GSW Owner goes in on Mark Jackson

[HiRez]

Lacob should just keep his mouth shut about Jackson (even if he's right, which he probably is), as no good can come of it. As a businessman, he should know he has to do risk/reward analysis on every decision, and his decision to blab carries only risk and no reward.

Also, he talks about how Jackson made poor hiring decisions while ironically not taking any responsibility for his own poor decision to hire Jackson in the first place.

[HotRocks34]

Jackson is a clown, and he's lucky Lacob (who is also a clown) didn't go in on him harder.

Before he was fired, the players and Jackson seemingly tried to put pressure on the organization not to fire him. Felt like a typical bully power play, like "I dare you to fire me because my players love me so much."

Then immediately after he was fired, a report came out (or maybe more than one) about how one of the players (anonymous) was questioning, in essence, if Jackson was fired because the Warriors wanted the organization to be less black.

Then, that same anonymous player and/or Jackson himself (can't recall which; maybe both) was/were talking about how people would be watching to see how the Warriors did. With the implication being that the pressure was on for Lacob and GSW to do better under Kerr than Jackson or else the scrutiny would really come down.

Jackson is a cult-leader-type joke. I didn't know that until all of this started to come together, his firing. Then I researched the matter more, saw all the Stockton/Jazz stuff, learned more about Jackson's divisive "leadership" style and saw things more clearly for what they are.

I am no big fan of Lacob, or even Kerr (no opinion on him as a coach). But Jackson, to me, is a buffoon. The Warriors got better simply by firing him, in an "addition by subtraction" kind of way.

What Lacob is doing here is simple payback and "I told you so." And Lacob is going light here. Given the shakedown that came with Jackson's firing, Lacob could be a lot less gracious than this. And maybe he will be if the Warriors go far in the playoffs.

[dc]

Is this the same owner that dumba$$ Golden State fans booed during the beginning of the season they traded Monta Ellis?

awkward

I didn't get that booing. GS wasn't going anywhere with Monta. I wonder what they think of Lacob now?

You're talking about an overly loyal fanbase that was happy with moral victories in close losses to the the Lakers and constant 36 win seasons and late lotto picks. Same fan base that gave Monta M-V-P chants at the FT line when the team had already been eliminated from the playoff race (serious face palm at this). These people made an incompetent Chris Cohan a very rich man.

Warriors haven't always had the smartest fan base, just the most loyal. Even now, I see buffoonery amongst them. It is getting better, tho. The better basketball being played has actually made them more knowledgable about the game.

[Texas Chuck]

I'm glad that Jackson imbued the team with a defensive mindset before he left, but I'm glad he's gone after finding out all the odd trouble he was causing behind the scenes.

Yep its like Avery Johnson in Dallas. In his case Cuban went ahead and hired teh best assistants but Avery wouldn't listen which is why Del Harris quit. He did some things really really well and he changed the identity of the team for the better. But he had to go for the team to get where we eventually got with Rick.

[Illuminati_]

Obviously Jakcosn did not leave on very good terms with Lacob. But, it's not like Lacob was speaking directly to the media... he was at some random rich people luncheon. And this is not new news.

Towards the end of his time with the team, the public eventually came to know that Jackson had conflicts with the ownership and was burning bridges every chance he could. Towards the end the only people who were good with Jackson were the players.

I'm glad that Jackson imbued the team with a defensive mindset before he left, but I'm glad he's gone after finding out all the odd trouble he was causing behind the scenes.

How does what happened behind the scenes affect you man? Everything we have heard as well comes from ownerships side. Like every tale via media..nobody knows what really happened.

[Illuminati_]

All the GS fans who attacked anyone who said something negative about Jackson when he started are now pretending like they hated him the whole time.

As we all know these people eat whatever the media says than spits it out. Their thoughts while they may think are their own where given to em.

[turk3d]

Let's wait and see what Jackson has to say now that the floodgates have been opened before coming to a final conclusion. If he says nothing, case dismissed. I guess that Jackson was in fact a turd, but until then, I'll reserved judgement. I know as a Warrior fan, he did do a lot to improve the franchise.

Apparently he was pretty dumb politically which is pretty important when you're in a management capacity. Had they eeeked out a win in that 7 game series against the Clippers last season, I'm not even sure he would have gotten fired, with all his misgivings. Regardless, he wasn't all bad as some would have you believe.

