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Никогда не думал, что буду постить интервью, которое взял Тим Каваками....

Но вот он я тут: делаю это!

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Joe Lacob interview, part 1: On finalizing the buying group and on Rowell and a possible backlash if there’s no instant housecleaning

Sat down for my first interview with incoming Warriors owner Joe Lacob this morning, right after he played a game of pick-up basketball at Stanford.

None of that is very Chris Cohan-like, by the way.

Lacob and I talked about a lot of things. Tons of things. So many things that the 44-minute interview took me more than 2 hours to transcribe and totaled 6,600 words.

That’s an interview. I’ll put up the transcript in at least 3 parts so the takes aren’t novel-length.

Lacob was very personable, had no airs, talked about anything unless he felt he was restricted by the sales situation or NBA edict, and noticeably paid attention to a report from a nearby TV when it relayed news about the latest NBA star wanting out.

Short summary: Lacob gave no great revelations about the short-term fate of Don Nelson, Robert Rowell or Larry Riley (first answer on those topics is on this take, but I do get back to it in later takes)

Shorter summary: Measured praise for Rowell (!) and Riley, and very circumspect on Nelson. Further takes to come…

—–JOE LACOB, interview transcript, Part 1/

-Q: What’s the situation now—you’re going through the final process for putting together your complete group… Where are you on that? Have the papers been filed?

-LACOB: We’re right in the final stages of that, actually. The worst part of this is it’s August. August. And you know in my world, in the business world, everyone’s on vacation. I mean, we shut down. And a lot of people do.

And a lot of people you’re talking to–a lot of the investors you’re talking to are from the investment world, to use an example.

I’d say the one difficulty we’re having is, just, they send it to their lawyers, their advisors, and I get the meetings, I have the meetings, and commitments, but I’ve still got to get paperwork done.

I’d say we’re a little frustrated with that, in terms of just getting all these guys to get their paperwork done. But we’re very close to being… we should be on time.

-Q: Which is…?

-LACOB: The goal we’ve stated is to be done and approved by the end of September. That would be aggressive by the way, because the NBA board of governors meeting is mid-October. That’s the likely time that the board of governors votes on us.

We’ll try to get it done before then.

-Q: When will your papers will be in with the league?

-LACOB: My papers are going in this week. And some other peoples’. But I’d say getting the whole group together, all the papers, it might be early September by the time we get it done.

-Q: Are the Giants or parts of their ownership group with you now?

-LACOB: No.

-Q: And the 20% minority owners in the Warriors are…?

-LACOB: Still deciding.

-Q: So you have either/ors with your investment candidates?

-LACOB: We have a lot of people. First of all, we have, like, one or two slots left, the way we’ve architected the investment group. And I’ve got five times the number of people that I need to fill those, that are interested, and I’ve talked to.

So the question is, they’ve got to give me a final decision and we’ve got to make a final decision as to whether we want them to be in the group.

-Q: Can you give a number of groups you’ll have?

-LACOB: Individuals, mostly. I don’t know what it’s going to end up being. It’s going to be like the Celtics, roughly 15 people. I think it’ll be something like that.

You’ll be able to count on one hand the key people. And then there’s going to be a series of people that I think will be valuable to the ownership group, that’ll be putting in $10 million, let’s say.

-Q: Would you and Guber own, say, 50% combined?

-LACOB: I’m not going to comment on that. But it’s a very significant number. Just so you understand, Peter and I could do the whole thing. Tomorrow. That’s not the issue.

-Q: So why don’t you?

-LACOB: Because that’s not the best use… there’s two reasons: That’s probably not the best use of capital. I know, if you’re worth $28 billion, though you didn’t, you probably could do that if you wanted to, and it wouldn’t matter.

But if you’re just [laughs] a billionaire, or whatever you are—pretty wealthy people, which obviously we are—that’s probably not the smartest thing to do.

And the more important point is that I want to have a group of people to do this with. I want smart people who can add things that I don’t have.

You have to remember where I come from—I come from a different world. I’ve been in the venture capitalist world for 25 years. I’m a partnership guy. So I like having boards of directors. I like having other people that can contribute and say something and do something.

