Grant here with another basketball blog.
If you haven’t heard, the Warriors have started their search for a new head coach. Apparently, the Warriors top choices are former Cavaliers coach Mike Brown, Mavericks Assistant Dwane Casey, and Celtics assistant and former Nets coach Lawrence Frank. Brown and Casey will get the first interviews, and Frank will get one if he hasn’t already accepted a job somewhere else like, say, Houston.
I say Lawrence Frank and Joe Lacob want each other, and here’s my reasoning.
Lacob wants a coach with NBA head coaching experience. Brown’s experience comes from coaching Lebron James and a bunch of defensive role players. Casey’s experience comes from coaching Kevin Garnett and bunch of nobodies for a year and a half. Neither of these experiences apply to the Warriors, since the Warriors aren’t a team built around one superstar. I’m ruling out these two candidates.
Frank’s experience makes him the appropriate choice for Lacob and the Warriors. Frank coached the Nets from 2004-2009. During that run, his best players were Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, Richard Jefferson, and Nenad Kristic. Think about the construction of that team for a second. Does it seem familiar?
It’s almost exactly the same as today’s Warriors. The two best players are in the back court. One is a point guard. The other is a volume-shooting score-first 2 guard. So Curry plays the role of Kidd, while Ellis is Carter. Richard Jefferson and Dorell Wright play the same role – defender/shooter on the wing. And Nenad Krstic is David Lee – a big man with a mid-range jump shot. The difference is Kidd is better than Curry and Lee is better than Krstic.
Frank took those Nets to the playoffs four straight years and lost in the Eastern Conference semifinals three of those four years. In his second full season coaching the Nets, he led the team to 49 wins.
Four straight years of playoff appearances without reaching the finals is a stunted goal for a franchise, but the Warriors are a stunted franchise, and my guess is Lacob would do back flips if Frank could accomplish in Oakland what he accomplished in New Jersey.
