Mullin is no Jerry West… he’s been a mixed bag. But his last two years have been very, very strong, and overall, I think he’s been a bit more good than bad. Let’s go through Atma’s criticisms.

So good that during his 5 year tenure with the Dubs, the rosters he’s assembled have made the playoffs once?

This is true. Of course, last year’s team would’ve made it in in literally every other year of the 16-seed playoff structure. On the other hand, the “We Believe” team would not have made it some years.

The team’s record since Mullin took over is 172-202, for a .460 winning percentage. Not terrible, and certainly leaps and bounds better than anyone else in the last long while, but certainly not good.

Pre-Nellie Mullin was absolutely clueless and way in over his head.

I would agree with this, but so would JVG, correct? The question is how good Mullin is at his job now. If you think he should be fired solely for the sins of 2005, fair enough, but I think most people would agree that his recent good work is more relevant than his more distant poor work.

All of the moves that are supposedly his alone

This is a dangerous way of looking at things, and lends itself towards bias. Any Mully/Nellie/Rowell/Cohan/whoever hater can point to the weakest moves the franchise has made lately and blame their personal villain for them. Mullin has been a part of a number of big mistakes. He’s also been a part of a number of good moves. To blame him for the bad ones and give him no credit for the good ones is silly.

the Marcus Williams trade

You certainly can’t say this one has worked out. On the other hand, the price for this, realistically, was pretty small… I don’t think it was an excessive price for a guy of MWill’s potential. Was certainly bad to add a guy your coach would refuse to play. Both Mullin and Nellie deserve a knock for that, I think.

drafting Marco Belinelli and believing he was a good replacement for Jason Richardson

Okay, two separate issues here: drafting Marco and trading J-Rich. Marco first. Like you, I was one of the bigger Marco haters on this site through the fall. It turns out that you and I were wrong, and that Mullin was right: Marco was a solid pick. I’m not saying that he’ll be a star, because he won’t. I’m not even saying I think he’ll ever be a viable NBA starter. But Marco is a genuine rotation player with upside, and that is decent value for the 18th pick of a draft.

As for Marco replacing Jason Richardson, that was never the plan. Monta Ellis replaced Jason Richardson, with help from Stephen Jackson and Kelenna Azubuike. And guess what? They did a damn fine job of it. Of all the many problems plaguing this team, depth at the wings is certainly not one of them.

(This seems like a good time to mention: the Suns haven’t played any better since adding J-Rich, and the Bobcats have played better since losing him. That’s the second straight time he’s changed teams without making a dent. If this guy is a proven winner, he sure does a good job of hiding it.)
  

keeping Brandan Wright

This is a curious criticism. You blame Mullin for not… trading BWright? For not waiving him? Brandan Wright has some flaws, but he is a good, productive young player. I know you didn’t like the J-Rich trade, but how the hell is Brandan Wright, in and of himself, a bad thing?

inking 2nd round bust Kosta Perovic to a 2 year $3.5 million deal with a 3rd year team option (most likely the most foolishly lucrative 2nd round signing of all time)

A foolish move, that looked even more foolish because Nellie came along shortly after… under Montgomery, Perovic probably at least would’ve played a little. Still and all, though, this cost us $3 million (above league minimums) over two years. It’s nothing to get too worked up over.

Inking Derek Fisher, Adonal Foyle, Mike Dunleavy, and Troy Murphy to those silly deals

Absolutely. All terrible, terrible moves.

blowing all those draft picks (Ike Diogu and Patrick O’Bryant isn’t exactly great like Jamison’s back-to-back 51’s)

I’d give the POB pick an F, and the Diogu pick maybe a D… Diogu was at least a commodity that other teams still valued after the fact, to the point where he made the Dunmurphy trade happen. These were extremely bad picks.

On the other hand, Biedrins was a brilliant pick. Monta was a great pick. Wright was a good pick, Marco was a decent pick. Mullin’s also found several good commodities outside the draft (more on that later).

