Brian Scalabrine is “coming home” to be an analyst with CSN New England, after spending part of last season as an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors.
Mark Jackson had a rough year in what was his final one as the team’s head coach, and sent more than one of his assistants away during the course of the season.
Scalabrine was one of them, but while the rest of Jackson’s assistants weren’t retained when he was let go, the Warriors organization offered Scalabrine the chance to remain on under new head coach Steve Kerr.
From Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group:
The Warriors let go Mark Jackson and his entire coaching staff after the season, but the team showed interest in retaining Brian Scalabrine for a position on new coach Steve Kerr’s staff, Scalabrine told a Boston radio station Tuesday.
Scalabrine, whose differences with Jackson led to his reassignment to the Santa Cruz Warriors in March, told 98.5 The Sports Hub there was no shortage of coaching jobs available to him as he returned to Comcast SportsNet New England to broadcast Boston Celtics games in order to spend more time with his wife and three children.
“At the end of the day, when they hired Coach Kerr, the ownership offered me a chance to interview, and at that point, I realized they really wanted me to stay within the organization and be a coach at whatever position, whether it was a bench coach or player development,” Scalabrine said in his first statements to the media since his reassignment. “And I just felt like at the time, it probably wasn’t the best move.”
It’s worth noting that new head coaches often like to hand pick their own staff members, and unless someone who served under the previous regime comes highly recommended by those in charge, it’s unusual that they would land a position once that leadership has changed hands.
But if nothing else, it shows that the Warriors front office valued Scalabrine’s contributions, and probably weren’t all that pleased with the way his time with the team came to a close.
