Today Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers appeared as a guest on KNBR with Gary Radnich and Larry Krueger. I’m not sure if the interview was scheduled, but I’m going to go ahead and assume he decided to go on the record this morning to address the most intense press conference of all time featuring a coach who had just won a game by 40+.
I transcribed Myers’ comments about last night’s mini-controversy. (Short version of what happened: Mark Jackson said Andrew Bogut could’ve suffered his shoulder injury while sleeping, Bogut heard the comments secondhand and got pissed, then Jackson said, “Please don’t twist my words” to the media after the game.)
Here’s what caught my ear:
- The Warriors aren’t saying Bogut injured his shoulder while sleeping, but they’re sticking with the “Bogut could’ve woken up and felt more pain in the morning than he did when he originally suffered the injury” story.
- Myers said Jackson never criticizes players publicly, “even sometimes when they deserve it.” Does that mean the Warriors wish Jackson was more of a disciplinarian? With the team lacking intensity against lesser opponents at times, that’s certainly a possibility.
- Jackson blamed the media last night, and Myers sort of did the same thing when he said “in this day in age of media, things are reported immediately.” Frankly, I think that’s a bit of a cop-out. Jackson said some things he shouldn’t have about Bogut’s injury before the game, and that’s something Jackson should have owned from the outset.
Myers transcript:
I hate doing the whole ‘when I played’ because I was awful and I didn’t play very long, but when I was at UCLA I woke up one day, and I couldn’t lift my arm up. I thought, ‘What the hell, what is this?’ I got an MRI, and they said I had a torn labrum. I didn’t hurt it sleeping, it’s an injury that had to have some impact. But I didn’t know when I did it. And think that’s what gets lost in translation. Bogut, he had an injury. He suffered an injury. Whether it was in practice or a game, he can’t tell you. But he didn’t realize it, I think, until the next day or two. And so, that’s where this thing gets a little miscommunicated. It does happen in sports. People think it’s crazy to not know when you got hurt, but a lot of times the adrenaline, the blood flow dies down in your body when you’re resting after a game and you realize, ‘Man, I hurt something here but I was able to play through it.’ Sometimes it takes an injury a day or two to kick in, so I think that’s what happened in this case.
Then obviously, in this day in age of media, things are reported immediately. So those two hadn’t had a chance to talk. Immediately after they did, it was fine. That’s really what happened. I’d be concerned if they weren’t okay, but they’re fine.
Everybody has buttons that people push. I think Mark has gone out of his way to never criticize his players publicly, even sometimes when they deserve it. He never, in his words, ‘throws them under the bus,’ blames them in certain ways, which a lot of coaches will do in any sport. They’ll say, ‘So-and-so was awful tonight, so-and-so didn’t get it done,’ or ‘so-and-so missed a shot, and that would’ve won it and he’s got to do a better job.’ Mark doesn’t do those things. When something like this comes up, he reacts strongly because that’s not who he is and he takes pride in that. So I think that’s where you saw some of the emotion come into play. Whereas certain coaches have no issue calling out players publicly. My opinion is, if you’ve got something to say to a guy, you say it privately. I think that’s what Mark prescribes too. You can send messages to the media, and you guys both know, there are better ways to do it. Unfortunately it happens all the time, it happens in every sport. People are human beings, they say things. It happens. But I think in this case it got a little bit blown out of the proportion. And thankfully they’re both grown men and it was resolved pretty quick.
In other news, Myers responded to the rumors that the Warriors are interested in Brandon Bass by saying that he talked to Celtics GM Danny Ainge on Monday, and Bass’ name “wasn’t even discussed.” He didn’t specify what he and Ainge talked about, not that anyone would expect that from a general manager nine days before the trade deadline.