The NBA rules are such that I’m going to make the final calls—the board of governors, managing partner, all that. But I like listening to other people’s opinions.

I told you I read the blogs and all that stuff. Not saying that I’m going to follow what they say or whatever. But I like to be aware of what other people are talking about. I don’t want to live in some surreal world where I’m not listening.

This is a different kind of business than a high-tech business. It’s even more so that you have to listen to other constituencies. I should be listening…

I want to hear what reporters say. I’m not going to do what they say, necessarily. I want to hear what they say. They follow the team every day. I want to hear what the fans say.

I’ve responded to every single e-mail I’ve received from the fans so far. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that forever. But I want to read them. I want to know what people are saying.

Believe me, I think a lot of them are crazy. Some of them have good points, though.

-Q: On that point, you’ve been a fan of this team for years. You’re not coming into this totally blind. What’s your sense of this franchise?

-LACOB: I’m a fan just like anybody else. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that there are some problems here. I would say that the biggest single problem that I see is that there hasn’t been a good plan to create or architect a team that can be a winning team and go to the playoffs and go deep in the playoffs.

Maybe they’ve tried to have a plan. I can’t say. I wasn’t there. We all can speculate. You speculate.

-Q: Or they’ve changed their plan.

-LACOB: Maybe they’ve changed their plan too often, possibly. Maybe they didn’t have a good plan. Maybe they had bad luck. These are all possibilities.

The bottom line is, you look at it and you say there needs to be a little bit of a better plan.

Also the draft picks, I think they would tell you directly, they’ve been poor overall. Steph Curry’s a great draft pick. But you look through the history of their draft picks… it’s not good. That’s the single best source of getting a great player.

You know who they all are. We all do. That cannot happen again. It can happen one year, but it cannot happen consistently year after year after year.

So that’s something we’re going to try to do much, much better. We’re going to have a plan for who we draft. Everyone may not agree with that plan, but I think it’ll be a plan. I have a very good idea of how I want to do that.

The culture is another thing that definitely has to change. If you’re going to win, which is our primary goal, we’ve got to have a 24/7 culture of basketball and getting better and working harder.

I’m not sure, because I haven’t been there every day, I’ve got to learn, I’ve got to get in there and see that, figure that out—but my sense is that’s not what’s been going on. That’s not going to happen. That’s not going to be permitted.

-Q: If these things are such a problem, why would you even consider keeping the status quo even for a day or a month with Rowell, Riley and Nelson, who in many ways created and maintained this culture?

-LACOB: Right now I’m considering all options. I am precluded… we, Peter and I, are precluded from making changes by the NBA and by the seller. You can speculate as to whether that’s right, wrong, indifferent. I can do the same thing. It doesn’t matter. It is what it is.

So, it’s a time for me to gather information, interview people and figure out what we’re going to do when we can do it.

It may be that some changes will be made that people want to see. And it may be that some don’t get made immediately that people think has to happen.

It may be that I get in there—I want to learn first-hand, instead of going by what some reporter believes about Bob Rowell, as an example.

I know certain people don’t like him and they say things. Maybe I want to see that first hand, maybe I want to get the experience and I want to make my decision. Gather the facts, deal with the guy.

You know, Bob Rowell, I think, is a guy who’s done a lot of good things. He’s done things that aren’t perceived very good, either. I need to see it first hand.

-Q: Whether it’s Rowell, Riley or Nelson—the headliners—if you keep any or all of them, even for the short-term, are you ready for a backlash? You’d be keeping the people who Cohan picked. I think there’d be good reason for a backlash. You OK with that?

-LACOB: If that’s what we decide to do… if it’s what we decide to do, that’s OK.

(PARTS 2, 3 and maybe 4 to come)

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Lacob interview, Part 2: On Biedrins, Ellis and the “sunk cost” in Don Nelson

Posted by Tim Kawakami on August 17th, 2010 at 3:02 pm | Categorized as NBA, Warriors

Part 2 of my long interview with incoming Warriors’ owner Joe Lacob earlier today…

In which he speaks about how much he loves to watch Monta Ellis play, about Andris Biedrins’ critical comments, and about Don Nelson’s $6M salary being no factor in the decision whether to keep him for this season.