[dc]

Let's wait and see what Jackson has to say now that the floodgates have been opened before coming to a final conclusion. If he says nothing, case dismissed. I guess that Jackson was in fact a turd, but until then, I'll reserved judgement. I know as a Warrior fan, he did do a lot to improve the franchise.

Apparently he was pretty dumb politically which is pretty important when you're in a management capacity. Had they eeeked out a win in that 7 game series against the Clippers last season, I'm not even sure he would have gotten fired, with all his misgivings. Regardless, he wasn't all bad as some would have you believe.

Jackson had his strengths. He was a good recruiter/preacher/motivator. Most players liked him and they played hard for him. That's not insignificant.

But that's basically all he brought to the table. As far as game preparation, Xs and Os, game management, managing the bench, putting together a good staff, getting along with others in the organization; he was below average in all these areas.

As Lacob said, Jackson did a good job for the time he was there, but the team was never going to step up to the next level with the way he was running things.

[turk3d]

Let's wait and see what Jackson has to say now that the floodgates have been opened before coming to a final conclusion. If he says nothing, case dismissed. I guess that Jackson was in fact a turd, but until then, I'll reserved judgement. I know as a Warrior fan, he did do a lot to improve the franchise.

Apparently he was pretty dumb politically which is pretty important when you're in a management capacity. Had they eeeked out a win in that 7 game series against the Clippers last season, I'm not even sure he would have gotten fired, with all his misgivings. Regardless, he wasn't all bad as some would have you believe.

Jackson had his strengths. He was a good recruiter/preacher/motivator. Most players liked him and they played hard for him. That's not insignificant.

But that's basically all he brought to the table. As far as game preparation, Xs and Os, game management, managing the bench, putting together a good staff, getting along with others in the organization; he was below average in all these areas.

As Lacob said, Jackson did a good job for the time he was there, but the team was never going to step up to the next level with the way he was running things.

No doubt it was a good move to replace him with Kerr. That doesn't mean he was terrible, especially for a rookie coach. You have to expect (just like players) coaches improve as they gain experience but when you rub too many people the wrong in a work environment, you're probably not going to last to long in most cases, unless your success rate is extremely high. And although I believe his success rate was high, it certainly wasn't high enougn for him to keep his job.

[nfmos]

Is this the same owner that dumba$$ Golden State fans booed during the beginning of the season they traded Monta Ellis?

awkward

I didn't get that booing. GS wasn't going anywhere with Monta. I wonder what they think of Lacob now?

You're talking about an overly loyal fanbase that was happy with moral victories in close losses to the the Lakers and constant 36 win seasons and late lotto picks. Same fan base that gave Monta M-V-P chants at the FT line when the team had already been eliminated from the playoff race (serious face palm at this). These people made an incompetent Chris Cohan a very rich man.

Warriors haven't always had the smartest fan base, just the most loyal. Even now, I see buffoonery amongst them. It is getting better, tho. The better basketball being played has actually made them more knowledgable about the game.

This is way off. You act as if the majority of GSW fans felt this way. There was loud group of idiot fans that night, that couldn't see the long term outlook, and were just butthurt Monta fans. Monta was an exciting player, and in general, the fans didn't have much trust in any ownership after so many years of futility, so some dumb fans chose to ruin that night. If you looked at the GS board, or were at that game, you can see a lot of fans were disgusted by the dummies that booed that night and ruined Mullin's night.

Also, if you believe GSW fans have always been "content" with anything, again, you haven't visited our message board. Even this season, our fans are always complaining about something!

Warriors fans have always had one of the most knowledgeable fan bases. We don't need piped in crowd noise telling them when to cheer or not, and they see nuances that often only hardcore fans see. And we don't have only a bunch of executives buying tickets with their business expense accounts, we have some real fans of basketball. Of course, there will always be some fools just like in any fan base, but just because the fans are hardcore loyal doesn't mean they cant criticize management and realize the team's deficiencies. Just go back and count how many appearances Cohan made after mismanaging the team for so long, he knew just how happy the fans were with "moral victories".

[Boomerfan]

I'd be curious to hear what Jackson's assistants think of this.

