Jackson Defends His Coaching Career at Golden State

Another NBA season has come to a close for the Pacific division Golden State Warriors. The Warriors played well during the regular season, but were eliminated in seven games in the first round of the playoffs by division rivals the Los Angeles Clippers.

Once again, the Warriors could not win the NBA title. In fact, the team has not won the NBA title since 1975.

Following their ouster from the playoffs, Golden State fired its coach Mark Jackson after three seasons. Jackson on Wednesday defended what he accomplished with the team and invited all of his critics to put their names to their words.

The team fired Jackson on Tuesday after the team compiled a record of 51-31 during the regular season.

Jackson said his team took the Clippers to the limit even though Los Angeles has two of the best players in the league and a coach who one day will be in the Hall of Fame.

Jackson was not happy with how his time at Golden State ended.

News leaked that he was to be fired by management prior to him actually be fired. He said it was not correct to allow something like that to leak to social media prior to him meeting with the team’s management.

There were a number of things that caused problems between Jackson and management on the team. Jackson is a very religious man and has his own church, but said he never was one to beat people over the head with his Bible.

The Warriors management also preferred to have Jackson living in the Bay Area. However, he kept his residence in Los Angeles close to his church.

Jackson said not living in the area did not affect his ability to work as the coach. He used Doc Rivers, the coach of Los Angeles as an example by saying Rivers lived in Orlando while he coached the Boston Celtics.

He said he was always one of the first people in the office and one of the last that left, if not the last.

According to one report, Jackson did not have any relationship with Kirk Lacob the assistant general manager and the son of owner Joe Lacob. However, Jackson said he never had issues with Kirk.

Jackson contends there were no issues between him and Kirk Lacob and insists that if people believe there are then Kirk should be asked to tell his side of the story.

Jackson did admit regret in the way he handled the situation with two of his assistants near the end of the season. Brain Scalabrine was reassigned on March 25 to the D-League, due to different philosophies.

Darren Erman was this fired by Golden State April 5. Reports allege that Erman recorded conversations of coaches and when coaches met with players, without anyone’s knowledge.

Jackson said he considered Bob Myers to be his boss and anyone else was welcome to talk to him, but Myers was his boss and he was not going to do anything that would undermine his relationship with Myers.

Once the NBA season has completed and coaching changes start taking place it is a certainty Jackson will wind up on the bench of another club as their head coach.