—-JOE LACOB transcript, part 2/

-Q: Once you take over, say it’s Oct. 16 or whenever… would you imagine there’d be some changes that day or soon after?

-LACOB: I don’t want to speculate on that. I think you can just presume that we’re going to do our homework and we’re going to do whatever it takes to win. And there might be a lot of changes and there might not be a lot of changes. I just don’t know yet.

-Q: Are you interviewing people now for top spots?

-LACOB: I know a lot of people in the NBA, obviously, both at the Celtics and at other places. I talk to them all the time. I have a lot of pre-formed opinions already and I have spoken with other people.

-Q: Have you talked to Mike Dunleavy?

-LACOB: I have not spoken with Mike Dunleavy.

-Q: That’s someone I’ve been told you know.

-LACOB: That’s incorrect. That’s just the typical press speculation.

-Q: That’s me.

-LACOB: That’s not correct. Someone wrote—maybe it was you—that I know him. I don’t know him. I know someone who knows him really well, who’s a personal friend, who has lobbied me. But… I don’t know.

-Q: What kind of structure are you planning for the basketball operation? Will you be CEO and president?

-LACOB: CEO, then there’ll be a president.

-Q: President underneath you? And then…

-LACOB: There’ll be a head of basketball operations and there’ll be a head of business operations, think of it that way.

-Q: That’s a GM on the basketball side?

-LACOB: Haven’t decided on titles. The basketball side and business side, to me, are two different sides.

-Q: Is that how Boston does it?

-LACOB: Danny Ainge runs basketball. And the business guy, Rich Gotham, essentially runs business.

-Q: Will the structure be in place right away?

-LACOB: Not sure yet.

-Q: Have you had conversations with Don Nelson?

-LACOB: Yes.

-Q: Is he on-board?

-LACOB: I’m not clear on your question.

-Q: This is a new thing, you’re a new owner with a new direction. Is he the guy, should be the guy, who is the front-man for the team right now?

-LACOB: You’re talking about as coach? Still evaluating.

-Q: How about in another role?

-LACOB: Still evaluating. I’m in discussions. I’m talking with Don. But let’s just say at this point do not have a decision and frankly at this point can’t have a decision.

-Q: You can’t announce one at least.

-LACOB: I actually can’t make a change. If I wanted to make a change, I couldn’t make a change and I’m not saying I have made a decision to make a change.

-Q: Is timing the paramount factor? If you take over in October, training camp has already started.

-LACOB: Timing’s a real problem. Look, it’s obvious. I wish were buying the team at a different time of year. But the simple fact of the matter is we will not gain control of this team until camp has already started, likely. Trying to work through those issues, see if I can have an impact before then. But right now, I’m not allowed to.

-Q: Nelson is owed $6M, and there are other contracts involved. Is the money owed at all a factor in your decision?

-LACOB: No.

-Q: You can clean house, no matter the money it’d cost?

-LACOB: It has no bearing. I mean… I saw the article on Sunday talking about this. No, that has no bearing whatsoever. I’m a business guy. That’s sunk cost.

If we were to decide to make a change, to me that’s sunk cost.

-Q: Part of your bid.

-LACOB: He said it in the article—you’re paying $450M, you’re going to worry about that? The most important thing is to make the right decision for the team going forward.

Timing will matter and the personnel will matter and my relationship with Don Nelson will matter. Those are the kinds of things will matter.

-Q: What about Nelson’s relationships with his players? I’m sure you saw Biedrins comments.

-LACOB: Yeah, I did.

-Q: Does that disturb you at all?

-LACOB: Uhh, yeah. Yeah. But I have not spoken with him. I don’t like to use third-hand information, Those may have been some old comments. I don’t really know if they’re real or not.

So I’m not going to… if they’re real, they would disturb me. But I don’t know if they are, so I would need to assess that.

The only two players on this team I’ve ever spoken with directly, face to face, are Steph Curry and David Lee in Las Vegas. I went to the Trials and I met them and I was incredibly impressed.

They’re great guys. And they’re great players.

-Q: Whether we can include Biedrins’ comments or not, this tumult with players vs. coach or front office or whatever… it keeps happening with this team. How do you end it? Monta Ellis, Biedrins, Stephen Jackson, Al Harrington, it goes on and on.

