<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Kawakami: Warriors in a bind in trade market By Tim Kawakami Mercury News Staff Columnist Short-attention-span reading, and writing . . . A big wad of nothing. Or Troy Murphy? Even in my heartiest Murphy-bashing moments, I wouldn't have guessed that an NBA team would spurn Murphy and get nothing instead. Silly me, I based most of my recent prediction of Al Harrington's sign-and-trade arrival from Atlanta as a Warriors combo forward on this principle: Murphy isn't great, but he's better than nothing. Oops and whoa there! The Hawks are reportedly set to send Harrington to Indiana for a $7.5 million trade exception and other salary-cap paperwork that doesn't make them better but drops their payroll steeply enough to send their accountants dancing. ? That's the Warriors' problem here: They have a bunch of somethings to trade, but not enough nothing. The players they want to trade (Murphy is due $50.6 million over the next five years, Mickael Pietrus wants an extension) have serious contract issues; and chief Chris Mullin doesn't want to trade the players other teams want (Monta Ellis, Andris Biedrins, Ike Diogu). ? I wonder whether the Hawks asked for Biedrins, who is young and shaky but probably a better center than Zaza Pachulia. I'd have traded Biedrins and Murphy for Harrington, but I'm not Mullin, who loves his young players. Still, Biedrins is slightly duplicated by No. 1 draft pick Patrick O'Bryant, plus Harrington was one of the Warriors' final chances to shake up their 34-victory chemistry. ? But hey, maybe Harrington just wanted to return to Indiana, the team that drafted him. ? What's left for the Warriors this summer? I'd list it in this dreary order: Try a sign-and-trade deal with Seattle for Chris Wilcox (overpriced at this point), make an offer for Utah's Carlos Boozer (injury-prone and short) or wait until February for Kevin Garnett talks (even I'm getting bored with that one). ? Diogu needs to play. But if Murphy stays, will Coach Mike Montgomery remain devoted to his defense-challenged, statistics-obsessed, soft power forward for at least 33 minutes a game and keep Diogu on the bench?</div> http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews...rs/15115171.htm I wouldn't have traded Biedrins and Murphy for Harrington. Biedrins alone could very well be more valuable than Harrington in a few years IMO.
from Janny Hu's interview on the the golden state of mind website Golden State of Mind Q&A with Janny Hu Golden State of Mind: Have you heard anything through the grapevine about any possible Warrior trades? If you had to predict one trade, what would you predict? Janny Hu: Well, Derek Fisher is already gone and it’s no secret they want Al Harrington. Problem is, they need a sign-and-trade partner and are at the whimsy of the Hawks, who can afford to sit and wait for better offers. (Remember, the Erick Dampier deal didn’t get done until late August). If the Warriors open training camp with Troy Murphy and Mike Dunleavy at the forward spots, it will not have been for lack of trying to move them. It's always interesting to hear it coming from an interview from someone close to the scene
Janny Hu > Tim Kawakami. Hu doesn't jump to conclusions or misreport facts like Kawakami often does. Hu also tends to leave opinion out of news articles and just state the facts. Kawakami tends to be negative about everything and offers a crap solution to almost everything he suggests. Biedrins + Murphy for Harrington suggestion is a joke. If Biedrins is hyped up and overrated so is Harrington, and I'd much rather have a true big man that plays like a big man. What is this crap with Harrington where he won't contest shots or rebound the ball despite playing power forward for a team that's weak on the glass? Then we're talking Chris Wilcox? Why would we do that when we have a similar player in Chris Taft and I think Taft has more upside and better current skills. That Kawakami doesn't know any sports like basketball or football and his articles sometimes borderline on "Are you kidding me???"
