| Musselman Fitted For Throne At Arco Authored by Douglas Benton - June 3, 2006 - 7:25 pm
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“He’s a defensive-mined coach, but he’s also proven that he’ll juice his offense,” said Geoff Petrie, Kings’ President of Basketball Operations.
Musselman now will take over a team that is very talented on paper and has the complete trust from ownership and the front office. Both Petrie and the Maloofs were very impressed from the first interview and Musselman thought it went so well that he called his agent and said he had the job. Musselman was the only candidate to get a second interview and after the interview with the entire Maloof family, the family had a 6-0 vote to hire Musselman.
Musselman’s most recent work in the NBA was with Memphis and as head coach of the Golden State Warriors. He had a career record of 75-89 over his two seasons there that saw him keep the Warriors competitive, even after losing Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison before a falling out with new decision maker Chris Mullin. Musselman also said during the press conference that he interviewed with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Orlando Magic about their openings last off-season.
Throughout the press conference, Musselman was witty and showed his vast knowledge of coaching at many different levels of basketball. At one point of the press conference, he even joked that with all of the reports of what a great interviewer he was, he hoped that Joe and Gavin Maloof thought he could coach too.
Musselman stressed throughout his interview that it is important to build relationships with each of his players, much like he did in Golden State with Arenas and Speedy Claxton.
He also wouldn’t declare a certain style of play right now, and said that he can adjust to different personal, like he did during his minor league stops along the way. At this point, some of the pieces already in Sacramento that he likes are the ability of Brad Miller to shoot the 3 and both Bonzi Wells and Ron Artest to be able to post up.
Musselman won’t have to build a new relationship as well because of their time spent together in Memphis as well as the fact that his father, Bill, coached Bonzi in Portland.
“He’s (Bonzi) a special talent,” Musselman said. “I have a unique relationship with Bonzi from Memphis and when my dad was an assistant in Portland.”
His father Bill played a large role in his son joining the coaching ranks because basketball was always around in the Musselman household.
“Every time you woke up, there weren’t cartoons on the TV, but game tape,” Musselman said.
Kings owner Joe Maloof liked that quality of Musselman because he said it was very similar to how he and Gavin grew up in the business world.
In a day that was the start of a new chapter for the Sacramento Kings organization, the thoughts of everyone in the organization were summed up by Kings owner Gavin Maloof.
“He’s extremely prepared for what he does. He lives and breathes basketball,” Maloof said. “He’s a winner.”
Now we will have to see if it is playoff winner, or just regular season winner. |
