It's very simple. I dont think musselman communicates well, utilizes talent properly and simply isn't creative enough to be a head coach. I haven't heard a single rebuttal (outside of the limited roster) to this yet from you or any musselman supporter otis.

I felt Adelman did a great job of seeing talent for what it was. He used Miller @ PF for the only time in his career for instance. How many ppl actually believed miller would be a better PF? Until he hurt his shoulder he was damn effective.

I felt Adelman established a good relationship with players. He wasn't always their friends but a good head coach doesn't have to be. Sure he developed personal relationships with certain guys (who doesnt when you are with someone day in day out for 6 months out of a year every year for a number of years running).

I felt Adelman adapted to the talent as best he had every time he could. I felt that he put as many guys in the best possible situation to succeed. How many coaches ever got productive minutes (on a winning team) from tony massenburg? While it was rare to see Corliss Williamson on the court wasn't he pretty effective under Adelman for the most part while on it? Seems to me if you only have 20 games in a season to play a guy finding the right 20 times is the secret to coaching. Rick has never gotten the credit for that. Never will probably. Oh well.

I felt Adelman despite having a different team each of the last 3 seasons he coached (webber returning with miller in the mix and hedo gone was a different team) and with webber and stojakovic the following 2 seasons traded, I dont know how you can coach any better than rick did. It's not exactly easy to change your roster when you're winning & keep the ball moving in a positive direction. Remember the Indiana Pacers before they made that trade (i will say i agreed with it then and do now) but it was a tough transistion. You threw in a couple of injuries and they were cooked. I dont think there is any way you can compare Carlisle to Adelman. The talent level might have been less but so was the whole talent of the NBA this season. It's hardly a quality argument to make. Judge each team within the context of the season rather than 2 teams to each other. Or dont otis.

Vernon Maxwell,Scot Pollard, Jon Barry,Terry Porter,Tony Massenburg,Cuttino Mobley, Maurice Evans, Kevin Martin, Francisco Garcia all owe him big thanks for allowing them time when most coaches wouldn't have. His ability to use them properly made Geoff look good and in turn helped teams convince that maybe they weren't as bad as they looked. Does this smack of an ex memphis or portland player anyone?

Okay enough adelman moments. Back to musselman. How is it you lose the entire team in 1 season? Corliss wasn't happy AND HE GOT MORE TIME THIS SEASON. Nobody on that roster was happy. Now I recognize this is true of almost every roster in the nba. But everybody hated going to war with Musselman. Carmichael Dave in some ways has got it right. He's a phony. He's flashy and well prepared and says the right things to the media and was accessible. Those are all things the Maloof's seem interested in hiring a new coach. In the nba in terms of wins vs losses none of those mean a damn if you can't get your players to buy into your concepts (hell if he had stuck with 1 they might have @ that cuz this group is not by & large a dysfunctional 1 outside of artest & thomas...doesnt mean they liked or trusted the guy and im sure would have privately lobbied for his dismissal). Some of this is on Musselman. Some of this is on Petrie. Some of this is on the Maloofs.

Otis the ball is on your court. Come up with a real response. For once.

Have always thought and always will think Vescey is a dope. Even dope's get some things right. Maybe i just prefer sam smith.

I killed vescey in the previous post. But at the same this is all funny and true. Or as vescey put it: "Yup, it doesn't get any more scientific than collecting data by perusing box scores and viewing pictures of refereeing crews." Of course in all this he uses the forum to call the times hacks (he writes for the post a more uh conservative newspaper).

I find it amusing that a hack like vescey is the sanity in that stupid moment. The world is just too damn ironic sometimes.

But the dui shouldn't have mattered. I think his lack of creativity and direction for the roster matter more. I'll address this farther down.

Okay first off I think closing the door is unusual not ridiculous. Jim O'Brien got fired for a similar thing in 2005. There are a few opinions (chris mannix being the most prominent) out there that he shouldn't have. My personal opinion is that O'brien was a similar guy to musselman. He lacked the ability to move a roster (without a clear way to move it forward like his boston roster) with difficult decisions and move it in a meaningful decision.

