duncan228
06-14-2010, 12:31 AM
From a piece in The Times-Picayune (http://www.nola.com/hornets/index.ssf/2010/06/monty_williams_feature.html).
...As his playing career was about to end with Orlando, where Williams was playing for Doc Rivers, Rivers said he told Williams one day he’d be a coach in the NBA as a way of softening an impending transaction.
“Monty is one of the few players that I played with and coached, ” Rivers said. “It makes you feel 1,000 years old. I told him he was going to coach some day because I was about to cut him soon as a player. Now he’s coaching and is a head coach. He’ll be a very, very good head coach.”
Sentiments echoed by San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich, for whom Williams played three years. Popovich also gave Williams his first coaching job.
“As a player, ” Popovich said, “he was very coachable. I think most coaches were probably coachable when they played at whatever level they might be. He really understood direction and the thing we tried to do program-wise or system-wise, he had no problem with. He picked things up very quickly and he understood. That was the first clue.
“As you get to know him, you realize he’s got a very high intelligence level and he handled himself really well as far as not getting too high or too low. He really had a good demeanor about him. It was impressive.”
But what convinced Popovich of Williams’ future most of all, Popovich said, was a conversation the pair had when it became obvious Williams’ time as a player with the Spurs was nearing its end.
“I knew he understood the deal when we finally did not re-sign him, ” Popovich said. “And I told him, ’You know, Tim Duncan, he’s so good he’s going to get double-teamed every time he touches the ball. And we need to surround him with guys who can shoot it. Monty, that’s not you. You’re a slasher, you’re a defender. You do a great job, but I’ve got to go get some shooters. So we’re not going to re-sign you.’
“He understood completely. He said, ’I want to be here, but I understand what you’re doing.’ He knew how teams fit based on your personnel. You’ve got to do different things. I knew at that point that was somebody that some day I wanted to get back in the program when he wasn’t playing anymore. Because he knew. That’s what we did. We had an opportunity to bring him back on the staff, we did it. We were anxious to get him back in the program. And you always target people like that. You always see people you know you want to bring back in your program someday.”
Williams served a one-year apprenticeship with the Spurs, who won the championship that 2004-05 season against Larry Brown’s Detroit Pistons, San Antonio’s third of four NBA titles.
New Orleans Hornets Coach Monty Williams shaped by brush with mortality (http://www.nola.com/hornets/index.ssf/2010/06/monty_williams_feature.html)
Jimmy Smith, The Times-Picayune
...As his playing career was about to end with Orlando, where Williams was playing for Doc Rivers, Rivers said he told Williams one day he’d be a coach in the NBA as a way of softening an impending transaction.
“Monty is one of the few players that I played with and coached, ” Rivers said. “It makes you feel 1,000 years old. I told him he was going to coach some day because I was about to cut him soon as a player. Now he’s coaching and is a head coach. He’ll be a very, very good head coach.”
Sentiments echoed by San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich, for whom Williams played three years. Popovich also gave Williams his first coaching job.
“As a player, ” Popovich said, “he was very coachable. I think most coaches were probably coachable when they played at whatever level they might be. He really understood direction and the thing we tried to do program-wise or system-wise, he had no problem with. He picked things up very quickly and he understood. That was the first clue.
“As you get to know him, you realize he’s got a very high intelligence level and he handled himself really well as far as not getting too high or too low. He really had a good demeanor about him. It was impressive.”
But what convinced Popovich of Williams’ future most of all, Popovich said, was a conversation the pair had when it became obvious Williams’ time as a player with the Spurs was nearing its end.
“I knew he understood the deal when we finally did not re-sign him, ” Popovich said. “And I told him, ’You know, Tim Duncan, he’s so good he’s going to get double-teamed every time he touches the ball. And we need to surround him with guys who can shoot it. Monty, that’s not you. You’re a slasher, you’re a defender. You do a great job, but I’ve got to go get some shooters. So we’re not going to re-sign you.’
“He understood completely. He said, ’I want to be here, but I understand what you’re doing.’ He knew how teams fit based on your personnel. You’ve got to do different things. I knew at that point that was somebody that some day I wanted to get back in the program when he wasn’t playing anymore. Because he knew. That’s what we did. We had an opportunity to bring him back on the staff, we did it. We were anxious to get him back in the program. And you always target people like that. You always see people you know you want to bring back in your program someday.”
Williams served a one-year apprenticeship with the Spurs, who won the championship that 2004-05 season against Larry Brown’s Detroit Pistons, San Antonio’s third of four NBA titles.
New Orleans Hornets Coach Monty Williams shaped by brush with mortality (http://www.nola.com/hornets/index.ssf/2010/06/monty_williams_feature.html)
Jimmy Smith, The Times-Picayune