http://www.justbball.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58287 We're ranked #27. Only the Blazers, Hawks, and Knicks did worse in rating.
Mook is full of crap. No, he did a good job with the rankings even though I dont agree with some of them. Well i guess we will just have to prove people wrong. I mean every year is the same deal with the Warriors, hopes high then dreams broken. This year will be different....hopefully.
In his defense it was before we got Nelson, even then it was pretty damn low though... Z0MG Bar0n h8ter!111!!11! lol
Sorry for the ranking...I just don't know about the team. However, I do think they will be much better now with Don Nelson in as the coach. I think he's going to employ an offense that'll be rather easy to learn and it will take advantage of the Warriors ability to score the ball. Musselman, from the looks of it, didn't really know how to use his offensive players, seeing as how they were averaging what, 88ppg or so at one point during the season. I think Nelson is going to be good for a few wins, soley because he's a good coach, and I think they're going to be a very high octane team ala the Mavs a few years back. If he can take advantage of all his offensive talent the way most people think he can, they could easily prove me wrong and make the playoffs. Please realize though, I did these rankings pre-Nelson, so at least cut me some slack there.
Nah, I think Mook2k is right on. Coaching or no coaching, our problems do not disappear. We can play to our strengths, but we have few. We're not versatile or consistent at responding to different threats or creating our own. It's why I think coaching won't really help that much because it's about the players we have (skill, experience, physical matchup on both ends, mental game) and their chemistry. It doesn't help when we're an offensive team that's dominated by athletic guards that can't shoot free throws. What the heck do we do when guys foul us hard intentionally everytime we take it inside for a dunk or layup? Either our poor transition defense in games or just plain lack of staimina will wear down on us over the course of the season. Unless we have the bench depth like in 2003, we just lack talent inside and guys who can take advantage of the foul line. I think the reason our rebounding was way up in 2003 was because we had Erick Dampier having a career year at center and we were playing more defense to actually get those rebounds. Shot creation and scoring was the biggest problem, though. But we didn't mess up at the line that much.
The other thing I think you guys have issues with is falling in love with the three. Baron does it all the time and JRich was doing it at times last year. Murphy also decided he'd rather be camping out the arc more often than not as well. Also, consistency kicks you guys in the ass. I don't know if you guys have a consistent player on that team, outside of JRich. Baron can be on one night, and horrible the next. Murphy can go 20/10 one night, fall in love with the three the next and be lucky to break 10/5. If you guys are going to win, there are a few things you have to do: -Stay away from the three. I realize Nelson will want to shoot these in high volume, but I think you should stray away. You guys don't have a great three point shooters percentage wise, just volume wise. The only reason some get a good amount of treys is cause they shoot so many. -Defense, defense, defense. Learn how to play it at least halfway. Again, Nelson probably won't be empahsizing it too much, but you guys need to improve at least a little this year if you have any thought of making the playoffs in a tough conference. Unless of course you're going to become Phoenix and score 110ppg. Do that though, and you'll run out of gas come playoff time, just like them. -Consistency. You guys need to learn it. You didn't have it last year. As I stated, you could have guys going for huge numbers one game, and die off the next. The only consistent threat you had was JRich. Others need to step up and stay consistent, otherwise, kiss the playoffs goodbye. -Finally, injuries kill. Baron needs to find a way to stay healthy. Whether that means reducing his role on offense, taking away some minutes, whatever, keep him healthy. He may be prone to turnovers and stupid shots, but the team is better off with him on the court as opposed to on the IR. Also, no one else can really spare getting injured, especially with a relatively thin bench if I remember right.
Also ball movement because guys tend to hold onto the ball too long. If guys can't create their own shots, then guys need to move and set screens and picks. If guys aren't particularly laterally quick or smart enough to defend guys with the ball, then team defense needs to be played a lot more. It won't stop the fastest dribble penetrator out there but it can save a layup or two by forcing more perimeter shots. Anytime we give up easy, uncontested layups the other team starts getting their offensive rhythm and hits those long shots.
