Ric Bucher Tells Us Why He Voted Mark Jackson 3rd For Coach Of The Year (Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account)
I never really found a good time to transcribe and post my interview with Ric Bucher on why he gave ousted Golden State Warriors coach Mark Jackson a third-place vote in the media’s selection of 2014 NBA Coach Of The Year, which went to Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs, with Jeff Hornacek of the Phoenix Suns a close runner-up.
Chalk it up to the craziness of trying to keep up with the team during the playoffs, the fact that covering the Dubs all year finally caught up to me after Game 7 when I fell ill for a whole week-and-a-half, or just catching up — for example, as Monte Poole told me, now that the off-season is here, he has a whole house to clean — my apologies for the delay.
And yes, in about an hour, Steve Kerr will take the podium at the Warriors practice facility (where I’ll report, as usual), but in all honesty, I didn’t plan it this way. I don’t expect much Mark Jackson news henceforth and what better day to officially turn the page.
So, back to Bucher. It was just the rare opportunity of Bucher being randomly available while we left the Warriors locker room following the heart-breaking 98-96 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 3.
All in all, I don’t have the time today to analyze and bring in supporting arguments/tirades (haha) other than to say, I agree with Ric. I’m in full support of what Bucher said in his last quote to me and, in fact, I wouldn’t be here today trying to serve #DubNation on this platform if I didn’t think exactly the same thing.
“This team improved on last year and I’m not convinced that all of the personnel moves were positive moves,” Bucher told LetsGoWarriors, “The issues with the coaching staff, the loss of the assistant coaches, from what I know, is not on (Jackson’s) plate.”
Bucher expanded on personnel moves part.
“How much these guys believe in him and where they are, to replicate what they did last year with the expectations where they are, the injury to (Andre) Iguodala and not making him the same, not having Jarrett Jack, not having Carl Landry, I just thought that should be recognized.”
Bucher had Popovich as his top choice and Tom Thibodeau of the Chicago Bulls with the second-place vote, leaving Hornacek off.
“One of my things is, I love what Hornacek did, but I’ve seen too many times where Coach Of The Year votes go to guys who are coaches of teams that did more than we expected them to. Now, is that because they did a great coaching job and they over-coached or is it because we just didn’t have the right read on that talent?” Bucher explained.
“You have to recognize the coaches that coach talent and are successful with it, so instilling a new atmosphere here (in Golden State), I felt it needed to be recognized,” Bucher added, “Knowing these guys in here and knowing how they feel about him and knowing how players (in the NBA) think about him, somebody needed to recognize that.”
Bucher said he wasn’t afraid of the inevitable criticism that would come with voting for Jackson.
“I thought that there was probably a good chance that I’d be the only one to have him mentioned on a ballot,” Bucher said, “I knew that that would come with some criticisms and questions, but if I’m going to vote to protect myself or I’m going to vote because I’m afraid of what somebody might think I’m doing, then I’m not doing the vote justice.”
Incidentally, there were two other coaches that received what could be perceived as controversial third-place, statement-making votes: Jason Kidd of the Brooklyn Nets and Scott Brooks of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Ron Tillery of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal voted for Kidd and Dominique Wilkins, who announces for the Atlanta Hawks, voted for Brooks.
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