New Hornets coach plans up-tempo style

NEW ORLEANS (AP)

There was a twinkle in Monty Williams' eyes as he recalled all the times Doc Rivers yelled at him when they were together with the Orlando Magic.

When Williams was introduced as the ninth head coach of the New Orleans Hornets on Tuesday, he admitted the current Boston Celtics coach was right about one thing.

"Doc Rivers kind of told me I'd be a head coach one day. I just kind of looked at him like he was nuts," Williams recalled. "It wasn't a part of my thinking at the time."

Williams, a former first-round draft choice out of Notre Dame by the New York Knicks, played nine NBA seasons. He traces his road to coaching to a point during his three seasons with Orlando when he walked toward the bench during a game that wasn't going well and told Rivers the Magic needed a timeout.

"He just goes off on me: 'Just play and get out of here!"' Williams recalled Rivers saying. "I start walking toward half court, saying what I had to say, and then he called timeout. After that, we had some talks ... and he just brought it up that I might be a coach someday."

Rivers recalled the exchange with a laugh as well.

"I told him he was going to coach someday because I told him I was about to cut him soon as a player," Rivers joked shortly before Game 3 of the NBA finals in Boston. "But no, I'm very happy for him. He'll be a very, very good coach."

Soon after chronic knee problems ended Williams' playing career in 2003, Williams became a coaching intern with Gregg Popovich's staff in San Antonio in 2004-05, a season the Spurs won an NBA title.

The following season, he joined Nate McMillan's staff in Portland, remaining with the Trail Blazers until now.

At 38, he is a head coach for the first time and currently the youngest in the NBA.

He'll inherit a squad that went 37-45 last season and missed the playoffs for the first time in three years. Yet Williams said he thought the Hornets would be a good fit for him when they called and told him he was a candidate for their coaching vacancy.

One big reason was the presence of three-time All-Star point guard Chris Paul.

"In Portland, we were always trying to get (a top) point guard, and then we got Andre Miller last year and I realized how much easier the game can be when you have an elite point guard running your team," Williams said.

The Hornets also have a prominent power forward in two-time All-Star David West, as well as a pair of promising second-year players in point guard Darren Collison and shooting guard Marcus Thornton.

There were times last season when the Hornets went with a small lineup that featured Paul, Collison and Thornton together, something Williams said he looks forward to employing with the time is right. He saw first hand how that same trio helped the Hornets put together a surprising late-game run to win a late-season game in Portland.

"To say you can play that way all the time? No," Williams said. "I would do one of those guys a disservice because they'd probably be playing against a guy that's my size (6-foot-8). So we're not going to be playing that way all the time just because the NBA will dictate how you play, and yet it is an intriguing combo of players."

Williams said he wants the Hornets to play an up-tempo style, but not at the risk of increased turnovers. The new coach also said that if the Hornets don't improve defensively on the perimeter as well as the inside, it won't matter what style of offense they play.

"I feel like David and Emeka (Okafor) got a lot of flak for giving up a lot of paint points and post points this year. I don't think all of that is on their shoulders," Williams said. "I think our guards and wings have to help them hold the paint down."

After general manager Jeff Bower - who'd taken over as coach following Byron Scott's firing this past season - had gone back to the front office full-time, New Orleans interviewed eight coaching candidates. The top two emerged as Williams and Celtics assistant Tom Thibodeau, who passed up an offer from New Orleans to instead become head coach in Chicago.

Williams said there where times he thought he would not land the Hornets' job, but if he was the second choice, he wasn't about to complain.

"There's 30 jobs. To get one of them is a privilege," Williams said. "I just don't look at jobs and say, 'Well, I'd rather coach here and not there."'

Bower said he's had an eye on Williams since witnessing how he handled Portland's Las Vegas summer league squads a few years ago.

"At that point, we felt that this was going to be a coach that was going to be a fast riser," Bower said. "This was going to be a coach that was going to be very successful when given the opportunity."

Bower spoke in an arena built in the shadow of the Louisiana Superdome, home to the Super Bowl champion Saints, who gave Sean Payton his first shot at a head coaching job. Big Easy basketball fans are quite familiar with that story, and can only hope the Hornets struck gold with Williams in the same way the Saints did with Payton a little over four years ago.

"It's always fair to question whenever any coach takes his first job," Bower said. "We don't view it as a gamble. We view it as an opportunity. If it is to be looked at as a gamble, I would say it's a gamble on greatness."