It's very difficult to make the rankings this offseason for the Western Confrence. Each team believes that it can sneak into the playoffs. What is the difference between the Kings at number 9 or the Lakers at number 11 or the Jazz at 13 compared to the Warriors at 27? It's going to be a great winter for NBA basketball in the West. Last season the problems of the Warriors' team were mostly team problems. Players not knowing their roles, players not being in at the right time, the coach not making proper adjustments. Last season the Warriors lost 14 games by three or fewer points. The team lost 20 games by 6 or fewer points. In my opinion if the Warriors didn't shoot so many three pointers and if they had a game plan or system that they could rely on late in games, the record in these close games would had been much better. How many times last season were the slower guards like Fisher getting beaten by ultra quick guards while Monta Ellis was on the bench? Or smaller guys, like Dunleavy, playing the PF position when the team couldn't grab a rebound to save their lives, while the 7 foot Andris was on the bench? What I like most is that Baron Davis will finally have a coach that will help him become a top PG in the NBA like Steve Nash or Tim Hardway. I also like that there is a coach that will look at the players on this team for what they can do, and make a game plan around that, rather than what the players can't do, then make a game plan around that. Also Nelson could do a great job with Monta Ellis as well. The defense is still a question. But there are some good defenders on the team such as Ellis, Devin Brown, Mickael Pietrus, Chris Taft, Andris Biedrins, Adonal Foyle, and maybe POB at some point. The offense should be good and the rebounding should also be better. Don Nelson was saying on the radio that there is a good possibility that the team will convert to a lot of zone defense by or before the all-star break. That whole defense situation will be interesting.
Murphy shot 3's because he was asked to. By late season-his 3 pt attempts had dropped off a lot-and in April were down to about 1 a game. Baron was given the unfortunate job of trying to turn Manure into Filet Mignon...Montyball was a bad concept that AIMED to get 3's. When Plan A and Plan B failed,it was time to do whatever options were left---and opponents WANTED the W's to fling some 25 footers. However-there were early-offense 3's that were pretty hard to figure. Early season games will tell a lot about what players wanted to do vs what they were told to do. I think our players will tend to seem quite a bit "smarter".Monty clung to failed,illfitted ideas.
Don't forget free throws, clif. Man we lost games because guards and wings couldn't shoot free throws. Also, there were some guys out there blowing plays after they were instructed not to do something. It's like Webber calling timeout at Michigan in the NCAA tourney to turn the ball over on the account that his team was already out of timeouts. REREM, I hardly believe a college HOF coach would settle for threes. That's the worst kind of shot. I believe, however that Monty was stubborn in not playing first year rookies or second year wildcards. Talents with big question marks in experience or mentality, but who could potentially have done a better job filling the roles his type of offense needed. But he let them sit for whatever philosophical reason he had. He settled on his 8 players and that included mostly guys like Fisher/Foyle/Dunleavy and sometimes Pietrus. I believe guys like Murphy/Fisher don't know what to do with the ball sometimes, so they shoot it. I mean nobody else is really moving for them and they are too worried about running back on D. Both those types of slow shooters have the courtvision of a deaf bat anyway. Seriously, how can one run any offense when the damned center can't even catch a simple pass or make a simple layup with his good hand (sorry no such thing as his "good" hand. How can we operate when his backup can't even stay disciplined to not pick up a foul per second? How can we keep any dribble penetration honest from the perimeter when guys can't handle the ball, hold onto the ball too long, settle for bad shots, get stopped by the defender, turn the ball over, or brick a pullup jumper? I think it's because our guards were all-around terrible this year (except for Jrich whose only problem was free throws and dribbling). Factor in the bigs don't really help the guard play much, the team is rather static on offense, it becomes a mess. I think everything the Warriors had messed up on thus far is because of the players Mullin chose to invest in long term. He'll need an unconventional game planner to make sense out of this lineup because it can't score very well once teams figure the weaknesses out and it can't defend anything (not even in the halfcourt). What are this team's strengths, really? I mean they have strengths, but they don't show up every night much like Jrich in his rookie/soph year. It just disappears when you need it most... That's why we lose games we could win. It's the poor mental game, it's the lack of physical game at certain positions, it's the lack of skillset at certain positions, it's the lack of teamwork/chemistry, and most important it's lack of experience off the bench. There's nobody we can really count on and know what to expect. Mullin tried to build a playoff team that would be good for the next few years, but he's really failing right now. Hopefully Nelson can help him once again correct bad decisons he's made by finding something that nobody else can see.
Don't mind me, REREM, I'm just in the opinion that this team never had much of a chance last year unless Baron was fully healthy and making shots and had the role players he did in the April season of before (Pietrus/Zarko/Dunleavy were all on fire). That's why whenever I saw a prediction thread that had Warriors lead the Pacific, I was like slooooowwww down.... 8th seed at best. 6th seed if they played perfectly every game at full potential. We are not the Suns all of a sudden I thought to myself last year.
