Warriors coaching plan rested on Hill

It didn't take long for the Santa Cruz Warriors to apply one of their "contingency plans."

One day after Nate Bjorkgren bolted the Warriors to coach the Iowa Engery, the local NBA Development League team announced on Friday that former assistant Casey Hill is the Warriors' new head coach.

General manager Kirk Lacob, who is also  the assistant general manager for the parent Golden State Warriors, had said Thursday his team had "contingency plans", and those plans obviously were promoting from within.

"When we saw Casey as an assistant the first year in Bismarck (Dakota Wizards in 2011-2012), we liked him," Lacob said. "And it was pretty evident that he was going to be good. And he got better the second year here in Santa Cruz, and we had plans to elevate him if Nate should leave -- as we said yesterday, we thought Nate might go to an NBA team.

"Casey had talks with a few other teams in the D-League, but we wanted to keep him," Lacob added. "We had a short list of other candidates just in case he left, but we never seriously considered anyone else. We wanted him to be comfortable with us and Golden State. But like we do in all matters involving personnel (and players), we want them to be happy and choose where they want to be. We're glad Casey wanted to stay here and take the head coaching job."

Hill, 30, thus gets a rare opportunity -- to jump to a head  position at one of basketball's highest levels without any previous head coaching experience --  at any level.

"Inexperience doesn't scare me," said Hill, who is the son of former NBA head coach Bob Hill and whose older brothers Cameron and Chris are both head basketball coaches as well -- Cameron of the Trinity College women's basketball team in San Antonio and Chris of the Dallas Jesuit High School (all boys) team.  "I know what it takes both physically and emotionally. I've been around and involved with the NBA since I've been 2 years old.

 "When your father is a coach before your were even born, the instincts are there, and a coaching philosophy has been installed in me both from my father and my brothers." In other words, it's in the genes.

Hill becomes the second head coach in Santa Cruz franchise history and has a tough act to follow. Under Bjorkgren in their inaugural season, the Warriors finished second in the Western Division with a  32-18 record and went 4-0 in their first two playoff series before falling in the NBA D-League Finals to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers 2-0 in games that weren't decided until the final minutes.

"Pressure?" Hill repeated. "There's always pressure, and this pressure ...  I helped create it, so I'll be fine. Last year was a perfect storm for us. The front office, our talent and the community all came together, and we became well-accepted."

So accepted that the Warriors had 21 sellouts in their 27 games at Kaiser Permanente Arena. The local Bay Area fans produced the same kind of enthusiasm as the Golden State Warriors and their fans did in Oakland and the other Bay Area in playing through the second round of the NBA playoffs.

"I know it won't be easy," Hill said. "But working with Nate was like a dream for me. He has the best defensive mind in the D-League. And what I really liked was he requires more effort and energy from his assistants. I thought it was phenomenal that we can look back at how hard every one worked and grew. I will be forever grateful to Nate. Now it's time for me to take a step up."

Bjorkgren is one of those who believes the time is now, too.

"Casey did a great job in his two years as my assistant," the new Energy coach said by phone from Des Moines, Iowa. "I enjoyed spending time with him and thanked him for all his hard work. I think he will be a great head coach. I recommended him to Kirk, I knew Kirk was going to give him the job, and he really deserves it. He's ready to be a head coach.

"The biggest part in the D-League is knowing the league, and knowing how to manage the players. And Casey is a master at that. He had different responsibilities -- scouting, working with the players, managing video clips and editing them -- and he did them all well."

Hill plans to use much of the groundwork that Bjorkgren established. "If it isn't broke, don't try to fix it," Hill said. "We'll put our own thoughts into it, but not change a lot. We'll do a lot of what we did (play tough defense and control the boards). But we would like to run a little bit more of an early offense and maybe be a little more organized on offense." (An early offense, as explained by Hill, is the offensive attack a team takes right after a steal or a block gets your team the ball back).

Hill, a native of Texas, played basketball while earning a degree at Trinity College. Before becoming an assistant for the Wizards, he spent one year in Japan as an assistant coach for his father when he was head coach for the Tokyo Apache in one of Japan's two pro leagues. His dad Bob, who now is assisting another former NBA coach Mike Fratello in guiding the Ukrainian national team,  coached four different NBA teams -- the Knicks (1986-87), the Pacers (1990-1993), the Spurs (1994-1997) and the SuperSonics (1995-97, 2005-2007).

"I don't consider myself an NBA guy," Casey Hill said. "My goal is to be the best at my current position. I'm not saying I'm going to be the best, but my goal is to get to be the best at what I'm doing where I am before moving on." Which might be one way of saying someday in the distant future, that could include a stop in the NBA.

This past summer Hill helped lead the NBA D-League Select Team to a 4-1 record as an assistant coach at the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. He worked under Alex Jensen, who was the D-League Coach of the Year for the Canton Charge before recently being hired as the Utah Jazz's player development assistant.

Hill's first task will be to hire his own assistants since both of the Warriors assistants no longer exist in that form. Hill, of course, is the new head coach, and Vitaly Potapenko left in June to join the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers as their player development coach. 

After that the Warriors will turn their attention to players for the upcoming season. The 8-round draft will be held in November before 17 players will be invited to training camp which will be held at the Kaiser Permanente Center in December.

Until then, Casey and his wife Lizz, who works in the SC Warriors office,  may be spotted around town or in nearby Capitola, where they have been living since leaving Texas.

Lizz is an aspiring artist and "a pretty darn good one at that" according to Casey. Which may help explain why the Hills were eager to stay in the Surf City area.

 A new basketball hotbed and an artist's delight.