REPORT CARD: Mike Montgomery

That said, I think he missed some things, was slow to react and doesn't seem to be able to translate whatever visions he has for how the team will succeed to the court.  He played Murphy at center for non-zero minutes.  This was a disaster that was clear watching it and was clear in the stats.  My calculations based on the scoring margins in these stints was that the experiment probably cost them 5 or 6 games overall.  I expect my coach to realize that Murphy was a defensive sieve at center and more often than not, they got outscored substantially during these stretches.

The schizophrenic handling of the Ike situation was also puzzling.  Though it seemed that after a while, Monty did realize that he was getting killed with Murphy at center, the initial 'solution' was equally puzzling.  Ike got switched from undersized PF to starting super-undersized center.  On paper, this was nearly as bad as the Murphy at center Hindenberg type of disaster, but it wasn't going to work for long and didn't.  The puzzling thing was that it seemed that Diogu then got shifted to the "might get in the game might not" pile and we saw little of him.  Rather than see that Diogu was probably an effective scoring option and see if they could regularly work him in to the rotation to provide this, Diogu got some weird treatment.

Ike put up good numbers overall for his limited time.  He'll have to control his fouls and it's not clear that scoring in short minutes translates well to longer periods of time, but rebounding usually does and getting to the foul line usually does too.  Players who draw fouls are one of the more valuable commodities out there and I suspect Ike will be successful because of this. That said, I'm worried about thinking we've got a starter of impact who saw highly irregular PT.  Was he on a different page (or planet) from Monty or what?  Whatever it was, I'll blame Monty if Ike isn't ready for an increased load.  

I'll give him a D.  On paper, this team wasn't much better than they performed.  We got fooled by an unusually good run with Baron, but if a team's bad, I'd like to see evidence that they're building for something better and with Monty, I didn't see it.  Two years without an obvious plan and he's either the greatest sandbagger ready to blow up and take the world by storm or he's in over his head biding time until the right college job opens up to return to.

F

I say keep Monty this year. Tell the players their attitude sucks and the coach ain't going anywhere. Shut-up and play his way or sit.

I think Monty will be out-coached at least half the time but that ain't the problem. If he loses the team this year it's just the GSW players' same old pattern of making their job easier while collecting a paycheck.  Eric Mussleman lost this team and he's clear about the horrible attitude in this franchise.  GSW players have it figured out -- the coach always sucks.  

Monty made the BB program at Montana and Stanford. He has already earned more respect than I've seen expressed here. If he gets an F, how can the out-of-shape Baron Davis be graded any higher?  Injured in the first game because he's not in playing shape.  Monty's fault?

The Chicago Bulls sent Tim Thomas home after a few days into last season.  He's a tall, talented post player on a team lacking height and veterans and they sent him home.  See what's necessary?

Monty needs to be able to coach these guys -- punish insubordination and reward effort. Send players home or to the bench and reward winning.  

Monty C-
Yes! C-

We're lucky this poorly constructed team didn't tank like the Hawks, Blazers or Knicks.