Mark Jackson Fired As Golden State Warriors Coach: Local Beatwriters’ Reactions

Mark Jackson Fired As Golden State Warriors Coach: Local Beatwriters’ Reactions (Photo: Veeoz.com)

Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group:

When they traded Mitch Richmond, now a Hall of Famer, to Sacramento for Billy Owens. When they shipped Chris Webber to Washington. When they drafted Todd Fuller over Kobe Bryant. When they replaced Eric Musselman with Mike Montgomery. When they broke up “We Believe” by trading Jason Richardson and not signing Baron Davis.
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Now, Lacob and Myers might be joining the Warriors’ rich history of bad decisions. Because in their quest for offense, they might lose the defense necessary to win. In their search for submissiveness, they might get a coach who can’t lead through adversity.
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In their hunt for a philosophy they prefer, they could lose the team chemistry on which they have thrived.

Ray Ratto of CSN Bay Area:

Jackson’s firing is very much Lacob at his most Steinbrennarian — putting himself and his perception of the Warriors in their present state before all other considerations. It is personality-driven, because it cannot be performance-driven unless you believe the Warriors should have won 58 games instead of 51, and should have beaten the Los Angeles Clippers without their starting center.
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Nobody else believes that, and if Lacob does, or he feels Jackson does more harm to the franchise by staying, he has given in to his own hubris. And owners with hubris almost always find themselves hoisted on their own petard.

Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle:

And it’s a little bit pathetic, as well, that Jackson’s ego became such an overriding irritant within the Warriors’ organization. Behind that calm, ever-so-spiritual facade, Jackson’s defensiveness and insecurity eventually brought him down.
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This franchise rose from the ashes, players speaking passionately about Jackson as a coach and mentor. They spoke of how he developed them as men, not merely as players, and how their lives were so fulfilled. Against all odds, they did great things together, both this season and last.
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To reject all that, because of a man’s personality, speaks of a very risky gamble. And I don’t buy this notion that, with a new coach, these same Warriors reach the NBA Finals next year. Dead wrong. Zero chance of that.

Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle:

Lacob should have found a way to work with Jackson, to get all the bickering parties in one room and tell them all to shut up and work together as professionals, for the team. This isn’t a social club.
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Lacob will hope the fans see his side: a dynamic, caring owner trying to cope with an increasingly truculent head coach who could accept no criticism and wasn’t doing all he could do to win.
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Sorry, Joe. What fans see is the Captain of the Love Boat being keel-hauled by a meddling owner who thinks he knows hoops.

Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group:

There is no wiggle room for the Warriors now. There is no turning back or fallback excuse.
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Now that Warriors management has moved on from Jackson’s vibrant three-season tenure, everything rides on the next decision, and particularly on co-owner Joe Lacob and general manager Bob Myers.
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Either the Warriors hire a provably better coach, and they win at the highest level, or they will be league-wide embarrassments.

Lowell Cohn of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:

…This just in — a head coach needs to get along with the owner, needs to get along with the GM, needs to get along with various advisers. Needs to build relationships with the whole group. You get the impression Jackson was a first-class pain.
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He is incredibly stubborn, has the attitude he’s right all the time, has that attitude to a dangerous extent.
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Take his attitude about his coaching staff. It generally was labeled the worst in the league. He assembled the staff of his own freewill. Management noticed this.
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Jackson is sensitive, insecure. He wants no assistant who has quality. A quality assistant might know more than Jackson, might vie for his job. Jackson surrounded himself with mediocrities. A safe but fruitless strategy. Stubborn. Insecure.
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Management believed Jackson had taken the Warriors as far as he could. Because he is not self-critical, does not take criticism well, does not learn, does not work and play well with others, the Warriors would remain where they are, would continue to exit the playoffs early, would not be elite. A team cannot become elite if the coach refuses to realize he needs to get better.

Sam Amick of USA Today:

Jackson went into bunker-mode mentality, taking the with-me-or-against-me approach that never works very well with the owners. Guys like Lacob see a direct correlation between the modern-day price they pay (he led a group that paid a then-league record $450 million) for teams and the level of their involvement, and that isn’t necessarily even wrong. But it’s this next move that will determine how the first one gets written in this once-woebegone franchise’s history books.
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The process begins in earnest on Wednesday, when the Warriors’ decision makers will hold a roundtable and put together a lengthy list of candidates. It’s never this simple, but the first line of the job description should read: “Able to win more than 51 games and reach the second round of the playoffs while pushing for a title.” Anything less makes this the wrong move.

Ethan Strauss of ESPN.com:

Jackson probably could have avoided the fork in the road that led to this, but he chose to do it his way. He worked a second job in Southern California, emphatically flaunted his faith and hired less than highly regarded friends. Maybe he needed to make these kinds of choices to be successful, but he wasn’t successful enough to validate his decisions in the eyes of management.
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If you’re going to do it your way, you need to win big. Jackson didn’t.

Ann Killion of the San Francisco Chronicle:

Instead this was an off the court decision. Everything about Jackson was under scrutiny, which includes his very public persona as a religious man. It was probably not at the top of the list, but was probably on the list. I don’t know if Jackson’s strong, strong religious beliefs alienated anyone in the building. I’ve heard that the team wasn’t happy that he made it a priority to get back to his LA-based church to preach as often as possible. I’ve heard that he occasionally referred to individuals he didn’t like as “the devil.” And I found it weird to be sitting in a press conference next to a young woman who kept trying to get Jackson’s attention by calling him “pastor.”
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But I’ve often wondered how comfortable it was for Jackson and team president Rick Welts to co-exist in the same organization. Welts is openly gay, becoming the first high-ranking executive in professional sports to come out back in 2011. He’s a strong, professional leader who is excellent at his job. Jackson is a fundamental Christian, who embraces what some call “traditional values”. And he wasn’t shy about letting people know his views.