Half of his roster either walked away or was traded away, leaving him with a team that barely resembles the one with which he ended last season. Yet Eric Musselman says, as often as he's asked and as often as he volunteers, that he's happy about the results of the chaotic Warriors offseason, and excited to coach what he has been given.

"Changes in the roster do not bother me at all," Musselman said earlier this week -- then clamped his left hand to the arm of the chair in his office, raised his right and added, "I'd put my hand on the Bible. That doesn't bother me one iota."

Musselman, remember, cut his coaching teeth in the CBA. Roster upheaval is a way of life there, and if that is now the case entering his second year with this NBA team, he figures he'll handle it. Besides, he pointed out, expectations for this team -- minus half the players (including its two leading scorers) that Musselman guided to a 17-game improvement over the previous season -- can't be worse than for the one he inherited a year ago.

"We didn't know what we were going to have in camp," he said. "We didn't have an open offense; we didn't have the passing game in training camp. We didn't have that until November. We got to be around the guys, we got to learn, look at film, see that when our plays break down, we're pretty good -- pass, cut, basket, layup. We started seeing that, and that's the intriguing thing about this thing coming together as well."

Musselman can begin piecing his new roster next week, when several players, new and holdover, begin trickling into Oakland in advance of training camp at the end of September. He welcomes it knowing that the skepticism that has dogged the franchise all summer won't end soon.

Musselman defended every move -- and as he did, denied the widespread belief that his influence in the organization was being undermined, already had been undermined by all the layers of management above him, from owner Chris Cohan to general-manager-in-training Chris Mullin.

General manager Garry St. Jean's office is down the hall in the Warriors' downtown Oakland headquarters, and "we talk every day," Musselman said. He and Mullin converse frequently as well, he said, and he was not kept in the dark about the intentions of the front office. The fallout from Gilbert Arenas' departure to Washington as a free agent, he said, was particularly troubling.

"It's tough when you lay it on the line and it doesn't happen," he said. "I felt like Chris (Cohan) did what he could, too, and I felt bad for him with the Gilbert thing, especially with what came out later from (Arenas). We did what we could do; unfortunately, we didn't have (financially) what we needed."