Sorry if this has been posted already- From - http://msn.espn.go.com/nba/news/2001/1215/1296281.html Saturday, December 15 Assistant Winters will serve as interim coach -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ESPN.com news services OAKLAND, Calif. -- The Golden State Warriors fired coach Dave Cowens on Saturday after just 105 games with one of the NBA's most downtrodden franchises. Cowens will be replaced on an interim basis by assistant coach Brian Winters, a team spokesman said. Winters coached the Vancouver Grizzlies in their first two seasons. Cowens was fired with more than a year and a half left on his contract. Cowens, a Hall of Famer who was promoted from an assistant's job before last season, went 25-80 with the Warriors. Golden State (8-15) has lost four straight and eight of nine entering Saturday night's game against Memphis. Winters becomes the 20th coach of one of the NBA's original franchises. He is the Warriors' seventh coach since 1995, when Don Nelson left the team after seven seasons and owner Chris Cohan assumed control of the club. Star forward Antawn Jamison and reserve guard Bob Sura both have publicly questioned Cowens' substitution rotations. On Friday, the Contra Costa Times reported that Cowens kicked point guard Mookie Blaylock out of practice, saying he "wasn't ready" to practice and "didn't respond" to instruction. "He wasn't ready and I dismissed him early," Cowens said after practice. "It happened. We didn't like it and it doesn't happen routinely, but he didn't respond." Golden State had the NBA's second-worst record at 17-65 last season, and after a strong start this fall, the team again has sunk to the bottom of the Pacific Division. After leading the league in man-games lost to injury during Cowens' first season, the Warriors appeared to be turning the corner this year. But Cowens has struggled to find a consistent rotation for his players and has kept $24 million center Marc Jackson buried on the bench. Golden State has missed the playoffs in each of its last seven seasons -- the longest current streak in the NBA. Cowens played 10 of his 11 NBA seasons with the Boston Celtics, who have retired his No. 18. He was the league MVP in 1973 and won two championships. He previously coached the Celtics for 68 games during the 1978-79 season, then led the Charlotte Hornets to consecutive 50-win seasons from 1996-98. He resigned in Charlotte 15 games into the 1998-99 season. Cowens was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1990. Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. Issel seems likely to go next. When will coaches like Tim Floyd get shown the door?
Trust me, no one is saying, "Oh boy, Brian Winters will lead us to a championship" ... but you don't fire a coach midseason because you suddenly realize one of the assistants is a genius. You do it to stop the bleeding in a bad situation. Really, Cowens had to almost try to get himself fired. There weren't any expectations aside from merely improving, and a healthy roster basically guaranteed they'd get around 30 wins. But Cowens had this almost perverse refusal to run plays for Jamison (who's, like, only the best offensive player on the team, and the first proven scorer the Warriors have had since Sprewell), or even to define roles for <i>anyone</i> in the rotation. This was his first time coaching a young team, and he more or less treated everyone like they were veterans and would figure things out if he threw them on the floor without any guidance. As one of the local beat writers said, he basically told Jason Richardson, "OK, you're a starter now, go guard Michael Finley and figure out a role for yourself on offense." When nearly every guy on the team is saying, "I don't know what my role is," that's not a good sign. Even if he didn't know himself, Cowens needed to set temporary roles or do something to make players comfortable with the growth process. He didn't. In short, an 8-15 record would be fine if the players were less confused as to what the coach was thinking from one moment to the next. If Winters is at least clear with the players about what he's doing and what he wants them to do, he'll be an improvement. And then, over the summer, they can go shopping for guys like Del Harris, Van Gundy, or whoever.
I'd think that the Golden State job would be quite attractive to a coach that wants to be seen as an elite coach. I mean they have all of that talent built up from all of those lotto picks, it would appear to me that all they need to do is mature as a team and they'd be pretty damn good. It would seem somewhat easy for a coach to come in and turn them into a playoff team and suddenly become a coaching genius...
