CCT blog: Report Card: Coaching Staff

Report Card: Coaching Staff

By Marcus
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

Last season, I considered Nellie a legitimate Coach of the Year candidate.
This season - though the team added 6 wins to it's record from last year - I
don't think he did as good a job. As a matter of fact, I think he had as
much of a hand in the Warriors missing the playoffs as anyone. That said, he
did a solid job. I don't know how many coaches could squeeze 48 wins out of
this roster. I thought they'd get 42 or 43 wins and miss the playoffs. I
wasn't sold on the hype, so Nellie gets credit for making the Warriors
practically a 15-win team.

The assistant coaches, from what I could tell, had a big hand in keeping
that locker room from falling apart. They did the ego massaging and
explaining that Nellie wouldn't.

Highlights:
.. 48-34 record
.. Nurtured Ellis into a productive force despite his obvious flaws. Though
Nellie believes Monta's brightest future is at PG, he didn't stubbornly
stick to that and went with a small backcourt. Turning Monta loose was at SG
was key to the team's success
.. Same thing applies for Biedrins. Nellie would much rather a center who can
shoot from outside. But he, instead, milked Biedrins for what he could
bring. He probably shouldn't get kudos for that, as that is what coaches do.
But with Nellie's judgemental coaching style, its worth mentioning
.. Gave responsibility to Keith Smart, presumably the next head coach. Smart
ran practices, led the huddle during timeouts, addressed the team in the
locker room after games, etc. It is important that the players see Smart as
head coach when he does take over, and Nellie helped make sure that happened
by letting Smart spend some time in the big chair.

Lowlights:
.. Ran Baron and Jackson into the ground (and tried to run Monta in the
ground) because of his lack of faith in reserves. Justified or not, you can't
play 82 games with seven players.
..He ruined a lot of players confidence, which is counterproductive to the
task at hand. His irregular rotation and sharpe tongue didn't bring out the
most in everyone - namely Harrington, Barnes, Pietrus and Azubuike.
..Failed to get rookies of the future much-needed playing time, which means
they'll still be green next year (not so much B-Wright), just like Kelenna
and Patrick were still raw this year. It's hard to believe Belinelli and
Watson couldn't give anything if given some decent playing time.

One argument is that the Warriors won 48 games and that is a major plus. But
another argument is that they misses the playoffs by a game because they
couldn't beat a suspect Denver team at home. Nellie is a major reason for
both.

GRADE FOR COACHING STAFF: B- (the assistant coaches boosted it up from a C+