[ESPN.com] King's Hire Musselman to replace Adelman as coach

i wouldn't give him much hope in having the player management skills to deal with artest and (if they keep him) bonzi. if the alleged strained relationship between him and dunleavy which led to his exit at the warriors were true.

 

Strange choice for a team that wants to be more defense-oriented. Golden State was a terrible defensive team when he was coaching them. Pretty good on offense, though.

 

That's not the way I remember it. Musselman got GSW to play better defense than they ever had.

His strict style will either keep Artest in line or lead to a rather quick Artest Mental Midget Moment.

 

The season PJ Carlissimo left (2000) is when their defense started to go downhill:

Code:

[COLOR=Navy]season	DRtg	Rank	Pace	Rank[/COLOR]
1999	101.2	10/29	99.9	15/29
2000	108.5	28/29	95.4	5/29
2001	108.3	28/29	93.5	3/29
2002	108.6	28/29	94.5	2/29
[B]2003	109.2	29/29	92.2	2/29
2004	103.8	18/29	89.8	16/29[/B]
2005	107.0	16/30	93.3	7/30

Musselman's first season was 2003, and they're defense continued to stink (DRtg estimates points allowed per 100 possessions). In his second year, he slowed down the pace and got them to be at least close to average on defense, but they still weren't very good. And after he left, they continued to play defense at an average level while increasing their pace significantly.

 

Thanks, I was wrong then.

They just seemed like a much tougher team to play with Muss than before or after. Maybe my memory is just playing tricks on me.

 

Musselman was also the assistant for both Hubie and Fratello, both defensive oriented coaches, maybe he'll bring a thing or two from them.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=stein_marc&id=2468885

From this, it sounds like the Musselman hire could work.