will spend the money.
I don’t want to pay the luxury tax, nobody wants to. That’s why it is a luxury tax, it is very punitive. But if it means winning vs. not winning, I choose winning. So that’s not an issue. At the end of the day, all the things we are talking about are important, but the fans care about one thing: Are you winning? Not the luxury tax. If I am not here to win, then I shouldn’t be here. We need to win.
On the risk of signing Stephen Curry to an extension after he had been injured:
A lot of people questioned signing him to a long-term deal—I would read it, every day, ‘Will he ever be healthy? Ever?’ He had several years of chronic ankle problems. But I looked at that and thought, ‘I don’t remember an ankle ending a guy’s career.’ I believed with good medical attention, he was going to be able to overcome that. And we probably got a discount relative to what someone else would have paid for him at the end of last year, given the performance he had. At that moment, though, yes, a lot of people wouldn’t have signed him. We took the chance, we signed him and now we look like we’re pretty smart.
Odds & Ends: Mavericks, Cuban, Bulls
There's hardly a dull moment with Mark Cuban when he speaks with the media, as the outspoken Mavericks owner said on the Artie Lange Show that hiring a head coach is "harder than finding a wife" (hat tip to SportsDayDFW). On a more serious note, Cuban explained why he'll never trade Dirk Nowitzki:
"Dirk defines our culture. When your best player, no matter how old, is the first one in the gym and the last to leave, and works the hardest and encourages guys the way Dirk does … that has a value that goes far beyond what you see on the court."
Here's a roundup of the rest of tonight's links:
- Cuban briefly goes into the thought process behind his decision to buy the team.
- SportsDayDFW's Tim Cowlishaw isn't interested in the idea of bringing Michael Beasley to Dallas.
- With Luol Deng set to become a free agent next summer and Carlos Boozer a prime candidate to be amnestied, it's now or never for the core of this current Bulls team, writes Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times. Cowley also passes along some notable quotes on Derrick Rose, who according to GM Gar Forman "seems like he's doing great, feels good, strong…everything has been positive." Forman added that Rose stayed away from pickup games this summer but has done enough to work on his game.
- The NBA will install tracking cameras in every arena around the league starting next season, which will present a vastly different way of experiencing and evaluating the game for analysts, casual fans, and the like (Associated Press via ESPN).
- Stephen Curry can now focus on basketball after a busy summer and has already organized voluntary team workouts (Associated Press via NBA.com). In another piece, Marcus Thompson II of the Bay Area News Group goes in-depth about how Curry has embraced his role as the Warriors' leader.
- Kevin Ding of the OC Register further analyzes the Lakers' decision to sign Xavier Henry (Subscribers only).
Odds & Ends: Paul, NBPA, Butler
In discussing Chris Paul's election as the new NBPA president, ESPN's Brian Windhorst writes that neither Paul nor former union vice president Jerry Stackhouse would commit to a timetable nor discuss whether a search firm was in place to find a replacement for ex-NBPA executive director Billy Hunter. Stackhouse, who will remain active with the union in an advisory role, said they aren't in a rush but have already identified a number of candidates. Windhorst also says the union would ideally want a new executive director in place by February 1st, when Adam Silver is set to begin his job as the new commissioner. Here are more of tonight's miscellaneous news and notes, along with more from the above piece:
- Some comments from Paul: "I've been thinking about (running) for a while on and off…I've had a lot of dialogue about it with committee members. I wouldn't have taken on the role if I was going to do it alone."
- There are a few specific issues that were tabled during the 2011 CBA which still need to be resolved, especially blood testing for performance enhancing drugs (including human growth hormone) and the current age limit to declare for the NBA draft.
- Lakers guard Steve Blake and Bobcats forward Anthony Tolliver were added as new members to the executive committee, joining Paul, Roger Mason Jr., Stephen Curry, Andre Iguodala, James Jones, Matt Bonner, and Willie Green.
- The union has turned to Deloitte Financial Advisory Services to examine its structure and will make necessary changes, such as adding a human resources and information technology department (J.A. Adande of ESPN.com).
- Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today notes that the NBPA has hired Reilly Partners to help with restructuring and forming a job description for the executive director position, and that two names have surfaced as potential candidates for the opening: former NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson and former NBA and Madison Square Garden executive Steven Mills.
- Suns forward Caron Butler says he's looking forward to being a mentor to teammate Michael Beasley, gives his thoughts on the Clippers, and talks about how he's approaching the upcoming season in Phoenix. Butler adds that no one from the Clippers front office has spoken to him since he was notified by his agent about being traded, but insists there's no ill will: “I don’t leave with bitterness or anything, but a phone call would have helped the situation…But it’s cool, it’s no hard feelings because that’s the nature of the business" (NBA.com's Jeff Caplan).
- Hoopsworld's Alex Kennedy looks at a list of 11 of the top 13 players drafted this past June and discusses their chances at winning Rookie of the Year.
- In the same piece, Kennedy relays a clip from Gary Payton's interview on FOX Sports, in which the Hall of Fame point guard reveals that he may have had something to do with Allen Iverson's "practice" rant on the 76ers several years ago: "(Iverson) asked me…'How do you keep your body is so good of a shape, and don’t get hurt, and stay always on the court?’ And I just told him for real, my coach George Karl didn’t let me practice. So that was it. I said, ‘You have to stop practicing." While watching the actual rant, Payton recalled thinking: ‘Don’t say it like this! Don’t do it like that, Allen…When he said it, I said, ‘No, that was not our conversation.’”