Montgomery Accepts NBA Challenge

Mike Montgomery was introduced as coach of the Golden State Warriors on Friday, the former Stanford leader quickly addressing the challenge he faces in making the jump to the NBA.

Sounding much like Lon Kruger, Tim Floyd, Leonard Hamilton and John Calipari after they had left college coaching jobs for what turned out to be ill-fated runs at the pro level, Montgomery said he was excited about the players on his new team.

“This is not about me, this about the players,” said Montgomery, 57, who left Stanford after 18 years to sign a four-year deal reportedly worth $10 million to become the ninth coach in 10 years for a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 1994.

“I know that there’s going to be a reasonable amount of people out there, the cynics, that want me to fail because I’ve been a college coach,” Montgomery said. “But I also think there’s a lot of people out there who want to see me succeed.... I just need to make sure that I’m prepared and that our players are prepared.”

If only it were that simple.

Over the years, many high-profile coaches without professional experienced thought they could win in the NBA but failed. Kruger, Floyd, Hamilton and Calipari are recent busts.

“I was unaware going in that it’s not always going to be about what’s best for the team winning games,” said Kruger, who left the University of Illinois in 2000 to coach the Atlanta Hawks for three losing seasons.

“Sometimes it’s about, ‘Can we afford this? Is the timing right?’ Especially when you are losing, the question becomes, ‘Is it worth the investment?’ It’s easy to identify what makes us a better team. But having ownership committed to doing that is huge too.”

Montgomery, who has spent the last 25 years coaching college ball, said he wasn’t concerned about others’ failures.

“I’m just not convinced that this can’t be done the right way,” Montgomery said. “That you can do it with a lot of similarities, with fundamentals, good team play with guys wanting to win and playing hard.”

Some have made the switch successfully.

Rick Pitino left a strong Providence program in 1987 to take over the New York Knicks. He led them to a 14-win improvement the first season and into the playoffs for the first time in four years.

The next year, he coached the Knicks to 52 victories and a first-round sweep of the Philadelphia 76ers in the playoffs.

But Pitino credits his early pro success to his experience as an NBA assistant under Hubie Brown. “I knew what to expect,” Pitino said.

“It’s totally different, not just a different level of players. In college, you practice a lot more. You’re developing skills. You play more zone, press more. In the pros, it’s a marathon, and it’s all about matchups.”

In 1989, Pitino left the NBA to take over Kentucky’s program, leading the Wildcats to an NCAA championship in 1995. But in 1997, he caught the NBA bug again.

This time, the results were different. Pitino took over as president-coach of the Boston Celtics, who improved their victory total by 21 in his first season but failed to make the playoffs in four seasons. He resigned after compiling a 102-146 record.

Pitino said that going from college to today’s NBA was “like shock treatment.”

“The mistake college coaches make is, they take jobs with teams with very little talent,” Pitino said. “The NBA is all about talent.”

The league was a lot different when Jack Ramsay and John MacLeod moved from college coaching to the NBA.

Ramsay was an outstanding coach at Saint Joseph’s, compiling a 234-72 record with 10 postseason appearances, before jumping to the NBA as general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers in 1966. He then coached for three decades in the NBA, winning 864 games and leading the Portland Trail Blazers to a league championship in 1977.

MacLeod, a successful coach at the University of Oklahoma in the 1960s, became the Phoenix Suns’ most successful coach, leading them to the NBA Finals in 1976.

Montgomery has worked with NBA players with the U.S. national team and at Michael Jordan summer camps and is counting on a nucleus of young players to build on.

But former USC Coach Charlie Parker, an assistant with the Dallas Mavericks for the last eight seasons, says Montgomery is making a mistake if he thinks he will have enough practice time to make an NBA player better.

“You pretty much have total control of an athlete throughout the entire day during the season in college,” Parker said. “Not so in the NBA. You have very little control. You have two hours of practice and that’s it. The rest of the time, they do what they want to do.... When you look at [Montgomery’s] teams, they were known for being so disciplined and structured. In the NBA, that’s really tough to accomplish because of the time restraint.”

Montgomery says he likes his chances.

“The guys who have gone straight from college to the NBA that have not done as well -- in most instances -- got into very bad situations,” he said. “I look at this as a good situation. We’re not going to undefeated next year, but ... this is a new day.”

Times staff writers Robyn Norwood and Steve Henson contributed to this report.