The Golden State Warriors have hired 46-year old Mark Jackson to be their new head coach. They gave him a 3-year, $6 million dollar deal. Jackson has no coaching experience, so the Warriors are taking a leap of faith in hiring him. He did play 17 years as a point guard in the NBA. He played in 1,296 games (1,091 starts) in his NBA career and he averaged 30.2 minutes, 9.6 points, 3.8 rebounds, 8.0 assists and 1.2 steals per game. Jackson is #3 in NBA history in assists (10,334) and he’s also tied for 24th (with Kevin Garnett) in steals with 1,608. Jackson has been a T.V. announcer for quite a while, but that’s not coaching. It will be interesting to see how well Jackson does with the Warriors as they will likely look like a completely different team style wise starting in 2011-12. Will that mean more wins? Only time will tell.

Joe Barry Carroll played for the Warriors for 7 years and he appeared in 491 games in which he averaged 35.5 minutes, 20.4 points, 8.3 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.7 blocked shots per game. He is #2 in Warriors’ history in blocked shots (836) and he is also #9 in points scored (9,996) in Warriors’ history. Carroll was never the same after he moved on from the Warriors, with whom he started his NBA career. He was one of the better offensive players in the league while he was a member of the Golden State Warriors.

SG/SF Purvis Short was a really solid basketball player in his time with the Warriors. He played in 614 games for the Warriors in which he averaged 31.3 minutes, 19.4 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.2 steals per game. Short is #9 all-time in games played with the Warriors (614) and he is #8 in minutes played (19,230). Short in also #7 all-time in scoring for the Warriors with 11,894 points and he is #4 in Warriors’ history with 710 steals. Short was a good player who never really gets mentioned as one of the best players in Warriors’ history but he was.