That analogy being used is that's exactly what happened to Musselman except he didn't win. Iverson probably had something to do with it too. His 2004-05 season is probably his best when you factor in the total circumstance. The philly stuff aside, Musselman lost the entire roster.

As far as popovich brown go I think it's rather simple. When in that season (for brown) you dont have David Robinson due to previous military obligations then you simply won't be as good if you dont have the requisite pieces around to win. In Popovich's case he was a victim of Robinson's injury that season. But he wasn't a victim. Since he was(and still is listed but realistically in name only) the GM also it was partly his fault. In fact popovich has turned out to be a far better coach than he was as a GM (even though i think he's overrated as a head coach somewhat). Even then that awful season didn't exactly prove unproductive as a certain Wake Forest Center has shown. Adelman had unproductive years in Golden State this is true, but they weren't playoff teams and they came close (the year the kings made the playoffs in 96) despite having inferior talent to Sacramento. Plus the warriors were much worse with PJ Carleismo directly after he left. That was essentially the same roster Carleismo had that Adelman did.

First off brad has been an all star twice. In 2003 and 2004. Which in all honestly probably didn't help the kings overpaying him the way they did.

Second Brad played C for indiana,chicago and charlotte. He didnt play PF for several reasons. 1 the east has been drastically smaller since the defection of quality bigs all over to the west. 2nd your point that he was a good player for a number of years is true. I knew it was a good deal if he could stay healthy at the time. I knew alot of kings fans knew little about him. However he was never used @ PF before (or since for that matter) for a couple reasons. The pacers had a PF as did the bulls when miller played in chicago. 2nd the kings havent had a quality C for miller to play the PF since.

As far as adelman is concerned he was a pretty good player in indy. But he wasn't an all star in indy (despite the all star selection that was a complete joke the way it was a complete joke that paul pierce made the AS team this season)and he had 1 all star and near all star season his first 2 seasons here. The kings didnt know if he could stay healthy or not. They needed a C and they went out and got 1. It hasn't worked out (to the level we as fans would like) which is unfortunate. But find teams around the league otis who arent in similar positions.

It's revelant only because these guys are human. Gimmicks dont work on them. Do gimmicks work for you otis in your line of work? Does rah rah pump you up to do a job youre being paid for? And that was 1 of a few problems for musselman. He's a gimmicky kind of guy (the signs are stupid you gotta admit) and that isnt something that works for pro's.

As far as sloan and brown goes 2 different guys. Sloan is demanding but he's fair. Brown is demanding unfair and often too mercurial to not burn out quickly. How he stayed in philly for 8 years (even with the personnel control philly gave him) is beyond me.

Okay I know corliss was effective this year. But was he effective and helped the team win or was he effective because the team had no other option there? That musselman had nothing to turn to? My point is that as much as I like corliss he's not good enough rebounding/defensively to put him on the court in most matchups. You have to be creative and find the right situation (unfortunately for corliss there just arent as many as you or I would like) which is what I think rick mostly did. He put him in against smaller C's and PF's which is what Larry Brown did in Detroit. 1 big difference otis. The east has alot smaller players than the west. And the pistons had other guys who were better defenders playing alongside him which didnt hurt matters. Also adelman got much more out of kenny thomas and shareef abdur rahim too. Which didnt help corliss' case on either front.

It is not laughable piece of revisionist history to claim Adelman developed young talent. He didn't do in ways that fans appreciate. Fans want to see young players they think can do better than the guys on the court. As far as the 3 guys you mentioned to get lucky as far as minutes go I think Evans was the reason Christie got traded. They felt they weren't losing anything defensively with evans there and ultimately could replace him down the road with Kmart and a draft pick which turned out to be Franky G. I agree he didn't develop evans. The european leagues did that. He just gave him his first chance. Something that still pisses off Pistons fans about Flip Saunders to this day.

Let me ask you this otis? What experience do the maloof's have in hiring a coach? How many have they hired? Well since they bought majority ownership in the kings NONE. The reason i bring up adelman is not to expect musselman to live up to that. That isn't fair. I bring it up because the maloof's felt rick wasn't doing the kind of job they expected. And now when i bring up things that musselman didnt do (and i failed to leave out the defense was worse than musselman than adelman despite the fact adelman had an atrocious defensive team to start last season no thanks to peja bibby & miller)you seem to feel that bringing up Rick Adelman is old news. I feel it's important because he coached very recently under similar circumstances.

