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Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 2:58 am
by Slava
During an extended LakersTV interview with head coach Mike Brown, we spent some time talking about his new assistant coaches: Chuck Person, John Kuester, Quin Snyder and Ettore Messina. You can check out the video to get Brown's more extended assessment of his staff, but here's a snippet of Brown's words on each coach:

Brown on Chuck Person: "Chuck interviewed for a head coaching job, he has a nice presence, and he is (loyal, intelligent and has the ability to build relationships). I think he can help with the transition of myself and the rest of the guys coming in new with the players that have been here. It's always, in my opinion, good if you can – if you have a relationship with somebody and feel somebody is good – keep somebody from the old staff to help the transition (go) a little more smoothly. Chuck is a terrific assistant coach, and he'll be a head coach just like the rest of my guys sometime in the future."

On John Kuester: "It's great to have John Kuester, a great guy like all my guys. He did, the last year in Cleveland, run our offense and he did a terrific job at it. He's a guy that knows what I like … he'll help not only the transition between myself and the players, but he'll also be a helpful role player in transitioning the new (coaches) get moved along and understand what we're trying to get done a little bit better so it all won't have to come from me all the time."

On Quin Snyder: "Terrific guy. I had a little trouble hiring him though, because (Lakers GM) Mitch Kupchak just refused to hire anybody that came from Duke. I did some finagling, I had to slide a little extra money to Mitch, and Quin doesn't know this yet … but Quin has to run around the practice court in Carolina practice gear 10 times frontwards, and then five times backwards, and then sing the Carolina fight song at mid court one time for Mitch and whoever he decides to bring in to watch this shenanigans.

On Ettore Messina: "He's the equivalent of a Pat Riley, a Gregg Popovich and so on and so forth over in Europe. He has multiple European Championships, and then a ton of league championships in the Spanish League, the Russian League, the Italian League … I'm excited that (Messina's) going to bring some things from Europe that I can use. They play a lot of zone in Europe … I'm not a huge fan of zone defense, but I think it could be effective with the length of the guys on this team. So that's intriguing, and then some zone offensive stuff and more than zone, he is a terrific man-to-man defensive coach and a very good offensive coach.


http://www.nba.com/lakers/newsnba/11081 ... aches.html

The more I hear of Messina, the more I hope he's the one Mitch has his eyes on for the future.

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 4:22 pm
by crazyeights
Good find, Slava, I've been wanting to talk over these hires.

Pretty curious about Quin Snyder...(reading over his wiki) he has business and law degrees from Duke. Went to three Final Fours as a player and two as an assistant coach. Then in Mizzou he seemed to maximize the talent of a mid-level team and then won a D-League championship with the Toros.

He's had success everywhere he's gone. A guy like that may just be looking for his first big shot.

I'm glad to see Person back and Messina could be instrumental to our success.

Other than Kuester, I'm pretty excited about our assistants and since all we really have to judge Mike Brown on are who he's been able to recruit for his bench, I'd say I'm feeling positive so far.

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 4:42 pm
by dockingsched
there was nothing funny about his duke/north carolina/mitch/snyder story.

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 11:55 pm
by magic1fan
i think mr brown and his staff are going to shock alot of people,and i mean in a very good way.

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 1:01 am
by tugs
interesting that Brown pointed out Messina regarding the zone. shows he already understands his ball club. the Lakers looked lost when confronted with a zone defense and I think strategies employed by Messina will help a lot. I hope we see a lot of Goudelock, Ebanks and Barnes cause primary zone buster is outside shooting (this is hoping that Barnes will be back to his old form and Ebanks would be Trevor-lite :) ).

also, with Phil and Shaw out, I'm excited to see a lot of ball movements and player movements.

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 1:24 am
by dockingsched
magic1fan wrote:i think mr brown and his staff are going to shock alot of people,and i mean in a very good way.


i agree, just excited to have a staff that will focus on defense and has a proven track record with that.

