Reply With Quote
I remember him always giving 100%. Serious hustle at all times.
From a piece in 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 les.
New Orleans Hornets Coach Monty Williams shaped by brush with mortality
Jimmy Smith, The Times-Picayune
I remember him always giving 100%. Serious hustle at all times.
Glad he got a HC job. He was an all out cool dude.
I remember Monty heavily recruiting Tim to Orlando...hated him ever since.
I really liked him as a player. Nothing about those assessments surprised me. I'm glad he's finally getting an opportunity. Wish him nothing but the best.
So let me get this straight: Pop knows we need shooters... And yet we don't have a single clutch shooter on the team except Manu?
How did we get from there to here? Could it be that we get guys who are shooters, and then Pop kills their confidence?
Last night Paul Pierce said something very interesting after the pivotal game 5 win...he said they just needed to go out and play and not think too much. Could Pop be asking our guys to think too much? Is that what put the dagger in Mason Jr.?
RMJ has always been a scrub. In the two years he was here, he had half a season where he played over his head. Unfortunately for him, he came back down to earth when he was most needed.
My favorite MW moment was when he had Kobe Bryant in a headlock at the Alamodome while Will Perdue undercut Derek Fisher and flipped him head-over-heels. I hope everyone remembers this brawl. Good times.
Obviously, that's been true of the Spurs since they let Monty Williams go in 1998. They've never been able to find competent shooters to surround Duncan and Pop's an absolute moron for failing to find those guys after identifying the need for shooters to surround a big man who commands a double team on every trip.
I mean guys like Mario Elie, Brent Barry, and Robert Horry were really not clutch shooters at all.
Or, maybe, Pop managed to surround Duncan with a lot of great shooters for almost a decade and won a whole bunch, but now that Duncan no longer commands a double-team the offensive concept must change or finding the special sorts of players who can match the exploits of Barry, Elie, and Horry but without the benefit of constant doubles is exceedingly difficult.
Nah, it couldn't be that second thing. Pop's a moron.
It's great for Monty to get a chance as a head coach. He seems to be in a good situation too. Chris Paul will improve the chances for any coach to succeed.
Yes. Duncan not being consistently doubled has changed everything. Also , his effeciency at passing out of the doubles created great looks for the shooters. Parker, I do believe has gotten better at finding shooters off the drive and Manu has always distributed well, but Duncan required so much attention inside that shooters consistently got great looks.
Not quite so easy now.
I remember him never playing and doing about a million jab fakes before putting up weak jumpers during pregame shootarounds.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
