Brian Scalabrine is now an analyst for the Boston Celtics, so he’s free to speak his mind on everything that went on in Golden State.
In an interview with 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Toucher & Rich, Scalabrine said Jackson’s staff in Golden State didn’t push the players hard enough, like Doc Rivers and Tom Thibodeau did with their respective teams.
While Scalabrine thanked Jackson for the opportunity and said he enjoyed his time with the Warriors, the 36-year-old former NBA player referred to his one season of being an assistant as his “fiasco with coaching” and indicated that he knew three months into the job that it wasn’t the right one for him.
“Mark gave me a great opportunity to be on the bench, and then when I got there, I think to win in this league you have to drive and push, and I feel like the players will respond to that,” Scalabrine said. “And I think that was the biggest thing about this disappointment in our staff as a staff, right? We could have done more, and we didn’t, and I think he kind of sensed that.
“At the end of the day, to say it was a difference of philosophy, a difference of opinion, I mean, that’s really what it was. And I’m so used to seeing like a Doc Rivers and a Tom Thibodeau (his former coaches), and it kind of threw me for like kind of a loop and a surprise that it was not as hard-pressing as I thought it was going to be.”
Scalabrine said he had the opportunity to interview for a job on Steve Kerr’s staff, but he wanted a less stressful job.