Robin Miller
08-28-2008, 01:39 PM
Mullin on Ellis: "There will be no panic emergency moves," but he'll take a
look at Livingston tomorrow
Posted by Tim Kawakami on August 27th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Chris Mullin finished up his conference call with local reporters a little
while ago to de-brief us on Monta Ellis' injury and the aftermath of the
Warriors now being without their leading scorer/projected point guard for
many months.
The highlights:
* The ball is obviously now in Marcus Williams' hands. I can say Mullin was
very high on Williams before the Warriors signed him so he has no reason to
hold back the praise now.
* Mullin said he and Don Nelson have already batted around ideas about
spreading the floor more, bringing their bigger players farther away from
the basket and-I'm presuming-letting Stephen Jackson and Corey Maggette make
the main plays from the wing spots.
* It's hard to deny that this slows up Ellis' progress as a point guard,
Mullin conceded.
* Mullin said he's interested in Shaun Livingston and indeed will take a
long-scheduled trip to Chicago to watch Livingston work out tomorrow. He
said it wouldn't worry him too much if Livingston can't play immediately
because he has enough ball-handlers, even without Ellis.
--CHRIS MULLIN Q & A/
-Opening statement: This is obviously not something I . wanted to do this
summer. But nonetheless obviously you guys heard about Monta's injury. My
focus and energy right now is him getting the best care and rehabbing and
getting healthy again.
-Q: Does this make you very happy you signed Marcus Williams?
-MULLIN: There's no substitute for a player of Monta's status. But again,
hopefully our depth will come into play while he's out. And yeah, hopefully
Marcus obviously is going to be called upon to play more and do more and
hopefully he'll be able to handle that.
-Q: Could you go get another point guard?
-MULLIN: As of today, obviously, all things will be possible and thought
about. I spoke with Nellie this morning. We're going to kind of just absorb
this, have a lot of different thoughts and then we'll reconvene on that.
Right now, feel like we're going to let Marcus handle the point. Again,
there will be a lot more discussion moving forward about that. But we feel
like we'll come up with al ot of diff scenarios between Nellie and I.
The one thing we won't do is panic and do something just knee jerk. We made
our moves this off-season to address different areas, depth being one of
them. We'll look at a lot of different things. There will be no panic
emergency moves immediately.
-Q: Do you know exactly what happened to cause the injury? What was Monta
doing?
-MULLIN: He was working out in Mississippi I was told. I spoke with Monta
two or three times since Thursday. You know, pretty brief, just kind of
affirming to him I'm concerned about his health and trying to get him in the
best position, trying to line all those things up.
(Didn't hear all of the next part, but Mullin said he understands Ellis was
hurt playing pick-up basketball.)
-Back to MULIN: I'm not 100 percent sure, five on five or two on two. it was
in a gym in Mississippi.
-Q: Is there any chance this was a pre-existing injury?
-MULLIN: No, I saw Monta I think it was night before the draft and none at
all.
-Q: Last summer, Don wanted to move Monta to the point, but he hurt his neck
and that time off canceled that transition. Now he's supposed to the be
really moving to point but he's going to miss months. Doesn't that really
retard his point-guard development?
-MULLIN: I don't thnk it helps, let's not kid ourselves. It's not a good
thing. But again I think Monta's showed over the course of his short career
his toughness and his resiliiency and ability a lot of times take some tough
situations and make the best of them.
This training camp was going to be an important part for his development, no
question. It's going to be pushed back obviously and we've just got to deal
with that.
One thing good about Monta and a lot of our guys, they're young. Young
physically and in a lot of things both on and off the court.
Right now really his job, as opposed to try to be a point guard, is try to
get healthy. Put all his energy into rehabbing. Get to know (director of
athletic develpment) Mark Grabow better than he ever has.
-Q: Will Monta rehab mainly in Oakland or in Mississippi?
-MULLIN: He just got back to Mississippi this afternoon. He was in
Birmingham for the procedure.. I'm sure he'll get back here. Start doinig
what he can physically. Just do what he can per doctor's orders.
-Q: How much does this temper expectations for this season?
-MULLIN: Again, I don't think it's good news for us. He's one of our main
guys.
