<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Column by Dave Del Grande T HE GOLDEN STATE Warriors have waited a dozen years to "deal from a position of strength." Turns out, it's not all it's cracked up to be. Not willing to break up what he considers to be a good thing unless there's a great thing being offered, Chris Mullin basically has done nothing this off-season. And when you're coming off consecutive 34-win seasons with your "good thing," it's no wonder the faithful are grumbling. Fear not, people. It's not too late ... if Mullin has gotten an inspiration from watching Team USA in the World Championships. It seems everybody in the world (except NBA coaches) knows how to attack American players — with speed at the point. And if it works for, say, Puerto Rico against American All-Stars, you'd think it might be a nice ploy for the Warriors to try against, say, the Clippers. Mullin has two such weapons — Baron Davis and Monta Ellis. I suggest a third: Allen Iverson. Yes, Mullin would have to offer Jason Richardson to get the 76ers' attention. But you know what? In today's game, Iverson is a much more valuable commodity. It can't happen until Richardson proves his minor knee surgery was indeed minor. But then I'm shipping Richardson, Adonal Foyle and a swap of 2007 first-round picks (the 76ers would see this as a plus, but really it isn't) for the perennial All-Star. With Davis attacking from one angle and Iverson from another, the Warriors would dice up every NBA defense and spend half the night at the foul line. Plus, it would get Troy Murphy, the team's best pure shooter, 10 open looks a night, which would produce big-time numbers. Continued... </div> Good grief... We would like guys who can convert points at the foul line and become double team threats and real triple threats on isolations, but this guy hasn't said one thing about budget or any of the crap owners and gms care about in actually building around players like Iverson. Also, history would repeat itself once Iverson washed up without his cat-like quickness and we traded away our future first round picks in a possible deep draft. Del Grande... he's up there with Kawakami and Skip.
Also, the Warriors have been putting off defense and team chemistry for so long. The move from 2003 to 2004 was horrendous by comparrison (talent and chemistry). We got much worse since Mullin came onboard than we did compared to '02's talent vs. '03's talent. The '03 team at least had two former all-stars and career starters that could pass, shoot or defend (NVE, Cliff Robinson, Claxton was not an all-star but he was a good defensive/ballhandling specialist) and we had a 2nd or 3rd best dominant nba defensive center (Erick Dampier) who was up for all-star nominations. Rather than holding an unbalanced crop of overshooting/overdribbling guards, we need some inside force like contract year Dampier and defensive forward that can spread the floor and pass from the high post like Clif Robinson. Then we need to fix up the wing (because Dunleavy was pretty bad in '03 on defense and pretty bad on offense in '04 or '05) and almost all of our point guards and big man depth were hurt in '03, too. Because of this, it forced more of Pietrus and Dunleavy to play pg on one end of the floor and we relied on Dampier/Jrich to carry us. In the backup roles, it goes to show that Pietrus is a shooting guard that has no skill of a shooting guard so he's forced to play small forward. Dunleavy plays like he's 6'1 and 190 lb point guard... not a small forward capable of a strong mismatch at that SF position. Murphy is a good rebounder, but what is the point when he is one of the worst defensive PF's for a guy shooting under 45% and doesn't bother to pass the ball much. Murphy could easily get more defensive rebounds if he helped made defensive stops. Otherwise, he owes his defensive rebounding to everybody else who are making those stops. Playing more like those guard-dominated lineups of the east will not cut it in the west. We need something inside with a suitable backcourt and wing and more experienced management and coaching. Put Monty to assistant coaching until he's learned and then bring him in when he's ready (like Avery Johnson or some of these other head coaches like the guy on the Nets)
i don't like it..i personally think the duo of baron and Jrich is better than baron and iverson because of their chemistry. i doubt it iverson was on this team he want to take less shots and help baron or others out. If he was here some many of our players would barely get a touch
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting iLL PiLL:</div><div class="quote_post">i don't like it..i personally think the duo of baron and Jrich is better than baron and iverson because of their chemistry. i doubt it iverson was on this team he want to take less shots and help baron or others out. If he was here some many of our players would barely get a touch</div> Yeah. Exactly. Other guys will defer to the backcourt and the ball will never leave their hands much. Therefore, it will be more of the same crap as last season. Upgrade SF and C, get a defensive and inside-medium range shooting PF that can pass and we might have something. I feel Taft/Ike will still play better all-around D than Murphy has and consistently (not when they feel like it). It also doesn't help if the primary passer (pg) is already a chucker and the secondary passer (sg) is mostly a scorer that can't handle the ball in pressure. And the backup secondary passer in front of Richardson (at SF Dunleavy) just plain sucks and defenders would rather have him shoot the ball because he can't create or shoot very well. With Baron, defenders would just rather have him shoot the ball than double him or play him rough so he has to shoot foul shots. Iverson is a shooting guard at heart and way less of a skilled playmaking point guard than Baron Davis is, but I like the fact he has better shooting, defense, durability, and signs of improved playmaking skills than he did several years ago. Iverson for Baron or stand pat, but not both. That would be disaster financially and for chemistry. If such a thing went down, we might as well play Russian roulette and pull the trigger six times.
The only thing I like about his column is that he includes Adonal Foyle in the trade. Other than that, Del Grande is smoking el grande loco weed.
Yeah, and Puerto Rico still lost one or two times, didn't they? If we're talking Olympics that's because we had a few combo guards or points that were actually good defenders. They reach in and get blown away off the drive. Good defenders like Bruce Bowen or Artest don't need to grab steals to be effective. For defensive point guards, I'd rather we brought a Claxton/another Iverson type point to stop the quick little bastids and a big point like young Jason Kidd or Gary Payton to stop the 6'3 and over post up guards. I guess bay area beat writers got nothing to talk about like we do because there's no moves being made no thanks to Mullin and his cap killing and luxury tax warning '04 and '05 moves. The only thing I like about Foyle's contract is he has an option year and could be traded early for some team that wants a decent backup center that won't be disruptive in the lockerroom. If it weren't for the Warriors Foyle would be a journeyman or maybe out of this league if he didn't get his chances.