Kawakami is a luke warm version of Skip Bayless in some aspects. Like Bayless, Kawakami tries to isolate controversial subject matter and take a stand in order to get a reaction / rise from his audience. But Bayless was as sharp as a razor and as inflammatory as the bite of a black widow IMO. Kawakami is trying to follow in his footsteps IMO (perhaps Mercury management pressured him to "up" the instigation after Bayless left) but he just isn't very insightful at times and seems to hop from fence to fence in order to get the best view. In his defense, however, he's not there just to report the news. He's writing a column, not a press release, and it's his job to give his opinions -- albeit skewed at times -- and have fun with the subject matter. If he kept his opinion out of it, there'd really be nothing left to say.
True. Let's start a new thread about why the Warriors need Larry Brown, who is probably bound to do the things that Montgomery did which got LB fired from New York. This is outside of the fact that both GS and NY GMs are both dumb and dumber when it comes to player contracts and building teams that don't fit or get it done defensively or on the glass.
Props to CR2, because I was all on board for Harrington, but now I am glad we wont be getting him. I am a little disappointed that we have the 2nd highest payroll or whatever and we are not even sniffing the playoffs and we did nothing significant to attempt to improve this team. I just hope Monty will let the team play like he did at the end of the 04 season and Baron goes wild while staying healthy. I dont care who starts as long as whoever finishes. FTs apsolutely KILLED us last year. The minute that starts to happen again will cause me to go into frenzy!
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting custodianrules2:</div><div class="quote_post">This is outside of the fact that both GS and NY GMs are both dumb and dumber when it comes to player contracts and building teams that don't fit or get it done defensively or on the glass.</div> Just imagine if Isiah Thomas was over here doing Rod Higgins job as assistant GM to Mullin. Those two would go bananas together. Thomas would talk Mullin into bringing Bryant "Big Country" Reeves out of retirement and giving him 6 years 60 mils. to be a player/coach. Then Mullin would one-up him by announcing that Bill Curley is the new "veteran presence" the Warriors have been lacking, and he'll find a way to reason that the 5 years 70 mils he gives to Curley is the going rate for veteran leadership. You just can't put a price on experience.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Warriorfansnc93:</div><div class="quote_post">FTs apsolutely KILLED us last year. The minute that starts to happen again will cause me to go into frenzy!</div> That's a huge reason why we lost games other than blown plays, inability to create from a variety of positions, bad shot selection, bad decision-making, bad shooting in general. If we play uptempo, we've got to have the stamina and talent depth to last through all four quarters and make sure teams can't defend how we play. This means outside shot goes down, fastbreaks become successful, guys move around off the ball and create clear passing lanes ahead of defenders, guys can pass or score off the dribble, guys are rebounding and playing transition defense. If they can't do these thing consistently or can't do this in a way that teams cannot match, then playing the first three quarters is just for show until the other team pwns us in the 4th like teams do in every year thus far. The 4th quarter collapse has been a trend every year, not because of lack of go-to scoring, it's because they don't work hard enough in finding the right plays or they don't know how to make these plays when the other team turns up their defense. This is also the reason why the Warriors record has a lot to do with how well we play during stages of the season. When we're in playoff contention, we struggle (this holds true for Baron Davis being out of the rotation and Fisher back in). When we're out of the playoffs, then guys start playing well. The players have a weak mental game and utter lack of teamwork probably due to a variety of things like inexperience, lack of practice time, guys not knowing plays or about basketball, and the team not fitting in because the player roles are all screwed up or missing. Then I think other teams, especially playoff teams, don't even care about playing us hard because they'd rather rest up their best guys for the playoffs. I mean its why we can only smoke Dallas when the games don't matter, not because we play more rookies.