Mullin’s draft history is not great. It is also not terrible. It is reason neither to give him a raise nor to fire him. You can yell “POB and Diogu” at the top of your lungs… someone else might yell “Beans and Monta” right back at you. Mullin’s drafts have not been terrible.

trading away Jason Richardson to get even younger, softer, and more inexperienced

This has beem covered ad nauseam. I happen to think this was one of Mullin’s very best moves. We shan’t agree here.

failing to use multiple large trade exceptions

I have trouble getting worked up about this. Ownership plays a big role in decisions like these.

signing Austin Croshere and Troy Hudson

Croshere was a fine signing, Hudson was a poor one… neither one cost us at all. You’re really straining to make a point if you include these two. Yes, our worst players sometimes aren’t very good.

Let’s not forget Mullin’s complete inability over his 4.5 year VP/GM tenure with the Warriors to find a good starting power forward who can rebound and score at a high percentage.

Players like that are among the most valuable players in the league… you’re only going to get them if you sign them to huge contracts (Mullin has tried), trade the farm for them (Mullin has tried, and by many accounts made the best KG offer), or to have a top-three pick (Mullin hasn’t had any). Yes, occasionally guys like David Lee and Paul Millsap arise out of nowhere. But every GM in the league passed on each of those guys… most passed on Millsap twice. I don’t see why Mullin should get any special scorn for missing those guys.

It sucks that we don’t have a good power forward. Maybe a better GM could’ve gotten us one in the last four years. I kind of doubt it.

Foyle’s still on the books this year for $6.8 million— would’ve been a great expiring contract, but oh well.

Several variables here, including money, and the fact that the franchise and Foyle had a good relationship. He wanted to play basketball… Nellie wasn’t going to let him, and Cohan didn’t want to pay a guy who wouldn’t play. Mully cut him loose. I have no beef with any of that.

And since when does an NBA GM get props for buying out contracts from the likes of Kosta Perovic and Sarunas Jasikevicius?

Since never… literally nobody has ever suggested that he should get props for those. Total strawman here.

Yes, he did indeed manage to dump those silly gift contracts to Dunleavy and Murphy to Larry Bird and the Pacers,

Yes, he did, and for pretty amazing value, to boot. I give credit to Cohan and Rowell here, as well — not every ownership group would’ve been willing to dance with Jack in ‘07. But this is a huge credit in Mullin’s favor, and you really shouldn’t just skip past it.

but what’s the point when about 1.5 years later you’re going to overspend it on Corey Maggette?

Corey Maggette makes far, far less than Dunleavy and Murphy do. Corey Maggette is also a pretty good player, as he’s shown whenever Nellie has used him sanely. Did Mullin (or whoever) overpay for him? A little, yeah. But that is certainly NOT what’s wrong with the franchise.

During the telecast Van Gundy was praising Mullin for his scouting and all the D-League finds on the Warriors roster. Well let’s be fair. None of these guys are top 50 or even top 100 (maybe even 150) players in the NBA.

I’d think ‘Buike slots somewhere between 100 and 150, and Morrow’s not far behind him. But more to the point, so what? Mullin has gotten value from the D-League. Finding ‘Buike, Watson and Morrow is like stumbling into three mid-first-round draft picks out of nowhere. That’s a stellar thing to happen to a team.

In the last three years, Chris Mullin has gotten more value out of the D-League than any GM in basketball. That is a huge, good, important thing. You couldn’t possibly try to spin that into being a bad thing, could you?

Mullin’s had to “find” so many NBDL players to populate this roster precisely because he’s lost on so many other moves as the VP/ GM of this team.

HA! Good effort. One of the only good things about this roster is its depth… we have, without exaggerating one inch, ten guys who are good enough to be in an NBA rotation. Many of them aren’t good enough to be high in a rotation, and they’re all too similar to each other… but they can play. And that’s a good thing.

Look, I like Mullin. Great player. Every time I’ve seen him in person, he’s been a really nice guy and by all reports I’ve heard and read that that’s not just my imagination. But I really don’t understand what he’s “going through”. If it’s so bad (which I doubt it is) he can resign or quit.

 
I agree with all of this. I’ll shed no tears for Mully… he’s free to leave if he wants to.