They seem to agree with Lacob. Scalabrine let loose on Mark Jackass.

http://www.ibabuzz.com/warriors/2014/08 ... y-defense/

Generally, as a staff we really didn’t prepare our team to be championship-caliber nor did we prepare our team to eventually be championship-caliber. “I respected him as a head coach going into that, but after a while, it was just like us not doing what I would feel like our job is. It was just kind of frustrating.”

Scalabrine offered examples of how he disagreed with Jackson on how to challenge players “to be great,” including All-Star guard Stephen Curry, who Scalabrine said wasn’t given the opportunity at times to do more on defense to the player’s detriment because of Jackson.

“Taking the easy way out, right?” Scalabrine said. “Like putting (Curry) on not the best player, and that wasn’t his decision. That’s not Steph Curry’s responsibility. Steph wanted to guard Chris Paul. He wanted to guard Tony Parker. I can guarantee you. Everyone that knows Steph Curry knows that he’s like an elite competitor.

“But as a staff, Coach Jackson made that decision in saying, ‘Hey, I’m not going to challenge this guy. I’m not going to push this guy to be better on both ends of the floor. I want to save him for the offensive end.’ Look, I think Steph Curry if he was challenged day in and day out to defend, if you want to win a championship, you have to be able to defend your position.”

“I think that with the right scheme and having the right coach and putting him in the right position, Steph Curry is going to be a point guard that wins an NBA championship,” Scalabrine said. “He has that kind of ability, and it’s not just on one the side of the floor.”

On offense, Scalabrine said Golden State could have been “better organized” and was ultimately “an average offensive team with all that talent.”

That was before this season started and now Scalabrine is looking like Nostrafarkingdarmus.

What is unfortunate is that Steph Curry still has a reputation of being a poor defender because of Mark Jackson... but anyone that has seen Warriors games this year would see that now Curry is being allowed to defend the best player he is actually a very good defender.

Even Steph Curry who always backed Jackson and never said a bad word about him.... was starting to realise Jackson was holding him back. You would NEVER have seen Curry say this last year about Jackson.... but listen to what he said in this interview.

https://soundcloud.com/warriors/steph-c ... ice-112014

Basically Curry said when Jackson would get the team together to talk about their individual defensive matchups... then Jackson would get to Curry who would always be last and Jackson would say "Steph you just defend whoever is left" which he said used to peeve him... and Jackson could tell by the look on his face he wasn't happy.

Steph said he approached Jackson several times to ask why he wasn't being given a defensive task... and didn't the only answer was he "needed him to conserve his energy for offense."

Steph is now loving the fact Kerr lets him defend the best player... and Steph is showing he can do it. Also nice that with all the ball movement Curry doesn't need to "conserve his energy for offense" because the ball is no longer running through ISO's the entire game.

[Chuck Everett]

If the Warriors don't get past the 2nd round with their stacked roster, then there's no excuse. Dissing Mark Jackson who took over a bad team and helped mold them into a 50 win team and then saying Kerr is a great coach is hilarious. Let's see what happens come playoff time.

WCF or bust, especially with OKC still not in the mix. I've never heard of a head coach not being allowed to hire the coaches he wants. It'll be fun watching Lacob never win anything. He's just as arrogant as Jackson supposedly is.

[HawaiianJazzFan]

As a Jazz fan I HATE Mark Jackson more than almost any other player, talk to anyone in the Jazz organization and you can hear stories upon stories about how devisive and cancerous he is. He has one of the worst attitudes. When the Jazz were decent and he was in Utah calling a game, he wasn't comfortable going anywhere in the stadium because of what he did when he played here, and the bridges he burned. He literally hid most of the day. He was insanely jealous of John Stockton so he tried to get the whole locker room to hate Stockton. Just an egomaniac with a horrible attitude. He has 200 people in the Jazz organization that hate him too.

[Boomerfan]

If the Warriors don't get past the 2nd round with their stacked roster, then there's no excuse. Dissing Mark Jackson who took over a bad team and helped mold them into a 50 win team and then saying Kerr is a great coach is hilarious. Let's see what happens come playoff time.

