OAKLAND, Calif. -- Eric Musselman, 5-foot-9 and about 140 pounds, is attempting to deadlift an entire franchise. Six men have preceded him as Golden State Warriors head coach, from Hall of Fame big men like Bob Lanier and Dave Cowens to soft-touch Rick Adelman to hard-liner P.J. Carlesimo. General manager Garry St. Jean even resined up his palms for 55 games. Some went through the motions after the obligatory grip and grunt. The others staggered away with hernias.

	Eric Musselman wants the Warriors to forget about the past and the last eight losing seasons.

Call me crazy, but I like Musselman's chances, because he's the first to make the weight of the franchise's run of eight pathetic seasons work in his favor. His guiding principle: "If it happened last year, it will be different this year."

Some of the changes are cosmetic. New brighter lights in the practice facility. New paint in the practice-facility locker room. The team now scrimmages on the third, rather than the first, practice court. Locker assignments have been rearranged in both the practice and regular locker rooms. Players are required to be on the floor no less than 20 minutes during pre-game warmups. Shootarounds are called practices and treated as such.

When second-year guard Gilbert Arenas tried to switch to his original locker, the answer was significant. It wasn't simply no. It was go see coach Musselman, who listened and then explained the change. It sounds simple, but on most teams, the coach lets his assistants and others communicate decrees. Musselman is around and approachable, comfortable taking locker-room flak for his khaki pants not being droopy enough or playing Bay Area media members in a pick-up game.

"Gilbert said he was superstitious," Musselman recounted. "I told him that's why we needed to change. Whatever karma produced 21 wins we don't want to keep."

What hasn't changed, of course, is the roster. The Warriors have cornered the market on players who don't have a position, which is different than being versatile. Most of them play several positions by default. Arenas and Bobby Sura are shooting guards who handle well enough to play the point. Antawn Jamison has a small forward's athleticism and a power forward's skills. Troy Murphy has a small forward's skills and a power forward's body. Adonal Foyle, Danny Fortson and Erick Dampier are built to be defensive forces but are seemingly hellbent on proving they can score. It's even tough to know where rookies Mike Dunleavy Jr and Jiri Welsch best fit.

But as anyone who has been around the NBA will attest, a bad mix of players can be competitive if they play together. That's the beauty of Musselman's myriad changes, which, except for the locker assignments, he made after asking the players what they wanted. The brilliance of the lighting or the color scheme of the locker room don't determine wins and losses. That prerequisite 20-minute warm-up doesn't count for any points once the game clock starts. What all of it does is send the same message: We're not the Warriors who have lost 70 percent of their games over the last eight seasons. We're this year's Warriors and this is how we operate. All of us. Together. Playing time is for those who understand that.

	“	(Musselman) communicates not just with two or three players but everybody. I think it's all good. He's got us out of our routine. ”
		— Antawn Jamison

"He communicates not just with two or three players but everybody," Jamison said. "I think it's all good. He's got us out of our routine."

What I like best is that performance is determining minutes and position. He has scripted the first dozen plays of each exhibition, guaranteeing everyone an early taste of the action, but if a play or a lineup isn't working, he hasn't been hesitant to make a switch. At the same time, he seems aware that since the Warriors won't be playing for a playoff spot anytime soon, this is the best time to shuttle young players in and out to let them develop. Dunleavy Jr. struggled against the Blazers during most of an Oct. 11 preseason game, but Musselman never left him on the floor or the bench long enough to get demoralized. Musselman then played him the last 3½ minutes and Jr. made a couple of plays, softening what would otherwise have been a confidence-shaking night. Welsch started the second quarter at point guard but had trouble getting past midcourt. Musselman stayed with him for all of 65 seconds before bringing in Rafer Alston. Instead of benching Welsch, though, Musselman shifted him to shooting guard, where he promptly got fouled driving to the hoop and assisted on a breakaway layup by Alston.

These are the subtle decisions and small victories that turn around a moribund franchise.

"It's all been very positive," Foyle said. "It's very strange. Happiness is killing me."

Ric Bucher covers the NBA for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at ric.bucher@espnmag.com.