First off nobody can predict how somebody handles health. Would adelman have handled it differently? How the hell should i know? He handled everything differently from musselman so why can you make that logic fit to include injuries? If rick had let bibby play the beginning of the year i'd be killing him for that too. But we will never know. The difference is I try to speculate given the circumstances and not try to fit the circumstances to the speculation.

I didnt answer the question THE WAY YOU PREFER otis. But what makes ron really that different from about 40 or 50 players in the league? Dealing with quirkiness is part of the job. Either deal with it or shut the fuck up and get outta dodge.

I saw the roster otis. First off Bibby didnt shoot a terrible % after his thumb healed and they switched the ball back (im not sure if the two are mutually exclusive but for now ill say so until i know for sure). TZ actually had a brilliant post about that very fact (something i hadn't thought of either).

Speaking of lack of athleticism was this team more or less athletic than last year? I doubt it. It's about the same. Bonzi had a higher peak of performance on the court but wasn't on the court much. I feel while you may not beat the Spurs of the world you wouldn't lose to the hawks either with adelman. And the hawks game counts as 1 in the standings as the spurs do.

Much of what you say is true about the roster logistics(i disagree about martin/salmons/garcia being 1 dimensional and douby/price are incomplete)or at least is to a degree. This roster had a difficult mix that only a few kind of coaches could deal with. In my view (since it is actually mine) Adelman was of the 1 rare coaches who could deal with it.

I dont think you think Adelman is a bad coach otis. I dont think you quite know what nba coaching is. It sounds to me you really like the college game. However college coaches dont work well in the pro game for the most part unless they're innovative. Adelman was and mussleman is not. And if you dont think innovation is a huge part of nba coaching then we will always disagree.

It mattered cuz the guy had no credibility. You dont think the lack of credibility on that particular issue would have mattered if he convinced his guys on how to play a certain way? Speaking of whether it mattered i NEVER said it didn't. I said the real failings of his coaching mattered MORE. Otis you're a pretty good writer. But you're a terrible reader and it shows.

First off I didnt give musselman any consideration in that. You say that I didnt give any consideration to musselman's circumstance. THAT AGAIN IS AN OVERSIGHT DUE TO YOUR POOR READING ABILITY. I didnt say shit about musselman's circumstances. I said he doesn't work well with guys. That will make any situation worse. Period end of story. Here are the standings for that year the kings made the playoffs (95-96 season)

1998-99    NBA    21-29    6th, Pacific Division      
1997-98    NBA    19-63    6th, Pacific Division      
1996-97    NBA    30-52    7th, Pacific Division      
1995-96    NBA    36-46    6th, Pacific Division

Okay that first season was adelman's. The 2nd season is adelman's also. THEN LOOK AT THE NEXT 2 SEASONS. That is Pj carleismo. Here's the link. Find a coach who did better with that roster (musselman and he won 37 games with better talent).
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/GSW/coaches.html

I dont care about the other squads and where they finished honestly. I care about the kings and where they legitmately had a chance to finish. Outside of the clippers and hornets (with circumstances of their own) the kings were the only other playoff team capable of making it realistically. The sonics weren't even an outside shot but that's personal opinion.

First off who gives a shit if anybody appreciates it? What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Secondly nba coaching is not a popularity contest. It's about wins & losses. Martin was inconsistent until artest got there, Garcia's game picked up also. I honestly thought the biggest problem with franky was that he didnt have any scorers around to offset his own problems. That was more on petrie than anything (im not going to get sucked into that debate otis so do even go there on this) if you want to get right down to it. He envisioned a petrie/bibby/miller core that simply didn't work. Otis you have to realize that unless you know more about the game than petrie does your criticism's hold little weight. Especially when you hold them under any real context.

Poor reading again otis. It isn't beyond me why he stayed there. I understand why. What i dont understand is HOW he did it that long. His burnout tendencies are OBVIOUS and his antipathy with iverson even more so. And i still dont understand HOW he did it that long with personnel control AND an owner who kissed his ass every stop along the way. He is Larry Brown. The other guy's im going to leave alone for now. It just isn't worth going into long blah blah blah's with you over it.