(But) again, we don't think it's a season-ending injury (but) the
time-frame, as we all know, it fluctuates (in rehabs).
Hopefully with his youth and he's been pretty durable and pretty resilient
to injuries. Hopefully he does get back.
With the off-season moves that we've made, we can play at a high level
still. That's yet to be seen of course. I think to me something you look at
as a challenge and you don't let it defeat you, you deal with it. You don't
hide from it.
It's a tough day. It's not good news. But a big part of sports and a big
part of life is dealing with those things. The people that can deal with
them in the right way and a positive way. hopefully some other areas might
get developed while he's getting healthy.
Long-term wise I wouldn't say we have higher expectations, but I don't think
anyone around here should feel victimized or (have) totally negative
thoughts.
This is something that happens not just to the Warriors. It happens in life,
not just sports. Something you have to deal with head on and hopefully other
guys step up.
-Q: Tell us about Marcus Williams as a player and point guard?
-MULLIN: He's totally different than Monta. He's a pass-first point guard. I
saw him a few days after we acquired him-much better shooter than I thought.
Left-haned player, he's good in pick and rolls.
I always felt he reminded me a bit of a Mark Jackson-type point guard.
Probably more athletic. Got good size. He's more a true point guard, with
that in mind, just from talking with Nellie today, as of today, just
thinking out loud, we're talking about maybe spreading that ball around and
getting scoring from different areas.
(Missed some of this, but Mullin spoke of putting the ball in Stephen
Jackson, Corey Maggette and Al Harrington's hands on the wing and involving
Andris Biedrins and Ronny Turiaf into some offensive sets.)
-Back to MULLIN on Williams: He's highly talented and if at some point he
didn't think he got a chance, he's going to get a chance now.
-Q: Could this mean guys like Anthony Randolph and Azubuike get more action?
-MULLIN: Yeah I do. Nellie and I have been speaking throughout the summer,
as you can imagine, we talk about a lot of different things and topics
change and ideas change.
We talk a lot about our young players and how to develop them, slash, get
production out of them.
With a guy like Monta that's going to be out, some of those (obstacles to
playing time) go away. Those guys are going to get some minutes.
Andris, maybe we'll ask him to play a little differently maybe we'll ask him
to score a little more away (from the basket). And Turiaf. Try to accelerate
their maturity.
Azubuike-we used him at different places last year. Started him some. He
might be more prominent now. These guys think they need to get out there
more-they might get what they asked for and hopefully they're ready for it.
-Q: How were you informed of the injury-where were you?
-MULLIN: Actually I was walking from my office down to the locker room here.
Tom Abdenour called me did and I did an about-face back to office. Tommy
filled me in. We didn't have too many details, until we heard from the
doctors in Birmingham yesterday.
Like most things, it catches you off-guard until you get all the facts from
the doctor. A lot of stuff doesn't mean a whole lot. Tommy informed me
yesterday of what the doctor found as the diagnosis and what the procedure
would be.
-Q: Do you wish your guys didn't play pick-up games?
-MULLIN: I'm all for guys training and getting better. Ideally I'd like
everybody here all the time, but that's not realistic. I think .. that's one
thing Monta has done each and every year is improve and I do believe most
improvement's made during the summer. That's where guys get better. So I can't
base that.
-Q: What's C.J. Watson's status? Is he signed?
-MULLIN: Yeah, yeah, he'll be in training camp.
-Q: Are you interested in Shaun Livingston?
-MULLIN: Going to watch him work out Thursday, as a matter of fact.
-Q: With Monta out, would it be a problem for you to add another point guard
who might not be ready right away, also?
-MULLIN: I think Marcus will be ready and C.J. will be ready. I'm just
speaking of today, roster-wise. We use Stephen as a playmaker. Anthony,
obviously we experimented with him during the summer. There will be some
different ways we'll look at things.
-Q: So Livingston's status is.
-MULLIN: What Shaun's status is. His status is what it is. We're going to
watch him work out tomorrow.
-Q: In Chicago?
-MULLIN: Yes.
-Q: Generally, do you like Livingston's game?
-MULLIN: Yeah, I do.