WCF or bust, especially with OKC still not in the mix. I've never heard of a head coach not being allowed to hire the coaches he wants. It'll be fun watching Lacob never win anything. He's just as arrogant as Jackson supposedly is.

haha nice one! Mark Jackson didn't mould this team from a "bad one to a 50 win team". The front office did by their trades and drafting.

Getting in elite defenders like Andrew Bogut, Andrew Iguodala, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson is the reason the defense improved.... not Mark Jackson... and they were all elite defenders before they got to Golden State.

Jackson gets way too much credit for something he had little to do with. Darren Erman and Mike Malone were responsible for the defensive structure. All Mark Jackass was responsible for was telling Klay and Steph to shoot whenever they wanted.

[nfmos]

If the Warriors don't get past the 2nd round with their stacked roster, then there's no excuse. Dissing Mark Jackson who took over a bad team and helped mold them into a 50 win team and then saying Kerr is a great coach is hilarious. Let's see what happens come playoff time.

WCF or bust, especially with OKC still not in the mix. I've never heard of a head coach not being allowed to hire the coaches he wants. It'll be fun watching Lacob never win anything. He's just as arrogant as Jackson supposedly is.

You are missing the point, and I'm not sure if you even read the article. Sure at the end of the day results matter, but it isn't like Lacob canned Jackson primarily for poor performance. He has never failed to credit Jackson for the positives he brought to the team.

But, would you keep someone as an employee purely for their results, even if they piss off most everyone else in the company, even those in executive roles? And especially if you feel their approach to preparation and staff building is not in line with the way you want to run the company, that you own? Wouldn't you want an employee that represents ideals that you feel you want your company to be known for?? What if Lacob doesn't want his company to be known for paranoia, intolerance, insecurities, and prioritizing loyalty over skill and experience?

No one can guarantee what will happen any one year in the playoffs, with the variables of injuries, match ups, cold streaks, etc. But any one that watches this team compared to the team the last couple years can EASILY see that this team is better prepared, with players taking roles more suited to their strengths, and with an atmosphere of professional and commitment to consistency that was lacking under Jackson.

As a Dubs fan, this team seems a lot further on the road to building a successful team model that will last multiple seasons, a la the Spurs, than it did in the "us against the world" mentality that Jackson championed. So even if the Dubs do get surprised in the first round (which I don't see happening), I would still be completely satisfied with the move. And I think the majority of other Dubs fans would be also.

[Nyphantom]

It's crazy to see so many warrior fans turn their back on Mark, it wasn't that long ago when most of them were vehemently defending him!

[Boomerfan]

As a Jazz fan I HATE Mark Jackson more than almost any other player, talk to anyone in the Jazz organization and you can hear stories upon stories about how devisive and cancerous he is. He has one of the worst attitudes. When the Jazz were decent and he was in Utah calling a game, he wasn't comfortable going anywhere in the stadium because of what he did when he played here, and the bridges he burned. He literally hid most of the day. He was insanely jealous of John Stockton so he tried to get the whole locker room to hate Stockton. Just an egomaniac with a horrible attitude. He has 200 people in the Jazz organization that hate him too.

After reading this... I can see why most of Utah hate him. Seems his issues at that Warriors are not new. He had a lot of RealGM'ers conned though when they said GWS was making a mistake sacking him.

http://jazzbasketball.wordpress.com/201 ... stocktons/

I especially like this bit.

Three members of the Jazz organization now understand why Jackson has been traded seven times in his 16-year career: They say that over a period of weeks, he succeeded in turning several teammates against Stockton by repeatedly remarking that those players would be better off if Jackson were the Jazz’s floor leader.

In 2008, Greg Ostertag called into a radio show and spoke with Jazz host David Locke, in which Ostertag said Mark Jackson would “stir the pot” and the ever-classy Locke referenced Jackson as a 4-letter unprintable word.

[Boomerfan]

It's crazy to see so many warrior fans turn their back on Mark, it wasn't that long ago when most of them were vehemently defending him!

Rubbish. If you look back at the time it was about 50/50 within the supporterbase. Those that wanted Jackson to stay are admitting they were wrong now... but you rarely hear them say a bad word about Jackson and highlighting what a prick he was. I was firmly in the Jackson is a cancer camp... and wanted him sacked... so I have no problem in knifing him now.