Do think you really think Van Gundy would be happy about having to coach the worst defensive backcourt in the league featuring Monta Ellis (hasn’t even tried on D since his second year in the league), Jamal Crawford (the next time he’s in the right position on D will be his first in a Warriors uni), CJ Watson (let’s just say he didn’t get called up from the NBDL for his D), Kelenna Azubuike (maybe the easiest big minute player in the league to beat off the dribble), and Marco Belinelli (soft). At the wings there’s Corey Maggette (would play D if it would get him to the free throw line) and Stephen Jackson (half the time he doesn’t get back on D because he’s complaining about some non-call). Up front there’s Andris Biedrins (can’t guard a single 4 or 5 in the league mano y mano and routinely surrenders career nights to opposing big men), Brandan Wright (it looks like he’s playing zone when the rest of the team is playing man and playing man when the rest of the team is playing zone), and Anthony Randolph (just isn’t physically ready to play D in the NBA). The best defender on this team Ronny Turiaf thinks good D = blocking shots and nothing else.

Yeah, the defensive production on this team is staggeringly low. But don’t you think that’s largely a coaching issue?

Jamal Crawford and Corey Maggette… yeah, those guys aren’t going to defend (which is part of the reason the Crawford trade was so insane). But why aren’t Monta Ellis, Brandan Wright, CJ Watson and Kelenna Azubuike good defenders? These are young, eager guys… two of them were known for their defense going into their drafts, and two had to claw their way up from the D-League. Why do they get beat so badly? Why do they struggle to defend basic offensive sequences? Why do they seem to be getting worse defensively, when young players usually improve quickly? Might it have something to do with our legendary coach?

Now I don’t doubt for a second that Van Gundy could have this current Warriors team playing better D than Nellie.

But it’d be at the cost of plenty of offense

This strikes me as a false choice. Mike D’Antoni’s teams play dramatically better defense than Nellie’s… he has the pitifully untalented Knicks doing a good bit better than us, both defensively and overall. It’s not that Nellie’s offense requires bad defense… it’s that it usually works well enough so that Nellie doesn’t have to bother to teach defense. Without Baron and an on-form Monta, our offense can’t possibly cover for our defense. Nellie needs to teach these kids. And he isn’t.

and I doubt it would make that much of a difference in the win column (if any).

I’m guessing we’d be doing a good bit better under Van Gundy, and especially under D’Antoni (I’d have LOVED to see what D-Antoni would do with this weird-ass roster). Nellie has dragged this team down…

Nellie’s a phenomenal offensive coach. Coaching ain’t the problem here.

…oh.

Seriously, have you been watching the games? We’re not even very good at offense. There’s no semblance of a plan out there.

It’s the ZERO All-Star roster that’s way too young (i.e. not ready) for the NBA.

 
Youth doesn’t have much to do with it. Size and coaching are our issues. And Mullin deserves some blame for those issues.

But Nellie drove our starting power forward away, then refused to play his consistently productive replacement. Nellie has repeatedly played Corey Maggette at the four, despite all the evidence and logic in the world. Nellie has literally — LITERALLY — given up on trying to teach his youngsters defense.

We’re playing five million bucks for this?

Someone’s got to be the good guy (“poor Mullin the good administrator”, “poor rookie Anthony Randolph who can’t get any playing time”- by the way AR’s already played more minutes than Andris Biedrins, Brandan Wright, Marco Belinelli, and even Ronny Turiaf did during their rookie seasons)

I agree that things get oversimplified. And I personally have no beef with Nellie’s handling of Randolph. That’s one of the only things I think he’s done right.

and someone’s got to be the bad guy (all the Nellie-haters who can’t name a single coach who could coach this terrible and banged up roster to a significantly better record).

I could name a bunch of coaches that I think would — two have already come up — but what’s the point? You’d think they couldn’t. Hiding behind hypotheticals is FUN…

Nellie’s been a big asset the last two years, and I think the big man’s heart is in the right place. And there’s plenty of blame to go around for this season, and Mullin deserves some of it too.

But we have a young, talented roster that’s playing without any clue and without any fire, and in combinations that defy all logic. We’re missing a power forward, sure, but that alone doesn’t make you 14-32. Terrible coaching does.