Great job? Dunno, but he’s not as terrible an owner as he once was. It didn’t take 15 years for him to ruin the franchise. The was accomplished in less than a half season. Then it languished in the pit, in large part because it remained a rudderless mess.

Cohan made terrible decisions. Twardzik was a mistake, though apparently a highly respected one around the league. They publicly stated that they were going to value “character” after the Webber/Owens/Sprewell revolt and that went poorly. Cohan either hired Twardzik and then meddled or just hired the wrong guy, but either way, it’s on him. He replaced him with PJ and St. Jean, two guys with no business running the club. Things didn’t get better.

The coaches, on paper should have done better, but they seemed to flip flop. “We need a player’s coach, no, we need a structured taskmaster, no, a player’s coach.” The oscillations ignored that what they needed was talented players and some idea of what they wanted to do for more than the next half season. Didn’t happen and Adelman (otherwise clearly a guy who can win games) and Cowans (a guy successful before) failed as much as the predictably bad Winters and St. Jean.

Cohan seemed to let them spend money, just not wisely and in a haphazard manner. Max deal for Jamison was too much (at the time max deals were being given out like candy on Halloween), Damp got too much, Caffey and Fortson got too much. Players didn’t regularly leave because they weren’t getting paid and there was never cap room to attract free agents. It wasn’t cheap so much as stupid. And stupid wound up costing them Arenas as they didn’t have money because they’d (gasp) NOT been cheap with some really mundane “talent”.

Bringing in Mullin was a move that didn’t really seem to make much sense from anything other than PR. He “trained” under St. Jean and hasn’t been an overly inspired GM. I blame Cohan for that, as well as for the Monty hire, a move that only made sense if you thought the local guy would be a draw. Only wins are a long term draw, but Cohan’s probably not thinking with real evidence.

Mullin hasn’t been a disaster, and hadn’t totally crapped out the upward trend that had started before under the St.Jean/Musselman period despite the (likely Cohan forced) Montgomery hire. But he hasn’t been a real serious inspiration either. I think he’s learning, but fear that he could still be overreacting to his last mistake. The “turnaround” was getting Nellie, who wins wherever he goes. Good move, one that Mullin apparently got to happen and Cohan shelled out the not insignificant change to make happen. I can’t call Mullin a failure as a result, but I can’t really put him as anything other than average given the number of mistakes he’s made.

It appears that Cohan has less to do with things now, and that seems to be a good thing. I suspect that short of a 3peat championship run, there will be people who will always claim he’s terrible and won’t separate him from his early years. And that’s somewhat fair. I doubt he’s completely changed his spots, but I don’t think he’s the major suck and drag on the franchise he once was. He’s just, like Mullin not terribly inspiring, hovering in that large area of mediocre or slightly below that’s easy to occupy.

cheapest owner in the NBA. He is a worst owner because he’s cheap.

I don’t think the author of this diary has even the slightest evidence that Azubuike isn’t being kept because of a Cohan “save” directive. It’s just his rant and he’s not interested in thinking carefully about it. The thought process is Cohan=cheap and everything follows from that. Nothing more interesting in it all, and nothing of substance to the post.

money but it didn’t stop Cohan from giving foyle a high priced contract, which I do add we are steal paying for!