Even those that wanted him to stay though had a problem with his coaching and some of his ridiculous substitutions and lack of plays.... the real problem they had though was that Steph Curry was publicly backing Jackson.

Those that wanted Jackson to stay were more worried about Curry leaving than they were wanting Jackson to stay. Now that Steph has seen the light so have those that were in the keep Jackson camp.

[nfmos]

It's crazy to see so many warrior fans turn their back on Mark, it wasn't that long ago when most of them were vehemently defending him!

Like Lacob has said before, Jackson deserves A LOT of credit for coming in and changing the mentality of the team, instilling confidence in the players, and raising the level of expectations. And lots of Dubs fans recognize that.

But as time went by, and more red flags were raised, it was pretty clear that to get to the next level, Jackson either needed to adapt, or move on. And that is even more clear now that Kerr is on board.

[turk3d]

I'd be curious to hear what Jackson's assistants think of this.

They seem to agree with Lacob. Scalabrine let loose on Mark Jackass.

http://www.ibabuzz.com/warriors/2014/08 ... y-defense/

Generally, as a staff we really didn’t prepare our team to be championship-caliber nor did we prepare our team to eventually be championship-caliber. “I respected him as a head coach going into that, but after a while, it was just like us not doing what I would feel like our job is. It was just kind of frustrating.”

Scalabrine offered examples of how he disagreed with Jackson on how to challenge players “to be great,” including All-Star guard Stephen Curry, who Scalabrine said wasn’t given the opportunity at times to do more on defense to the player’s detriment because of Jackson.

“Taking the easy way out, right?” Scalabrine said. “Like putting (Curry) on not the best player, and that wasn’t his decision. That’s not Steph Curry’s responsibility. Steph wanted to guard Chris Paul. He wanted to guard Tony Parker. I can guarantee you. Everyone that knows Steph Curry knows that he’s like an elite competitor.

“But as a staff, Coach Jackson made that decision in saying, ‘Hey, I’m not going to challenge this guy. I’m not going to push this guy to be better on both ends of the floor. I want to save him for the offensive end.’ Look, I think Steph Curry if he was challenged day in and day out to defend, if you want to win a championship, you have to be able to defend your position.”

“I think that with the right scheme and having the right coach and putting him in the right position, Steph Curry is going to be a point guard that wins an NBA championship,” Scalabrine said. “He has that kind of ability, and it’s not just on one the side of the floor.”

On offense, Scalabrine said Golden State could have been “better organized” and was ultimately “an average offensive team with all that talent.”

That was before this season started and now Scalabrine is looking like Nostrafarkingdarmus.

What is unfortunate is that Steph Curry still has a reputation of being a poor defender because of Mark Jackson... but anyone that has seen Warriors games this year would see that now Curry is being allowed to defend the best player he is actually a very good defender.

Even Steph Curry who always backed Jackson and never said a bad word about him.... was starting to realise Jackson was holding him back. You would NEVER have seen Curry say this last year about Jackson.... but listen to what he said in this interview.

https://soundcloud.com/warriors/steph-c ... ice-112014

Basically Curry said when Jackson would get the team together to talk about their individual defensive matchups... then Jackson would get to Curry who would always be last and Jackson would say "Steph you just defend whoever is left" which he said used to peeve him... and Jackson could tell by the look on his face he wasn't happy.

Steph said he approached Jackson several times to ask why he wasn't being given a defensive task... and didn't the only answer was he "needed him to conserve his energy for offense."

Steph is now loving the fact Kerr lets him defend the best player... and Steph is showing he can do it. Also nice that with all the ball movement Curry doesn't need to "conserve his energy for offense" because the ball is no longer running through ISO's the entire game.

Some of these points are somewhat valid, but a lot of it is just a difference in philosophy between a coach in one of his assistants and the assistant got canned and some of what Scalabring is saying is opinion based, and some of it is just not true. I never knew that Scalabrine was supposed to be some sort of a basketball Guru.

When he becomes a head coach someday (if he ever does) he can run his own team the way he wants to (and I guess can hire his own assistants) but when you're an assistant (in what I believe might have been his first assistants job) you work for the head coach and don't go around trying to stab him in the back and stir up crap which is what I think he did, so Scala doesn't have too much credibility to me, since he sucked as a player too.