Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

for those thinking Mark Jackson is an option, please read this:

From here:

You want it in chronological order? I don't have the full list (there's just way too much stuff to remember off the top of my head), but here goes.

• Staged a coup of John Stockton while he was on the Jazz, causing Stockton to retire.
• Cheated on his wife with a stripper, then getting blackmailed by the prostitute + some other guy, while at the same time being a born-again pastor
• Bristled at Mike Malone being the assistant coach under him (ownership wanted him to be the Associate Head Coach, like Gentry was with Kerr, but when Jackson found out he said NO WAY
• Didn't let assistant coaches do interviews with press because he thought they were gunning for his job
• Pushed Malone out because Jackson thought Malone was gunning for his job
• Ran ISO-ball all the time
• Instilled a "us vs them" where the "them" was the entire front office. He would tell the players that the front office didn't want them to win so that Mark Jackson would look bad. C'mon that's lunacy
• Barred Jerry West and Jim Barnett (the beloved TV color guy) along with everyone else from practices so they couldn't hear the crazy s*** he said to the team
• Told the team Ezeli was rooting for them to lose so that Ezeli would look better (he was injured). This culminated in Ezeli in tears saying that there was no way he would do this, when confronted by the team
• Told the team that Harrison Barnes was possessed by a demon, which is why he regressed
• Darren Erman, the assistant responsible for the defense after Mike Malone left, was recording Mark Jackson surreptitiously to try and capture the crazy s*** like the Harrison Barnes demon thing and the Ezeli thing, but was caught and fired
• Noted homophobe, including the "I'll pray for him" when discussing Jason Collins coming out. This doesn't fly in the bay area when a lot of the team staff is gay and so is the front office, including the COO/President Rick Welts
• Didn't want to hire actual good assistants, instead, he hired yes-men like Pete Myers and Lindsay Hunter, who backstabbed Alvin Gentry in Phoenix to get the head job
• All the coaching staff were allying themselves with star players instead of the players who actually needed their help/development, so a lot players like Barnes didn't get the development time and help they needed
• He put players against each other, telling a star player "hey that bench thinks he's better than you" and then telling the bench guy "hey that star guy thinks you're s***, go take his job"
• Didn't get along with anyone in the front office, including Jerry West, Bob Myers, and actually the rest of the employees (marketing, PR, etc)
• No preparation. He said in the Clippers series that he didn't need to prepare extra hours, when Doc Rivers was up all night devising schemes

Not to mention that he was just a really horrible coach. I'm sure I left out a lot of stuff.

Edit: I see you guys asking for a source on the Barnes Demon thing. One source is a message board post where a guy said he talked to Darren Erman in a bar, and Erman told him the story. The second (the one I personally believe) source is a Warriors reporter telling me this personally. I can't give you guys proof of this since he told it to me, so you'll have to take it w/ a grain of salt. I don't expect you guys to trust some random guy's word online, so make of it what you will. But to me that's 2 sources (one personal, which makes it more believable to me).

I forgot some more post-coaching s***ty things he did:

• Saying rim protectors are obsolete, which threw shade on Bogut, and then saying Deandre Jordan was the DPOY (over Draymond) because of his rim protection
• Wanting to take credit for Kerr's success talking about caterpillars and butterflies
• Saying Curry was not the MVP, which is fair, but not what you expect someone to say when Curry went to bat to keep Jackson's job. Maybe thought Curry didn't try hard enough, which is b******* since Curry tried very hard and stumped for Jackson personally
• Saying Curry was ruining the game

 

My go to coach if Luke gets fired is Mesinna

 

I think he's taking over after Pop next season.

 

messina is for sure going to succeed pop

we had our chance with him and messed up of course

 

I want Jason Kidd - fa sho.

 

I'll concede it's getting harder to defend Luke (especially with his choice of assistants). But gawd coaches can struggle too (see: Stevens)...and with a stronger East (finally!), lets see how that dude does now.

Luke's just gotta get us to the playoffs without breaking Bron and I think he's safe if they're really isn't a clear cut candidate in the summer.