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 3:09 am
by Rox_Nix_Nox
also, with Phil and Shaw out, I'm excited to see a lot of ball movements and player movements.

yeah cause the triangle doesn't have a lot of player & ball movement ...

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 3:20 am
by tugs
Rox_Nix_Nox wrote:yeah cause the triangle doesn't have a lot of player & ball movement ...


what I meant was more of a Princeton offense kind of style and the triangle was more of involving a post player during its execution, am I wrong?

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 3:45 am
by TruSkool
i also remember the lakers having a lot of trouble against a zone defense, particularly because we have no great shooters. lets hope messina can help change that

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 3:52 am
by Slava
crazyeights wrote:Good find, Slava, I've been wanting to talk over these hires.

Pretty curious about Quin Snyder...(reading over his wiki) he has business and law degrees from Duke. Went to three Final Fours as a player and two as an assistant coach. Then in Mizzou he seemed to maximize the talent of a mid-level team and then won a D-League championship with the Toros.

He's had success everywhere he's gone. A guy like that may just be looking for his first big shot.

I'm glad to see Person back and Messina could be instrumental to our success.

Other than Kuester, I'm pretty excited about our assistants and since all we really have to judge Mike Brown on are who he's been able to recruit for his bench, I'd say I'm feeling positive so far.


I read that Messina didn't want to be listed as an assistant head coach and wanted to be more like a consultant like Tex Winter.

Which makes Kuester the assistant head coach and knowing Mike Brown, Kuester might be the guy drawing up plays out of timeouts.

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 6:43 am
by Leor_77
Good thread. I wish I knew more about these assistant coaches. I think that Kuester is actually an underrated hire. Anytime you can get a guy with head-coaching experience to join as an assistant coach is a good thing. Don't know too much about the other guys, so we'll have to see.

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 6:50 am
by tugs
Only thing that bugs me about Kuester is his recent stint with the Pistons. I'm not sure if he and his personnel mishandled the situation or was it his players' immaturity that caused all that trouble in Detroit.

as for the other three, I'm very high on Messina and Person could be their glue and for Snyder, I don't know him enough and hopefully Kupchak's hesitance to hire him was only because of he came from Duke (even I don't see anything wrong with that. Larry Brown coached Duke guys).

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 3:11 pm
by Slava
^Kupchak is an UNC alumni, that was the joke.

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 5:36 pm
by Kilroy
SlavaMedvedenko wrote:^Kupchak is an UNC alumni, that was the joke.


Yes, but it isn't funny, and it smacks of severe Boss-Brown-Nosing... And he's been doing it constantly since getting the job...

I get it, but at the same time, it makes it a little hard to take the guy seriously when every other word out of his mouth is some shuck-n-jive about his bosses.

I'm not saying he has to win Kobe over or that Kobe needs to have some sort of Super-Star power over the Coaching staff or the FO, but can you imagine Kobe respecting Brown if he constantly is saying 'I'm not worthy' with his jokes about Mitch and the Buss'?

I mean Kobe's still the best player on the team for better or worse...

I'm excited about much of the coaching staff except Kuester, and I really want to get behind MB, but every time I feel like he's won me over, he says something that makes me question the stature he's building with the team.

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 12:53 am
by tugs
Kilroy wrote:I'm excited about much of the coaching staff except Kuester, and I really want to get behind MB, but every time I feel like he's won me over, he says something that makes me question the stature he's building with the team.


I understand. he'll be taking the seat of a HOF coach who took the franchise to 7 Finals winning 5 rings and all his supposedly comical antics, which I think wasn't intentional to diss people, don't go too well with some fans. you go to this franchise, you mean business. be serious. save the jokes after you've proven something.

Re: Mike Brown interview on his assistants [Lakers.com]

Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 2:40 am
by Gek
This lockout has to be extremely awkward for Brown and the rest of the staff sans Person... being a new coach with a new system and not being able to legally talk to the players of your team has to be tough let alone knowing when you're ever going to even start work again.