#DubNation News Flash: New Lights Shed On Former Golden State Warriors Assistant Coaches Darren Erman And Brian Scalabrine (Photo: via Footbasket.com and Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports)
[UPDATE: This article has been updated with quotes from morning shootaround.]
[NOTE: Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group has a must-read latest-and-greatest.]
In the midst of the Donald Sterling controversy, in which NBA Commissioner Adam Silver will deliver a press conference this morning, a report from ESPN’s Chris Broussard brings to light the reasons why former Golden State Warriors assistant coaches Darren Erman was fired and Brian Scalabrine demoted to the D-League Santa Cruz Warriors:
Sources said Erman, who was coach Mark Jackson‘s second assistant, would record coaches’ meetings, meetings between the coaches and players, and informal discussions among coaches that took place in the team’s coaches room — all without the participants’ knowledge.
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“He was taping everything,” one source said. “Taping pregame speeches wouldn’t have been that bad, but he was taping guys just sitting around talking in the coaches’ office.”
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Sometimes Erman would be present during the tapings. Other times, he would leave the room and leave his phone behind to record conversations the other coaches were having.
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It is unclear what Erman did with the recordings. The sources weren’t sure whether he shared them with the club’s owners or front-office executives.
Broussard’s post also stated that Scalabrine “exhibited a consistent pattern of disrespect toward Jackson and the other coaches. Mainly, he ignored and refused to speak with the other basketball coaches,” at one point going five weeks without speaking to Jackson and isolating himself away from the team on plane trips.
The report becomes the third article to label Jackson’s regime as “dysfunctional”, although it concludes as follows:
One source insists that Jackson’s relationship with owner Joe Lacob and general manager Bob Myers is fine, which makes his shaky job status hard to understand.
Erman and Scalabrine have worked in the past for the Boston Celtics under General Manager Danny Ainge, during which time Lacob held a minority stake until he bought the Warriors in July of 2010. Myers, a referral of Ainge, was hired in April 2011 as the Warriors’ General Manager.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reported this morning that Erman has been hired as the Celtics Director of Scouting.
Broussard’s report came out this morning at 6:56AM PDT, while Wojnarowski’s came out at about 8:00AM PDT. Silver’s press conference is scheduled for 11:00AM PDT from the NBA’s headquarters in New York.
Zach Lowe of Grantland.com tweeted this at 7:22AM PDT:
Consensus around league is it is very unlikely for Jackson to be back next season in GSW barring long playoff run.
— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) April 29, 2014
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Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group tweeted this about an hour later:
I'm told Mark Jackson isn't being held responsible for the actions of his fired assistants, but the general chaos is obviously not good.
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) April 29, 2014
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At shootaround this morning at Staples Center, Jackson told reporters, when asked about Erman — who was praised earlier by Lowe in a separate tweet — being an architect of the team:
Mark Jackson: "I am the architect of the 51-win season. Give me credit for that." (We'll report later with context.)
— LetsGoWarriors (@LetsGoWarriors) April 29, 2014
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Mark Jackson: "You can make a mistake. That don't mean it's my dysfunction." Ha! What I (@poormanscommish) tweeted not more than an hr ago.
— LetsGoWarriors (@LetsGoWarriors) April 29, 2014
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Monte Poole of CSN Bay Area:
“There was no dysfunction,” Jackson said prior to the team’s morning shootaround. “I had a great staff. It’s been a great year. And we are 2-2, with an opportunity to win Game 5 against this Clippers team.”
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“I’m not going to comment on that,” Jackson said. “Obviously, Erm no longer works for us. And we’ve made a statement as an organization. And we move forward. This is old news.”
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