-LACOB: Well, you’ve heard the expression: The buck stops here. That’s not going to be permitted going forward. We’re just not going to have that tumult—that kind of tumultuous behavior.

We’re not going … it’s just not going to happen. We’re going to have an organization with very direct lines of communication.

I’m a very direct guy. Unless I absolutely can’t be direct for some reason.

The one thing that’s important to me going forward here is to have a culture of winning, and that means a culture of respect, a 24/7 mentality. We’re not going to have laissez faire, summers off, people not training out of season. You can’t be part of the Warriors if you’re going to think that way. Just can’t happen.

The only way this team is going to change, the way it’s going to win, we have to do what the winning teams do. I know what the winning teams do. I’ve seen it first hand. I know how they practice, I know the way they think about things 24/7.

Danny Ainge, I respect him tremendously. I know what he does. I know what that group does. I’ve seen that, at least one, anyway.

I don’t know what this one is like. I know what I’ve heard. All I can tell you is the way it’s going to be.

-Q: But in Boston, you didn’t start winning until you got a superstar.

-LACOB: You have to have great players. There’s no question about that.

-Q: Can you get a superstar?

-LACOB: I think so. Why not? This is the San Francisco Bay Area. This is one of the most desirable places to live in the world, no question about it. You could live other places, do your job somewhere else. Why do you live here? Why do I live here?

This is a fantastic place. The weather’s fantastic, the economy’s fantastic, the opportunities are fantastic, the people are great. Live here, you can go to Lake Tahoe, you can go to Napa, the Monterey Peninsula…

To me, unless you’re some city guy and you just absolutely want to be in New York City, or something like that—which is fantastic, obviously—or you’re from a certain area… If you’re open to playing on a great team with a great organization and living in a great place, this is the place you’re going to want to be.

-Q: Whenever the big free agents get mentioned, it’s always New York, Dallas, Miami or the Lakers as the top destinations—Lakers if they can do a trade. Can you get the Warriors on that short list?

-LACOB: We are going to be in the same class as the Celtics and the Lakers. I use those teams because to me they’re the ultimate.

There are other very good ones—San Antonio, obviously, great organization. We could name a few others, probably. Utah does a really good job, actually.

You want to be at the pinnacle. We have every opportunity. There’s no reason in the world (not to). We will be failing. I will be failing my job if we don’t achieve that.

-Q: When?

-LACOB: Well, it’s not going to happen overnight, obviously. But that’s not an excuse not to try to make it happen really fast. We’re going to look at everything.

If we get a chance to make a great move that is of a Kevin Garnett variety, we’ll do it. That changed everything in Boston.

Basketball, in my view, is not baseball. Billy Beane’s a good friend—I love baseball as a business, because in baseball you have the opportunity to use the minor leagues and build the team from different avenues.

Billy Beane has at least had a decent team with very, very little resources. Jeff Moorad, a good friend of in, in San Diego, just starting there, so maybe he’s a little lucky—but $38M payroll, best record in the National League.

I don’t think you can do that in basketball. In basketball, there’s only 12 guys on a team, or 15, whatever, you have to have a couple of great players. You have to have really three to win a championship. I’ve said this before.

And we have to have great players.

-Q: You mentioned you have two, Curry and Lee…

-LACOB: Actually, I think we have three really great players. I think Monta Ellis is a great, great talent. He is actually one of my favorite players to watch in the NBA.

And by the way, I think Andris Biedrins, to me, makes the core four, because Biedrins is at least in the top half of centers, when he’s healthy. And he’s young. So I’d call him in the top half.

He needs to work hard, obviously, to get better, and we have to make a decision as to whether he’s going to be healthy, whether he’s going to work hard and whether his heart’s in it. Whether he wants to be a Warrior, OK?

All those things. But he has the potential to be a very good player.

Monta Ellis is a tremendous player. He’s a unique talent. Unique talent. So I would say we have three great players.

The question is architecture. You know, I don’t know at this point in time whether we have the architecture to be a great team with those three great players. And Curry is certainly a great player, but he’s young. He’s still getting better.

David Lee, I think, is an All-Star obviously. Very, very good player. Very excited to have him. And I’m most excited about the quality of the individual.