Honestly I got that tidbit about when it healed from Sam Amick and I dont remember where. On his blog would be the best place to start i guess. As far as his best shooting month I get your point. But that's helping me prove mine. Alot of guys didnt understand that roles and not understanding roles leads to indecision. That's something we can all agree this team had alot of.

It isn't ridiculous. Your reasoning for saying the context with how those losses occurred for both guys is ridiculous. Those losses didnt happen with ron artest on the team. They happened before. And since it was obvious it was a very different team pre artest why are those a serious indictment of adelman? Isn't that a serious indicetment of the direction of the team and the players involved in that direction? You say that there is only so much a coach can do. Then you seem to imply blame for adelman in losses such as those. Which is it otis? You can't have your cake and eat it too. Dont work like that. AND FOR GODSSAKE LEARN HOW TO READ!!!!!

As far as the bonzi factor how well did that work out for the team when the trade was made? I mean he was hurt then too. And if i remember correctly (and i dont trust your memory becuz u flat out get things wrong) Martin made a nice impact that was getting noticed around the league. When he became consistent was this season. He was up & down last season also. Adelman CONSTANTLY was saying he needed to improve his ball handling (what a hard concept to understand that a 2 guard needs to improve his ball handling)in order to progress. Garcia was about the same from this year to last year but there is 1 large difference. Adelman didn't have this roster last year. He had that roster last year. You keep mixing up points then accusing me of doing so then re mixing up old points and accusing me of mixing up those also. It's getting old otis.

I got that point from Jerry Reynolds. And ill regurgitate 1 of this to justify it (he says its oversimplified but the point is just the same with expansion or technical details). "If you're bob knight you choose at the beginning of the season you choose how to guard the pick n roll. Then you do it all season long. But if youre an nba coach trying to get your guys to defend Magic Johnson and James Worthy YOU HAD BETTER  more than 1 way to defend it or they'll just beat you all game. he then says you might have 4 ways to defend it but they're so good that they'll end up beating you all 4 times in the first quarter because they're just that good." Well Otis I dont know i've ever heard it explained any better than that. I dont know that i will either. Jerry was an incredible small college coach (look it up im tired of doing the work for you) and an excellent assistant. He's done alot of good things for the franchise (outside of kiss the maloof's ass but then again what do you expect THEY PAY HIS FUCKING PAYCHECK! ...you dont exactly get objectivity when ppl are asking you to judge their product and they're paying you to do it)and maybe more than you or most realize. I know he says stupid things on broadcasting but you should hear some of the other guys around this league first before you judge him. Have some sense to get context before you all judge folks jeesh.

This league is all about the talent on the floor. Okay to think adelman could have coaxed 45 wins out of this past group is not lunacy. It's an opinion and 1 I have heard TZ say also. Is he a lunatic? What about louis he a lunatic? Is everybody criticizing musselman for his lack of ppl skills direction and creativity lunatics also? Otis before you make a point have the goddamn sense to know what the fuck youre talking about. What infuriates about me is you think you're so smart and think you have made strong points to justify it. But in reality you dont do that at all and they're all hollow. They're very limited and contextless almost. Which is sad cuz youre better than that.

You guys both know your stuff and both hold strong opinions.  And the truth is that you both - at some point - have engaged in ad hominen attacks.

Let's just give it a rest or take it off-line. (Perhaps, you guys settle the old fashion way: pistols at 10 paces.)

Communicating in anger or frustration is almost never useful and is especially ineffectual in this medium.

Thanks.

For anybody look for some perspective in the dallas losing. I agree with McCallum btw. He has a part about the 02 WCF loss (which haunts me still i must admit).

2002 Sacramento Kings

Could we really call losing to a Los Angeles Lakers team that featured Shaq and Kobe Bryant an upset? No. But there is no doubt that this Kings team was a disappointment.

Dont agree with all of this but it's boilerplate. Wouldn't expect anything more or less these days from a national site (for what it's worth i think mccallum & dwyer, who is better, are the only quality writers on that site).