As of right now, it's Mark Jax, the Van Gundys, Lue and Kidd. I only give Luke the shaft for a Van Gundy (and who's to say they want the gig)...other than that, it's really slim pickings.

With a win now attitude, you can't go experimental so you gotta go with an established winner and it just isn't available to justify a quick Luke boot.

 

bernie bickerstaff is available

 

I give him a little slack for not having rotations pinned down. Injuries, suspensions, having to showcase players, and now adding two new guys into the mix will all slow down that process. They should be much better than they are, but that doesn't help him figure things out.

Having said that, you cannot forget you have Rondo last night. I understand he wanted particular matchups and to speed up the meshing process with RB; but Rondo, our smartest player, on-the-floor coach, best facilitator, and the guy who just beat Boston played ONLY 16 minutes and lost his starting spot and not to another PG. Unacceptable.

 

I'm sure Pop and the Spurs would give us permission to talk with Messina .... why wouldn't they?

 

I'm a Luke apologist and fan for the culture and important people skills part and certainly room to grow better technically ....with caveat of needing 2/3 of his staff replaced with Quality specialists included for defense and offense. But not starting Rondo, instead new hire Bullock, and giving Rajon only 15 minutes against Philly was really stooopid.

 

Current line up should be:

Rondo/Bullock/Lebron/Kuzma/McGee
Lance/KCP/Ingram/Muscala/Chandler

We still need a third string guard that can run the offense. And we know damn well they aren't going to bench Ingram even though he'd be better off being the scoring punch off the bench instead of sharing the ball with Lebron/Kuzma.

 

I am completely baffled by the Rondo situation yesterday. Barring unknown info there is no reasonable explanation for it. We need Rondo and on the court as much as possible.

 

I hate blaming coaches and think it’s usually a cop out because fans just need someone to blame but Luke is terrible. As fans, it’s hard to tell the difference between a good and bad coach because we only see a tiny part of what the coaches do.

The main thing we do get to see is what plays are drawn up and what rotations are used and Luke is unbelievably bad with his rotations. He 100% lost the game against the Sixers. Not having one of Bron, Bi and Kuz in at all times is criminal and shows a total lack of competence on his part. There’s no excuse for that.

There’s no way in hell Kuz should’ve only played 32 minutes with the game he was having. The game was close in the 3rd and then Luke put in the worst lineup of all bench players I’ve ever seen and of course the Sixers built a huge lead.

If he’s going to keep doing that, there’s no point of even playing the games against good teams.

 

rest?

 

While I agree and said that his rotations are unpredictable garbage, to say the entire game was on him is ridiculous.

 

Ya that was definitely a bit of an exaggeration. A better way that I can put it is I feel like his rotations pretty much took away any chance of winning the game. The defense was so bad (not his fault) that winning the game was going to be tough no matter what but it was winnable if the right players were in at the right time and the momentum wasn’t killed.

I gotta say the Sixers looked really good, like win the East good, but it was only a 4 point game and Lakers had all the momentum when Luke put in a lineup that should never see the floor unless it’s garbage time. A lot of time there’s a weird lineup that doesn’t workout but you can at least see what the coach was trying to do. This lineup was unexplainable and pretty much ended the game. That’s why I said the loss was on him, the team didn’t play well but Luke made a difficult but winnable game an unwinnable blowout.

Having Bron, Kuz, and BI out at the turning point of the game is flat out terrible coaching and even Ty Lue would know better than that.

 

I agree that with our injuries at the moment we should always have one of them on the floor and I'm just as bemused with the rotations as you. These are further compounded wen you get three straight turnovers or people are being brain dead.

When healthy it should be something like:

Ball/Bullock/Kuz/LBJ/McGee
Rondo/Hart (KCP)/Ingram/Muscala/TC

But they will never bench Ingram, even though it would likely help the team and still give him time to shine, because starting from the bench is looked at in a negative way for some reason around the league.

 

I disagree with some of you . Not starting Rondo was a good decision . Who would he have guarded of the Sixers starting 5 ?

Lebron as the main creator is also a way better option .

However Luke in game rotations are still BAD