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting AlleyOop:</div><div class="quote_post">Just imagine if Isiah Thomas was over here doing Rod Higgins job as assistant GM to Mullin. Those two would go bananas together. Thomas would talk Mullin into bringing Bryant "Big Country" Reeves out of retirement and giving him 6 years 60 mils. to be a player/coach. Then Mullin would one-up him by announcing that Bill Curley is the new "veteran presence" the Warriors have been lacking, and he'll find a way to reason that the 5 years 70 mils he gives to Curley is the going rate for veteran leadership. You just can't put a price on experience.</div> As long as Mullin is in charge over Isiah Thomas that would be a lot better than Isiah Thomas in charge of Mullin. Thomas is not only as reckless in the way that Mullin is, but he makes way too many moves he ends up wanting to undo the year after and he also trades away his future players and draft picks. We're talking about a GM that has unlimited budget to work from and he doesn't have a clue what it takes to build a team or let the chemistry develop. He's also built rosters with little decision-making ability or guys unable to play defense or rebound the ball. He was anti-Kurt Thomas/Nazr Mohammed, high on Eddy Curry. Both are good drafters, but that's about it... I think both are kind of dumb and blind and all they do is make other teams better than their own. Just look at the Suns, Spurs and the position they are in now. With Mullin, we've probably made Dallas a lot better. They've got a true center with Erick Dampier by trading Laettner to us and a few picks, they've turned Jamison (turned to Stackhouse/Devin Harris) and Fortson into nice trades (Fortson->Booth->Keith Van Horn). Dampier blowing it for Dallas was fitting, but imagine if they had Foyle. They would be so much worse. At least Dampier can have a 20 rebound game next to Dirk Nowitzki, another good rebounder. Isiah = bad signings, too many bad trades Mullin = bad signings, not enough trades
In a sense, Thomas is an amazing person. I don't know how a guy with such a bad resume can get a chance after chance, and even beat out Brown, who has one of the best history and always sent his team to PO in his second year. I mean, he failed as a coach, he bankrupted CBA, and he even managed to become worse GM than Layden. Anyway... I never liked Kawakami and Hu is quickly becoming one of my favorite Warriors writer along with the guy from CCT (Doesn't he write anymore?). Because Kawakami doesn't know much about Warriors and love to make a bold statements after statements, while Hu knows what she is talking about. I mean, even in this article, shouldn't he know that even if we offer Jordan, James and O'Neal, if we don't offer enough $ to Harrington and he says no, the deal just can't happen? In flip side, if we beat out Indiana and offer like $10.5 mils per year, Atlanta will have to accept for acceptable package? The only reason Murphy's name was mentioned in this trade scenario was because Murphy was the only one who will match the salary of Harrington, and Atlanta will only think about accepting Murphy (Because we won't trade Davis or Richardson and they won't accept Foyle or Dunleavy) for sign and trade deal? It can be frustrating to read a public newspaper article, which really belongs to message board material. That has been said... What now? Is there anybody to trade for? Even though I don't really expect anything big, we woudl be in trouble if Fisher dump is all. Becuase we didn't address any of our weakness at all, and the only thing we are looking for is improvements of our young cores...
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Kwan1031:</div><div class="quote_post">It can be frustrating to read a public newspaper article, which really belongs to message board material.</div> Lol <div class="quote_poster">Quoting Kwan1031:</div><div class="quote_post"> we woudl be in trouble if Fisher dump is all. Becuase we didn't address any of our weakness at all, and the only thing we are looking for is improvements of our young cores... </div> Well Kwan, I dunno -- I think the Fisher dump did address a primary weakness -- that of Fisher getting 30+ mpg, getting many mils, and completely clogging up the movement of the offense like a hairball in the drain. If GS stands pat, swapping the knucklehead Fisher out for McCleod is an improvement IMO. No longer will Montgomery have the option of going to "0.4" at the PG position. Fisher helped at the end of games with freethrows and desperation threes, but his negative impact on the offense during the first 3 quarters of the game far outweighed any "heroics'" during the 4th. McCleod will be quiet, out of the way, and he'll just take care of the rock until Baron can get back on the floor. That's a good thing IMO.