-Q: Were you scheduled to watch Livingston before Monta's injury?
-MULLN: Way before.
look at Livingston tomorrow
Posted by Tim Kawakami on August 27th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Chris Mullin finished up his conference call with local reporters a little
while ago to de-brief us on Monta Ellis' injury and the aftermath of the
Warriors now being without their leading scorer/projected point guard for
many months.
The highlights:
* The ball is obviously now in Marcus Williams' hands. I can say Mullin was
very high on Williams before the Warriors signed him so he has no reason to
hold back the praise now.
* Mullin said he and Don Nelson have already batted around ideas about
spreading the floor more, bringing their bigger players farther away from
the basket and-I'm presuming-letting Stephen Jackson and Corey Maggette make
the main plays from the wing spots.
* It's hard to deny that this slows up Ellis' progress as a point guard,
Mullin conceded.
* Mullin said he's interested in Shaun Livingston and indeed will take a
long-scheduled trip to Chicago to watch Livingston work out tomorrow. He
said it wouldn't worry him too much if Livingston can't play immediately
because he has enough ball-handlers, even without Ellis.
--CHRIS MULLIN Q & A/
-Opening statement: This is obviously not something I . wanted to do this
summer. But nonetheless obviously you guys heard about Monta's injury. My
focus and energy right now is him getting the best care and rehabbing and
getting healthy again.
-Q: Does this make you very happy you signed Marcus Williams?
-MULLIN: There's no substitute for a player of Monta's status. But again,
hopefully our depth will come into play while he's out. And yeah, hopefully
Marcus obviously is going to be called upon to play more and do more and
hopefully he'll be able to handle that.
-Q: Could you go get another point guard?
-MULLIN: As of today, obviously, all things will be possible and thought
about. I spoke with Nellie this morning. We're going to kind of just absorb
this, have a lot of different thoughts and then we'll reconvene on that.
Right now, feel like we're going to let Marcus handle the point. Again,
there will be a lot more discussion moving forward about that. But we feel
like we'll come up with al ot of diff scenarios between Nellie and I.
The one thing we won't do is panic and do something just knee jerk. We made
our moves this off-season to address different areas, depth being one of
them. We'll look at a lot of different things. There will be no panic
emergency moves immediately.
-Q: Do you know exactly what happened to cause the injury? What was Monta
doing?
-MULLIN: He was working out in Mississippi I was told. I spoke with Monta
two or three times since Thursday. You know, pretty brief, just kind of
affirming to him I'm concerned about his health and trying to get him in the
best position, trying to line all those things up.
(Didn't hear all of the next part, but Mullin said he understands Ellis was
hurt playing pick-up basketball.)
-Back to MULIN: I'm not 100 percent sure, five on five or two on two. it was
in a gym in Mississippi.
-Q: Is there any chance this was a pre-existing injury?
-MULLIN: No, I saw Monta I think it was night before the draft and none at
all.
-Q: Last summer, Don wanted to move Monta to the point, but he hurt his neck
and that time off canceled that transition. Now he's supposed to the be
really moving to point but he's going to miss months. Doesn't that really
retard his point-guard development?
-MULLIN: I don't thnk it helps, let's not kid ourselves. It's not a good
thing. But again I think Monta's showed over the course of his short career
his toughness and his resiliiency and ability a lot of times take some tough
situations and make the best of them.
This training camp was going to be an important part for his development, no
question. It's going to be pushed back obviously and we've just got to deal
with that.
One thing good about Monta and a lot of our guys, they're young. Young
physically and in a lot of things both on and off the court.
Right now really his job, as opposed to try to be a point guard, is try to
get healthy. Put all his energy into rehabbing. Get to know (director of
athletic develpment) Mark Grabow better than he ever has.
-Q: Will Monta rehab mainly in Oakland or in Mississippi?
-MULLIN: He just got back to Mississippi this afternoon. He was in
Birmingham for the procedure.. I'm sure he'll get back here. Start doinig
what he can physically. Just do what he can per doctor's orders.
-Q: How much does this temper expectations for this season?
-MULLIN: Again, I don't think it's good news for us. He's one of our main
guys.