I think Monta Ellis, it could be this year… we could be a very unique team. Dorell Wright runs really well and he’s a good complement. Biedrins if he’s healthy can run really well. That team can really run and can be pretty competitive.

I don’t think it’s… the way we’re architectured right now… is not necessarily an NBA playoff or championship team.

We’ve got to prove that we have enough low-post offense, which the Warriors have never had.

Low-post defense and offense. We’ve just not had it for years and years and years.

-Q: Haven’t really sought it out.

-LACOB: That’s what I meant by architecture before. I don’t think that works, personally.

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Lacob interview, Part 3: On Jeremy Lin, Ellison, Larry Riley, bold moves and poker

Posted by Tim Kawakami on August 17th, 2010 at 3:31 pm | Categorized as NBA, Stanford, Warriors

Final part of my interview with incoming Warriors owner Joe Lacob…

In which we discuss his role signing Jeremy Lin, the final $450M price tag for the Warriors, praise for Larry Riley, statistical analysis in the NBA and many other topics.

—–JOE LACOB, third and final part of interview transcript (moved some of the questions and answers around in order)/

-Q: Let’s just confirm that you made the call to sign Jeremy Lin.

-LACOB: It was my call.

-Q: Is that an example how you’ll be involved?

-LACOB: I’m going to be involved in all aspects. People are going to run their part of the business, but I intend to be involved.

-Q: Why Lin?

-LACOB: Well, that’s a special situation.

-Q: Your son played with Lin? Against Lin?

-LACOB: There were probably three guys that were pretty much the best point guards in high school in this area at that time and Jeremy Lin was probably the best of them. And my son (Kirk) was right there with him. I’ve watched them play against each other and I’ve coached against him since he was this high.

So I know him from a little kid. Also at Palo Alto I watched him win the state championship over a superior team, and he dominated it. Mater Dei. And he has heart, he has a lot of talent, he’s athletic, which a lot of people don’t understand. He’s pretty long.

He has a game that translates to the NBA. He can drive, he’s a slasher. He needs to shoot better, obviously. He needs to be a better outside shooter.

It’s funny, people don’t know his game. They say, oh, he’s a shooter but he doesn’t have these other skills. No, that’s not true, it’s the opposite.

Jeremy Lin, I think can play. He didn’t sign because he’s Asian-American. That was a nice feature, like anything else. And I think it’s great for that community and for the Warriors. But he got signed because he can play.

If you watched his tape, if you watched him in the John Wall thing in Vegas, he played John Wall even up. This is not a guy that shouldn’t have been drafted. This is a guy that should’ve been drafted.

-Q: Doesn’t that put some pressure on a coach to play him?

-LACOB: No, he’s got to prove it on the court.

-Q: You’ll be watching.

-LACOB: That’s not for me to determine. He has to prove it, coaches have to coach him and we’ll see.

Jeremy should’ve obviously gotten recruited to Stanford. Made a huge error. And by the way, there were a lot of us who were Stanford boosters who were trying to get them to recruit Jeremy. They did not. Well, guess what, that was really stupid. I’m a big Stanford fan, but that was really stupid. The kid was right across the street. You can’t recognize that, you’ve got a problem.

-Q: You’ve said you won’t be a luxury-tax team. Does that mean you’d never go into luxury tax?

-LACOB: It doesn’t mean ever.

-Q: Are you in any way under-capitalized, to the point you have to keep saving money on payroll vs. richer teams?

-LACOB: No, are you kidding me? I laugh when I hear that kind of stuff. The collective balance sheets of the ownership of this group is multiple billions of dollars. It’s not their last dollars.

-Q: Fans want wins, not balance sheets.

-LACOB: Fans want to win. But what I am taking issue with when I made that point is that just spending money, just the willingness to spend a lot of money, doesn’t mean you’re going to be better. You still have to be smart.

-Q: Smart and big spending has led to a lot of success.

-LACOB: We will do, within reason, whatever it takes to be a winner here. But I don’t happen to believe that spending tons and tons of money necessarily makes you winner. You have to be smart about how you spend it.

