I thought that our record this year is so much better than last year, so we must have improved. Right? I'm not so sure now. Ok, we've had injuries this year, but those happen every year. I think the difference is JRich. He's having a monster year for Charlotte!!! And the bench isn't as good as last year. Last year, I remember guys stepped up like Monta, Azubuike, Barnes and Pietrus. Having Don Nelson as coach who doesn't play rookies or sophomores too much really hurts our immediate future. He also doesn't like to play two big men together so we ended up losing a player who I think can play such as Josh Powell without ever really seeing what they can do on court for the Warriors. I think POB will be another casualty in that regard. Instead, Nelson opts to play Mickey Pete and My Bad who may not be around next season. Yeah, its tough to argue with his record but it comes at a cost.
I think this year's team is better and not just because of the record. The departure of J-Rich has allowed Stack Jack and Ellis to have career years. BD is having one of his best all-around years and has played every game. I think the biggest downer this year has been the inconsistency and/or lack of contribution by Al Harrington, Matt Barnes, and Pietrus. I don't understand Harrington. He has the size and quickness and talent to avg. a double-double. I get nervous when the ball is in his hands. He's too herky-jerky and seems to rush everything...probably because he's trying to play like Baron Davis but is in a big man's body. Is Nellie to blame or is it just that Harrington can't put it together? I'm not trying to bash on the guy too much I like him, but I'm leaning towards the "he's hurt the team more than helped" camp.
The system is flawed because the Warriors are a below-average 3-point-shooting team, yet they attempt the most 3s of all NBA teams. That makes no sense. It's especially frustrating when you have the NBA's field goal % leader, Biedrins, left fighting for scraps off everyone else's misses, and Monta with his solid midrange shooting. Those two make the team averages look respectable, but look at the rest of the team: Baron 43.2%, SJax 40.7%, AlH 43.4%, Pietrus 44.1%, Barnes 42.7%, Azubuike 45.3%, Croshere 42.9%. That's horrible. Maybe it's not quite as bad as it looks because they shoot so many threes but having 7 of your top 9 players in minutes shoot at or under 45% can't be good. OK, so yes, Al can chuck 3s because his larger, slower defenders can't follow him around on the perimeter. But do you really need that? When the Warriors are moving the ball and screening, they can get open threes all day long, it should be the guards shooting those shots, they just need better 3-point shooting guards and small forwards, and real big men inside. I'd love to see Biedrins and Wright playing together in a few years, but I don't know if we'd ever see that from Nellie because he'd say Wright "can't stretch the defense" or something. Maybe not, but he's in there blocking and disrupting shots, shooting a high %, and pulling down rebounds like no one we've seen for years on the Warriors. Yes, Al can handle the ball OK and bring it downcourt. That helps you maybe once or twice a game on fastbreaks, but his lack of size, aggressiveness, and rebounding skills kills you defensively the other 40 times down the floor. It's not a good tradeoff. And like so many of the Warriors he's just too streaky to rely on. The Warriors don't seem to be very good at finding and feeding the hot hand when it doesn't involve shooting threes. How many times have you seen Biedrins go 4 for 4, for example, and then just not have another single play run for him? Sorry for the not-very-well-thought-out rant, I'm just frustrated right now...
I'm with HiRez. What we're seeing here in terms of a basketball product, is a style that does not win a lot of playoff matchups. We may have gotten better on the perimeter with 3 good ballhandlers on the floor at one time, but that's all we have. There is absolutely nothing good about our inside game and our rebounding ability (a similar problem last year). Plus, our defense SEEMS to have gotten worse, but I don't know if that's real or not. Our shot selection just gets worse and worse if we don't have anybody inside to anchor the paint down. The only guys who provide any interior presence are Andris Biedrins (when he rolls to the hoop and he actually gets touches first), and Baron or Ellis when they drive. That's it. Buike is an overrated finisher if we're comparing him to Jrich, but he's an NBDL callup who is actually pretty decent in terms of role players and the role player mindset. Harrington can't finish inside and has weak hands, strength, and coordination around the bucket. I don't like his game at times, but he's an oversized small forward not a power forward and not the good tweener that guys like Antoine Walker/Antwan Jamison can be as scorers (because they can also rebound, Jamison can get fouled, Walker passes and dribbles. Harrington also sucks as a weakside defender, which we need our center to be! Then with Sjax, you'd rather have him as a set shooter and guy who can dish from up top). He's not the guy we want to handle the ball in many dribbles, nor shoot off the dribble. He's still a very valuable player because he's got a high basketball IQ, he plays within himself, and his best weapon is the triple threat position where he has a live dribble option. He's got the length to shoot over players and quickness to drive past. He has the ability to shoot better than any other Warrior, but isn't the highest flyer nor strongest rebounder. Barnes and Pietrus are too frustrating and undersized to give reliable minutes. Their game is mostly hustle. I respect Barnes, though. He's had a tough year outside basketball. It's like our forward game has gone to crap without Jrich and you know he was important because he was the guy taking away minutes from Harrington/Pietrus/Barnes at power forward at times (He did share duties with Sjax/Barnes for this role as dual forward). Richardson was a better rebounder and inside finisher too... and I think we're missing that this season. He also a monster on the fastbreak because he could flat out run the floor and finish lobs like no other (those long arms, big hands, and fantastic leaping ability and coordination). I just feel we've gotten better only in our perimeter game. Nobody above the small forward position plays big for their positions except for Andris Biedrins. Our scoring has gone up, field goal % looks pretty decent when we've got a guard shooting 50% or above most nights. Jrich dribbling off his own feet or forgetting the ball are things of the past. But our defense is not good. It's gotten worse, it seems. I think last year we had a little bit more defensive tenacity. I don't really have any stats to back this up, but it feels like something has changed. It's like when Monta minutes and Harrington minutes go up, Biedrins minutes go down, defense seems to get worse. Lineups that trade defense for offense are the