Diss Guy: Mike Malone
For the typical fan, an assistant coach don’t really make a mark until they get promoted to head coach, it seems. Every once and awhile an assistant coach seems to attract a cult of personality around themselves (Tom Thibodeau, when he was Doc Rivers’ lead assistant in Boston, comes readily to mind), and cross over into the mainstream. But most of the time, assistant coaches remain mostly anonymous, unless they’re a highly recognizable former player (howdy, Patrick Ewing and Brian Shaw), or a disgraced former head coach (sup, Kelvin Sampson and Maurice Cheeks). Just part of the scenery, if you will.
However, Mike Malone was, and is, different. When Malone was hired away from New Orleans in 2011, where he had been serving as Monty Williams’ lead assistant, Warriors brass celebrated as much (if not more) than when they hired Mark Jackson. In Malone, they said, they had found a defensive-minded coach who was well-respected among players, and who probably be a head coach that very day. Malone was tasked with showing Mark Jackson how to run a team. And in that first season, to the average fan, that’s exactly what he looked like he was doing. Most huddles were run by Malone, while Jackson watched intently, as rapt with attention as his players. And when the team struggled, so too did the reputations of Jackson and Malone. How could a team with supposedly two head coaches be so bad? So, when Malone interviewed for jobs in Charlotte and Portland in 2012, I was ready to write off his hiring as yet another Warriors’ smoke-and-mirrors job.
But what a difference a year makes. Things were completely different in year two of Jackson and Malone. The Warriors became a top five (well, top ten) team in rebounding and defense, and made a considerable jump in the standings (and imaginations of a national audience), and become one of the “cool” teams in the NBA again. However, in the wake of the success, most credit went either to Mark Jackson, Bob Myers, the general manager, or the players themselves. Mike Malone faded into the distance; lined up next to the other assistant coaches as a faceless suit-and-tie army. However, if you looked closely in the huddles, you still saw a familiar sight: Malone, furiously writing on the clipboard, while Mark Jackson looked on intently.
Success leads to opportunities, and Malone is cashing out. Vivek Ranadive, the new owner of the Sacramento Kings, and a former minority owner of the Warriors, snagged Mike Malone to replace Keith Smart, and lead the new-look Kings into their brave new future. It was always assumed that Malone would move on to a head coaching gig someday, and the fact that he gets to be the face of the new era of Kings basketball in Northern California seems very fitting and exciting. Certainly, both the team and fans will miss Malone, our first really high profile hire. But he deserves it, and he’ll do great.
- JG
Miss Guys: People Who Complain About Flopping
We get it. Flopping is annoying. Tricking referees into calling fouls for things that aren’t actually fouls is annoying. Huge guys hitting the deck from light contact is annoying. But damn, you complaining about flopping is WAY more annoying than flopping itself.
Despite what the anti-flop crusaders would have you believe, flopping just doesn’t really affect the game of basketball. In an average game (this year at least) there were 184 possessions. On how many of them did guys flop? 3? 5? And on how many of those plays did the referee call an unjust foul because of the flop? 1? 3? So you’re telling me that this thing that people are going nuts over affects 1% or 2% of all plays, and half of the time its just exaggerating contact that is already foul-worthy?
I get not liking flopping. I don’t like flopping either. I wish players fell only when they were hit hard enough to make them fall, and I wish players’ only reaction to contact was natural, not premeditated. If I were given God-like powers over the game of basketball, I would choose to remove flopping.
But if you’re going to go on a basketball rules crusade, crusade for something that actually matters. Crusade for the flagrant foul rules to be made clear. Crusade for the clear-path rule to be drastically changed. Crusade to change how 24 second shot clock violations are handled. Crusade to drastically limit the amount of replay review that is used. Crusade to get the NBA to reveal how they are preventing another Tim Donaghy from happening.
But flopping? It’s just not that big of a deal.
- KD