-Q: Oklahoma City isn’t a big spender…

-LACOB: Oklahoma City’s going to be a great team, and they’re way under. I think we have to be smart.

-Q: How strange is it to end up with a team that everybody—including Larry Ellison—thought Larry Ellison, fifth-richest man in the world, would end up owning?

-LACOB: I think he’s sixth. (laughs) Yeah, I mean, sure, I think everyone expected if he wanted to do it he probably could’ve written whatever check he wanted to and done it.

-Q: Did you end up paying more than you wanted?

-LACOB: I ended up paying what I thought it would take. Actually, that is the exact number I thought it would take, right from the beginning.

-Q: But it’s $50M more than the NBA record price.

-LACOB: No, it’s not. That’s not true. This is another one where you have to get your facts straight.

-Q: My goodness, that’s straight from Sal Galatioto that the Suns went for the record $401M, how can Sal possibly ever be wrong?

-LACOB: No, it’s not true. Phoenix was $401, but actually I can tell you it was probably a little higher than that. I know because I actually had the team bought and declined to go forward for a number of reasons and somebody else stepped into that role, Robert Sarver. I negotiated that price, I know what it was.

-Q: And maybe $450M for the Warriors is a little lower than actuality?

-LACOB: No, I’m saying their price that was quoted is probably a little higher. But is 450 a record? Arguably yes. But that’s an irrelevant fact. Because No. 1 the Phoenix transaction was six years ago—that’s a while.

No. 2, you have to ask the question, what happens if the Lakers, the Knicks, the Bulls, the Celtics… these kinds of teams… Dallas, if they were on the market today, believe me, all of them would go for more than 450 and maybe substantially more.

-Q: Are you going to make money on this proposition?

-LACOB: Oh yes. This is an incredible business opportunity. Turning this into a winner No. 1 and running this business better in certain ways… Look, sports franchises appreciate 10% a year on average over three decades, the last three decades. There’s no reason to think this won’t appreciate in value. So that is the least of my worries.

We will make money on this team in appreciation of value. We’re in one of the largest markets. It’s a great opportunity. If we are good at what we do as a business, we should do just fine.

Is it the greatest return in the history of the world? Perhaps not. You could put your money into… the venture capital business is an example, and make more money.

But you know, I’m doing this for more than just that. I’m doing this because obviously I want to have fun and I want to build something that is a winner.

And I want to be part of something that the whole community can appreciate and feel good about. All those things really matter. If you don’t want those things, you shouldn’t be a team owner. Because there are other businesses to invest in.

This is not about dollars and cents.

-Q: You’ve made it pretty clear you’re going to be making a lot of the decisions…

-LACOB: I’m going to have a lot of money tied up in this and a lot of my time, which is more important than my money. I’m doing that because I want to do it, because I’m passionate about it and because I think it’s a very… under-performing asset. I think it’s a helluva opportunity.

-Q: And you feel like you have some expertise in this.

-LACOB: I do. I’m sure there are other people that do, too. I think I do. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to try to make all the decisions. That’s why I said, I want to have smart people around me.

I’ve built a lot of companies in my day—25 years in venture capital. Let me tell you something, yeah, I made those investments and I had a really good return in my business, but it’s not because I did it all. It’s because I hired a great CEO or I hired a great whatever.

-Q: How important for your top basketball exec to be an established guy who has won elsewhere?

-LACOB: It’s important.

-Q: Or do you want an up-and-comer?

-LACOB: On the basketball side, I think there’s different ways to do it. You can recognize talent that has never had the opportunity and all of a sudden they become legendary because they’re successful. So recognizing young talent is one way to do it. Or hiring experienced talent that’s done it before is another way to do it.

We all know it can happen both ways. If you only hired experienced people, we’d run out of experienced people. So somebody young has to get a shot at some point.

I believe in giving young great talent a shot. But I obviously wouldn’t pass on a great experienced guy, either.

I’ve already said who I think who are great young coaches. I’ve mentioned a few in the league that are proto-types. Those people, before they got their current jobs, they were unknown. It was a risk. It was a gamble.

-Q: Do you have a GM prototype?

-LACOB: Not yet. To be honest, to be fair, I think Larry Riley has done a good job. He’s only been in this role for a little over a year. And he gets associated with, oh, he’s Nelson’s buddy. I don’t think that’s true.