signature of Nelly ball regardless of the roster, but we suck even more defensively it seems... But I'm thinking maybe if we still had Jrich, a 20ppg scorer and hustle player, it would threaten defenses a lot more with Baron, Ellis, Jrich, Sjax, Biedrins all playing at the same time. I think Jrich/Sjax at power forward is a lot more reliable than Harrington/Sjax because at least we have one guy of the possible two forwards able to rebound and score inside and block shots. Harrington == the smallest 6'9 at power forward. I feel like things have to change this offseason. I give the warriors credit for staying this high in win %, but this type of ball does not win playoff games or against playoff teams. Lack of size gives up defense. We got to move the ball around and dare people to collapse inside and out so we can get good looks and find good shot selections. For that to happen we need scoring threats inside the paint. Then we can go down low, kick the ball out, rather than having to drive or settle for threes to get the opposing defenses to react. It's like in football, we want to fake movement or trick the opposing teams so that defenses overplay or underplay. We can do that, but we settle for too much isolations outside and not enough inside to grow that inside/outside ball movement chemistry and find more shot attempts inside the paint with the guards spread out. What I would give to have a player like Amare Stoudamire that is both big and fast and pretty skilled... What I would give to have a set of bigs that could operate like a Chris Kaman/Elton Brand tandem or a Marcus Camby/Kmart (when both are healthy), how about a David West or healthy Tyson Chandler... Hopefully, if all goes well and we're patient we'll have a Biedrins/Wright tandem which could be a double double per player type of tandem. Oh I pray! I just don't like the fact our warriors play one good center who is probably better than he is if he gets more touches and minutes and an inconsistent set of forwards that do not fill the role of natural at power forward. If we have a center that doesn't score, then we need a power forward that can open it up inside and out. Harrington is such an undersized guy who runs hot or cold, it's probably why Nelson was looking at Webber to do more than score. But the problem was Webber was so slow and old, he had no option but to put him at center and take away minutes from Biedrins. IMO, it really was a message aimed at Harrington and how he isn't the right man for the job on this team, especially inside the paint. I'm not saying Wright is either, but it's a huge problem when neither center or power forward is getting involved because they aren't natural scorers or they don't do enough scoring inside consistently or do other things besides score (like playing defense, rebounding, or passing). Did I mention Harrington is a really selfish player at times? I wasn't too excited about this guy in the trade that's for sure... He's like another Murphy to me (horrible weakside defender, bad inside player, stats that lie). I can't blame him too much because at least Harrington can play a position such as small forward and power forward in the East, but Murphy has no choice but to play a center or a very slow power forward and he's not even as good as Mehmet Okur, Dirk Nowitzki, Marcus Camby, Andrew Bogut, Pau Gasol, or Tim Duncan who are in the same class of skilled power forwards who can also play center. We need one of those guys to contend with those guys. Basketball is a matchup game and we will lose in the frontcourt and middle if we don't beef up and find that special player. We need a big player badly and it just never happens for the Warriors... Instead they go straight to Portland... They already got Greg Oden and LaMarcus Aldrdige... it's not freaking fair! I guess we're lucky to have Biedrins (a tall PF body playing center) and Wright (an SF/PF tweener body), but it'd be better if we had two sets of players that we're a bit bulkier... Sorry for the insanely long post, but it's something I needed to get out. Just frustrated how one man can make a huge difference for the team's win or losses column... we need that one elite big man.
Hard to tell which team is better. Too many factors. Reasons why this year's team is better: -Last year's run was a fluke. Everything just went right. -Monta, Baron, SJax playing better than last year - everyone else pretty much horrible this year. -More wins than last year. -0-6 start. Had that not happened. This thread wouldn't have been made. -J-Rich didn't add much to their defense, because for that closing run, Monta was starting along with J-Rich. -Better offensive numbers in terms of production. Points per game. Fast breaks etc. -Not sure about the TO and Steals numbers, but I think they are better if not the same. -Last year's role players much better. Reason's why last year's team is better: -J-Rich's 3pt shooting -J-Rich's size allows the team to switch more on defense and not have to worry about size of their opponent -J-Rich is the Mav's killer -J-Rich playing better this year. -J-Rich adds depth to the team. --- With that said, there's no question this year's team would be better with J-Rich. Let's just hope Wright turns out to be a great player, and that Mullin uses that capspace right, unlike last time.
No question, last year's team was better. This of course is assuming that you are talking about the post-trade roster. Last year's roster was much more talented with Jason Richardson on the team. Granted there may not be a big difference between last year's late season roster and this year's roster, but having JRich right now would be huge. There is 20 point scorer number 4 on the team, granted that there most likely wouldn't be 4 players averaging 20 on this team, but still. One of the great attributes to last year's playoff/late season roster was the number of players that could score 30 points any night. You had Baron, Ellis, JRich (also probably the most consistant scorer and heart of the team), Jackson, Harrington, Biedrins, Barnes, and I think perhaps Pietrus or Azubuike who each scored like 30 points in a game last season from my recollection. To say a couple of good things about this roster: the JRich trade has probably opened up the necessary space to keep this team together and Brandan Wright looks pretty good. This year's roster looks better for the more distant future, this is multiplied when considering how difficult it would had been to keep the whole team together. But there is still part of something inside me that is saying how awesome it would had been to see this team play with JRich on the roster again. Edit: Reading Gohn's post, I realized that I pretty much repeated what he said. But I'd just add that JRich was the heart of the team and the emotional leader. Also I think he adds a good finisher, good fast break player, and perhaps helps a little bit more on getting steals and rebounds (I think Ellis has been picking up that slack with a lot of offensive tip ins like JRich would have done).