If Fisher was a small forward we would love him more than Dunleavy, though. Well... until he shoots us out of ball games, but at least he would nail more than 50% of wide open distance shots.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">If Fisher was a small forward we would love him more than Dunleavy, though. </div> Speak for yourself. Fish was hands down my most hated Warrior. I'm just glad that there's nobody on the roster that I hate anymore. I'm frustrated with Murphy, Dunleavy and Foyle, but I don't hate them
Fisher couldn't fill the role, but on the other hand if we had a dribbling penetrating shooting guard + a low post big man, we'd love Fisher. It's all in the context. Fisher is only good if some other player does the roles he can't do because he's not that smart or not that physically gifted. Fisher at small forward wouldn't dominate the ball as much and he'd catch and shoot like we want Dunleavy to do. Plus he'll play defense and he can handle and pass some if there's an obvious target. Just don't expect the guy to be creative because he's a herrrrible decision-maker. I would love to see Kawakami as one of the other NBA GMs. I guarantee that guy would be a franchise ruiner of Twardzick or Isiah Thomas proportions. That's how clueless this guy is about the game of basketball. Also when it comes to football he don't know crap either. He probably never played either and he probably never learned it by watching.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting CohanHater:</div><div class="quote_post">Speak for yourself. Fish was hands down my most hated Warrior. I'm just glad that there's nobody on the roster that I hate anymore. I'm frustrated with Murphy, Dunleavy and Foyle, but I don't hate them</div> Don't be hatin' the player, hate the game. Wait, don't hate the game. The NBA - I love this game! Yeah -- oh man I'm SO glad Derek "rainman" Fisher is gone. Oh geez that is so great. I think I've had several nightmares this off-season where I'm walking up the steps to my noze-bleed seats at the arena, carrying a pretzel and some churros, and I sit down next to my wife and she hands me the binoculars as she says "they just started the second quarter" and I'm adjusting the focus on the binoculars as I take a bite of my churro, and I swing my gaze down to court-side and all of a sudden the point guard comes into focus and it's this little man -- he looks like he's about 60 years old -- and he's got a grey beard and he's wearing "James Worthy" glasses and he's hobbling across the half-court line bringing the ball up, and Mike Montgomery is court side in his motorized wheel-chair and he looks like he's 85 years old and he's barking the play out to old-man point guard, and the PG comes up to the top of the key and blatantly waives off Montgomery with a few animated words and a hand gesture before busting a triple-cross-over dribble despite having no one in front of him to fake out, he just does this fancy dribble show for kicks, and then with 18 seconds on the shot clock he jacks up a fade-away three -- again no need to fade away with the defender playing way off him -- from like 8 feet behind the line and as he releases the shot he goes down on one knee reaching for his back as the ball sails completely over the backboard and I ask my wife "what's up with that guy?" and she says "oh well Derek Fisher has been having hernia problems lately" and I realize who this old man is still on the Warriors and I choke on my churro and spray cinnamon all over the people in front of me and then I wake up in a cold sweat. Man that's a nightmare. Then I realize Fisher is gone, and everything is okay, it's 2 am and I'm safe in my home, I look out the window and see the stars twinkling over the Monterey Bay, the cold salty breeze plays games with the billowing curtains, the dark sky is clear and an imaginary paint brush pulls a golden streak of light across the sky -- a shooting star -- and I realize everything is right in the world.
Wow, you dreamed all that, Alley oop? I dreamed we suddenly got Jermaine O'neil. I forgot who we traded. I think it was Ike Diogu. We kept Murphy though. That'd be great if JO and Biedrins became one of the league's most dominating paint player tandems. Biedrins at C, JO at PF, run n' gun with Baron and Jrich. Then I woke up and realize that the salaries probably wouldn't even match for the guys that aren't on our team, so it's not possible.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting AlleyOop:</div><div class="quote_post">Yeah wake up Custodian -- now if we threw in Foyle......</div> That's who we must have traded! Must have been Dunleavy (with no BYC) + Foyle. Ha ha ha. No wonder I woke up smiling.