I think Larry is an independent thinker. I’ve spent a lot of time with him so far. I think he’s done a good job, actually, and if you go ahead and talk to other people, you’ll find that they respect him.

Now, are there people in the league that are more accomplished? Yes. That have bigger names? Yes. Obviously if you could have—name a name, somebody very successful, if you could have him as GM here, you’d say, oh, well, that makes sense because he’s done it before. And that could be the way to go.

I’m evaluating right now. But I do like Larry Riley so far. I think he might deserve a shot.

-Q: You’re saying nice things about Riley, nice things about Rowell, you’re talking to Nelson. People are going to read this and there will be some reaction.

-LACOB: I don’t know yet.

-Q: It could be that you’ll keep most of those guys? Keep most of the people throughout the organization?

-LACOB: I don’t know the rest of the people that far. I have to evaluate them. Do you know them?

-Q: I know some of them, but they probably wouldn’t want me offering my opinion to you. OK there are good people in there.

-LACOB: I think there are good people and there are probably some people that need to go, OK? From what I’ve heard. But I need to see it first hand.

It’ll all… people are going to have to be a little patient. I know they want to see change. You’re going to have to be a little patient because there are certain things that are going to preclude us from doing things right this moment.

And then when we get in there, the right thing to do is to meet all the people and evaluate and then make decisions.

And before you know it, it won’t be long, believe me, the people who can’t do their job are going to be gone. You don’t have to worry about that. I’ve been doing this a long time with different companies, and if you can do your job, you’re going to be very rewarded.

-Q: Whether or not the Warriors leaders have actually been terrible at their jobs, the general perception is that they’re mostly horrible. Are they perhaps permanently tarred with that perception so much that you can’t have a new start if you keep them?

-LACOB: I think it’s a factor that has to be taken into account.

-Q I understand you play some poker. Does some of that strategy blend into running an NBA franchise? What do you like about poker?

-LACOB: I’m in the venture capital business and have been for 25 years. We do a lot of diligence and a lot of assessing of things. We do our homework. We’re analytical. But in the end, you’re starting businesses when there’s a lot of unknowns when you do start-ups. No matter how much analysis you do, there’s always going to be things you don’t know.

And what makes somebody good at this business, vs. somebody not good, is the ability to take risk. Calculated risk. And to be OK with that. To be a gambler, to some extent.

I think that yes, I like poker. I like the idea… of calculated risk. Doing my homework, and then you have to take a shot. You learn a lot in poker about people. Phil Hellmuth is a good friend of mine and you learn a lot about people when you play that game.

And by the way, venture capital, sort of similar. You’re making a calculated risk on whether you’re going to put your money on this company or put your money with this person. You have to be comfortable with unknowns.

I think this is al the same thing. This is another level, another game. The business of running a basketball team, there are some things you have to analyze and assess. Do your homework. And then, when you bring on certain players, you’re taking on a little bit of a gamble. They’re human beings, they’re not robots. You don’t know how they’re going to react and play together. You don’t know how the coach is going manage that group of players.

But you can be smart about the architecture and get all the pieces in the right places, and then you’ve got take your shot. Sometimes you have to take a risk.

So I kind of view it all as a little bit of a chess game, right? It’s no different. Just different levels. It’s easier actually in the NBA—there are more knowns than there are at a poker table and there’s more knowns at a poker table, frankly, than there are in venture capital.

When we start companies, believe me, there’s a lot we don’t know.

-Q: Have you played in the World Series of Poker?

-LACOB: I’ve always wanted to play in the World Series of Poker. I’ve played in a WTOP event, one of the major ones, last fall, I think. And I did pretty well, actually, for an amateur. All 350 pros at the Bellagio. All the major pros were there. Think I finished 78th out of 350, almost got in the money. That was pretty good. It was fun.

It’s not about making quick decisions, necsesarily, here. But it is about making bold decisions. I do think we need to make bold decisions. When the timing is right, when you’ve done all the calculating, you can make bold decisions.

I think you can expect this new ownership group to go for it, at the appropriate time. You know, maybe it’ll be this year, or next year. We’ll make a bold move and I think the fans will be pretty excited by it.