(But) again, we don't think it's a season-ending injury (but) the
time-frame, as we all know, it fluctuates (in rehabs).
Hopefully with his youth and he's been pretty durable and pretty resilient
to injuries. Hopefully he does get back.
With the off-season moves that we've made, we can play at a high level
still. That's yet to be seen of course. I think to me something you look at
as a challenge and you don't let it defeat you, you deal with it. You don't
hide from it.
It's a tough day. It's not good news. But a big part of sports and a big
part of life is dealing with those things. The people that can deal with
them in the right way and a positive way. hopefully some other areas might
get developed while he's getting healthy.
Long-term wise I wouldn't say we have higher expectations, but I don't think
anyone around here should feel victimized or (have) totally negative
thoughts.
This is something that happens not just to the Warriors. It happens in life,
not just sports. Something you have to deal with head on and hopefully other
guys step up.
-Q: Tell us about Marcus Williams as a player and point guard?
-MULLIN: He's totally different than Monta. He's a pass-first point guard. I
saw him a few days after we acquired him-much better shooter than I thought.
Left-haned player, he's good in pick and rolls.
I always felt he reminded me a bit of a Mark Jackson-type point guard.
Probably more athletic. Got good size. He's more a true point guard, with
that in mind, just from talking with Nellie today, as of today, just
thinking out loud, we're talking about maybe spreading that ball around and
getting scoring from different areas.
(Missed some of this, but Mullin spoke of putting the ball in Stephen
Jackson, Corey Maggette and Al Harrington's hands on the wing and involving
Andris Biedrins and Ronny Turiaf into some offensive sets.)
-Back to MULLIN on Williams: He's highly talented and if at some point he
didn't think he got a chance, he's going to get a chance now.
-Q: Could this mean guys like Anthony Randolph and Azubuike get more action?
-MULLIN: Yeah I do. Nellie and I have been speaking throughout the summer,
as you can imagine, we talk about a lot of different things and topics
change and ideas change.
We talk a lot about our young players and how to develop them, slash, get
production out of them.
With a guy like Monta that's going to be out, some of those (obstacles to
playing time) go away. Those guys are going to get some minutes.
Andris, maybe we'll ask him to play a little differently maybe we'll ask him
to score a little more away (from the basket). And Turiaf. Try to accelerate
their maturity.
Azubuike-we used him at different places last year. Started him some. He
might be more prominent now. These guys think they need to get out there
more-they might get what they asked for and hopefully they're ready for it.
-Q: How were you informed of the injury-where were you?
-MULLIN: Actually I was walking from my office down to the locker room here.
Tom Abdenour called me did and I did an about-face back to office. Tommy
filled me in. We didn't have too many details, until we heard from the
doctors in Birmingham yesterday.
Like most things, it catches you off-guard until you get all the facts from
the doctor. A lot of stuff doesn't mean a whole lot. Tommy informed me
yesterday of what the doctor found as the diagnosis and what the procedure
would be.
-Q: Do you wish your guys didn't play pick-up games?
-MULLIN: I'm all for guys training and getting better. Ideally I'd like
everybody here all the time, but that's not realistic. I think .. that's one
thing Monta has done each and every year is improve and I do believe most
improvement's made during the summer. That's where guys get better. So I can't
base that.
-Q: What's C.J. Watson's status? Is he signed?
-MULLIN: Yeah, yeah, he'll be in training camp.
-Q: Are you interested in Shaun Livingston?
-MULLIN: Going to watch him work out Thursday, as a matter of fact.
-Q: With Monta out, would it be a problem for you to add another point guard
who might not be ready right away, also?
-MULLIN: I think Marcus will be ready and C.J. will be ready. I'm just
speaking of today, roster-wise. We use Stephen as a playmaker. Anthony,
obviously we experimented with him during the summer. There will be some
different ways we'll look at things.
-Q: So Livingston's status is.
-MULLIN: What Shaun's status is. His status is what it is. We're going to
watch him work out tomorrow.
-Q: In Chicago?
-MULLIN: Yes.
-Q: Generally, do you like Livingston's game?
-MULLIN: Yeah, I do.
-Q: Were you scheduled to watch Livingston before Monta's injury?
-MULLN: Way before.