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The Golden State Warriors are off to an NBA-best 17-2 start so far, including a 12-game winning streak, which continued late last night when the Dub Nation beat Chicago 112-102. What does owner Joe Lacob think of all this though?
LACOB CRITICAL OF JACKSON’S COACHING LAST SEASON
Yep, Warriors owner, Joe Lacob decided to lash out vocally on Mark Jackson, last season’s Warriors coach.
First year play caller Steve Kerr is doing a great job and the record is proof of that, but under Jackson, the Warriors were still the exciting team you see today. Or were they?
Via ESPN:
Of Jackson’s firing, Lacob said, “Part of it was, he couldn’t get along with anybody else in the organization. And, look, he did a great job — and I’ll always compliment him in many respects — but you can’t have 200 other people in the organization not like you.”
Lacob described Jackson’s style as something the Warriors initially needed to change for the culture of the organization, even though Jackson was an inexperienced coach who the owner said “didn’t know X’s and O’s, really.”
Lacob said the key was to hire an experienced staff around Jackson, an idea that was met with resistance from him.
“You can’t have a staff underneath you that isn’t that good,” Lacob said. “And if you’re going to get better, you’ve got to have really good assistants. You’ve got to have people that can be there to replace you. We all know this from all of our companies. It’s … Management 101.”
Lacob contrasted Jackson’s tactics to Kerr’s approach.
“I think [Kerr] will be great,” Lacob said. “And he did the one big thing I wanted more than anything else from Mark Jackson, who just wouldn’t do, in all honesty, which is hire the very best. Carte blanche. Take my wallet. Do whatever it is to get the best assistants there are in the world. Period. End of story. Don’t want to hear it. And [Jackson’s] answer was, ‘Well, I have the best staff.’ No, you don’t.”
Jackson, now an ESPN analyst, was fired in May after helping the Warriors to a 51-31 regular-season record and a first-round playoff showing last season. After the firing, he said he regretted his handling of two assistants at the end of the regular season. The Warriors reassigned Brian Scalabrine to the D-League because of what Jackson called a “difference in philosophies.” Then the Warriors fired Darren Erman on April 5 for reportedly recording conversations during coaches’ meetings and discussions between coaches and players without their knowledge.
Lacob was not available for comment last night.
D-ROSE DONS “I CAN’T BREATHE” SHIRT
The Eric Garner fiasco has shook the United States, especially that the country seemingly doesn’t care about its people and law enforcement have the freedom of the country it seems.
As we know, Garner died when a Police officer used an illegal choke hold on him while placing him under arrest. The officer is not facing any charges but it has brought America to unify and mass protests have taken place.
That’s the bite size story anyway.
NBA players are too busy to protest and mainly speak out properly about this, so players are finding ways to express themselves. Some use the media like LeBron, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith et al. Or you try D-Rose’s way.. As shown by USA Today. He wore his pro-Garner shirt before the Bulls faced the Warriors last night.
Via ESPN:
The shirt refers to Eric Garner, the New York man who died in July after a police officer placed him in a chokehold while he was being arrested for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes.
A grand jury decided Wednesday that it would not indict the officer in Garner’s death. A videotape recording of the arrest shows Garner gasping and saying, “I can’t breathe,” during the fatal encounter. Thousands have protested the grand jury decision around the country since the announcement of the decision.
This is one of the biggest social statements Rose has made in his professional career. Before the season began, he donated $1 million to After School Matters, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization that helps teenagers. The former MVP also has been outspoken about trying to control the violence that has gripped various parts of Chicago, his hometown, in recent years.
Detroit Pistons star Andre Drummond acknowledged he made a ”silly mistake” after a picture of him driving at what appeared to be nearly 100 mph showed up on the Internet.
Fansided.com posted the picture, which it said Drummond sent via Snapchat. The picture, from behind the wheel of a car on a highway, shows a speedometer reading 96 mph.
Drummond said after Saturday night’s game against Philadelphia that he did post the picture, and he was the one driving. He said: ”I’ll own up to it. It was a silly mistake. I’ve just got to move forward from it. It won’t happen again.”
BRYANT/DURANT SUPPORT U.S. SOCCER
Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant and Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant supported USA soccer’s Syndey Leroux after she showed a picture on social media of her post-practice on an artificial pitch, the same turf that the women will play on at the FIFA World Cup for women in Canada.
Via Boston Globe:
Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant certainly noticed the snapshot. In mid-August, the NBA stars shared the black, blue, and bloody image with the many fans who follow them on social media. Bryant added the hashtag “ProtectTheAthlete” to his Leroux tweet and linked to a New York Times article about the ongoing artificial turf war in women’s soccer. On his Facebook page, Durant wrote, “C’mon now FIFA u can’t have our women playing on turf. @sydneyleroux I got ya back.”
Thanks to Bryant and Durant, the picture and turf war made national headlines. And in social media circles, Leroux’s legs went viral.