May end up turning out to be good, may turn out to be bad—hopefully good. But we will make some bold moves. We are not going to sit around and be a marginal NBA team. That’s not happening.

-Q: All you need is to find your KG, should be easy…

-LACOB: They don’t happen every day, those opportunities. But when they’re there, you have to recognize it and you have to seize it…. It was very calculated. It wasn’t a given we were going to get it. But it was calculated. It was a hand played out.

-Q: Are there advanced statistical analytics that you particularly like?

-LACOB: I do like the statistical approach to sports. I think in baseball, it’s particularly relevant. The Billy Beanes, Theo Epsteins… I admire those people a lot.

I think it also can work in basketball. Probably not to as great an extent, although I don’t think people have explored the boundaries yet.

There’s one great guy, I think, in basketball, Daryl Morey, who came from Boston, by the way. You know him? Daryl’s very good. I think there’s room for more of that. But I don’t think it’s the only thing you can depend on.

-Q: It’s a developing thing…

-LACOB: It’s another piece of data.

-Q: What stat do you like?

-LACOB: There’s a bunch of stats. I’ll give you an example of one: If you look at college players–my son and I do a lot of this stuff, he’s a stat maniac.

And I don’t know if you know this, but this hasn’t been pointed out in the press yet, but one of my degrees is in statistics. I have a masters in something called epidemiology. I have an MBA, but before that I did a masters in epidemiology, which is the study of disease distributions in populations. It’s all about statistics, it’s bio statistics, they call it. So I have a statistics kind of background.

Which is why I’m into poker thing, and the cards and all that. I’m a very statistical-oriented guy.

I do admire all that. I think there’s a place for it. And we’ll probably be doing quite a bit of that.

-Q: You’re going to tell me about college rebounding…

-LACOB: I like guards that can rebound, for instance. Rebounding translates to the NBA verywell. If you’re a good rebounder, you’re a good rebounder.

-Q: I knew you were going to say that.

-LACOB: That’s why I like Landry Fields coming out of Stanford here who I think is going to be very good in New York for the Knicks…

Landry Fields I like as an example. He was overlooked I think in the draft a little bit because he’s a guy that’s 6-7, that obviously, if you watch him play, he has guard skills, NBA guard skills, two-guard. But he rebounds really well. He was 22 and what 9, last year?

He was the leading scorer, too, in the conference, by the way. There’s a guy as a big guard, may need to shoot a little better in the NBA, but he rebounds the ball. I think he translates to the wing position pretty well in the NBA. If he’s athletic enough, which we’ll have to say, could play.

That’s one example. He’s a local guy, I happen to know him, so everyone here will know. But I think he can play.

[Warlike 0]

Ну что ж, похоже, дни нашего коуча у руля ГСВ сочтены.

Для меня странно выглядит эта замена Нельсон - Смарт.

Шило на мыло?

[S_L 0]

Шило на мыло?

Ну зачем же приписывать мэтру несуществующие у него недостатки? Никогда он не выбирал помощников, смотрящих ему в рот!

Очень неплохил ассистентов И выбирал, И воспиывал! Первый, кто пришёл в голову - конечно Попович. Ну и Джонсон - тоже никак не клон.

Напомню что в команде у Нелли Смарт отвечал именно не за атаку....

Впрочем, скоро всё увидим

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Кстати. А играть смолбол-то и некем. Спеца по растягиванию защиты отпустили, а с одним дальнобойщиком ничего не растянешь (ага, "создал Бог Еву и сказал Адаму: "А теперь, дорогой, выбирай себе жену") Реджи Вильямс хороший парень, но никакой не Морроу в атаке. И из больших ни у кого нет дальнего, Талливера не подптсали тоже. Из чего Кис, даже будь на то его желание, слепит мисматч!?!

[clyde 441]

а как же райт тот что из майами?

[Stan Jockersson 41]

Первый, кто пришёл в голову - конечно Попович

А я че-то все время думал, что Поповича воспитал дед Ларри...

[Derek 0]

"Nothing. I was confused for two years. I didn't understand anything and I'm still confused."

- Gregg Popovich, on what he learned in his two years as an assistant to Don Nelson.