Yeah, that short blurb doesn't really tell you the whole story, though. This is one of the few places I'm going to defend Nelson. I think Randolph does have an attitude problem and more than a touch of Prima Donna Complex, which we have seen manifested on the court (he would probably call it "confidence" but I think it's a bit more than that). If he really is taking out his frustrations on Kurz or anyone else during practice, let him sit and think about it for a while.
Great. The last thing we need to build our future on is a Sprewell type player. Let's hope the incident was an isolated one.
Well MJ suckpunched Kerr once so let's not put him into the Sprewell category just yet. Its disheartening to see the Warriors just waste picks though. Marco is a nice story, just wish we could say the same for Brandon and Randolph.
Yeah, it could be totally isolated incident not reflective of Randolph's normal character. Competitive players do tend to take things personally and with aggression. I bet Rick Barry could be seen in that light. At least Randolph probably isn't like Bill Laimbeer. That guy was a goon in the eyes of a lot of fans. He'd take a grindstone and sharpen his elbows if he could. I like both Marco and Brandan Wright. I'll be pissed if we lose them for nothing or we don't get a player of equal or better value. I just have this feeling that Don Nelson will trade them for players like Jerry Stackhouse, Antoine Walker or Quentin Richardson... It's like yeah lets get a 20 points per game scorer... who shoots at 39% from the field or shoots 70% or less from the foul line... and lets make them play point guard, power forward or center on defense. Remember that one season with Antoine Walker's disastrous stint at point guard for Dallas? (I believe that was the same year when Antwan Jamison was awarded sixth man of the year?) Nelson believes he has a mismatch in his favor, but he's not looking at things defensively... or % wise.
Ugh. Nooooo!! While following baseball through the years, there's a couple of phrases I've always liked, "retread", "has-been", "never was been". Those are what the Warriors are stockpiling right now and look to be doing for the future. Maggette? Very definition of journeyman, non-winner. Yeah he's a scorer, but that's it. That's not building for the future. At least Antoine was a big reason for the Celtics getting to a conference final and he was an integral part of the Heat's win. Crawford? Yick. Classic retread. Look, if you don't win in your first two places, chances are he's not a winner. Very rarely does someone become a winner after a couple of stops, in any sport. SJax? He's got the classic signs of a downturn with no going back. He was great the past two years but he's given up defensively, its all hands and arms now. Instead of emphasizing Belinelli and Biedrins with Wright and Randolph, its all about how can we win with a mismash of SJax, Crawford, Kurz and Morrow while playing as unconventional as possible. That's not how you build a winner. If Nellie coached the Braves, Glavine and Smoltz never would have become HOFers; the Lakers? Kobe would have been buried behind the "known" Nick Van Exel for at least 3 years.
Right, I see what you're saying about Antoine. Perhaps, I didn't give him credit for his ring. I just remembered he irked the heck out of me with his shot selection. My Boston friend couldn't stop complaining about his game and I guess that influence carried over when I followed Toine in Dallas. I think he did well at times guarding Shaq (he gave a 110% effort like a Mark Madsen), but he could not protect the ball as well as Sjax at point guard IMO. I think it's a tough role to fill for any guy so tall and Antoine was not very quick to begin with whereas guys like Sjax, Mike Miller, and Joe Johnson were all quicker and more fluid handling the ball. Plus, I tended to believe that Antoine Walker had no restraint on his shot selection compared to the other forwards who play point at duty. I agree that the Warriors focus should be on the rooks and not these nbdl/stop gap players. I mean I love Azu and Morrow, but who cares about swingmen. Those guys are a dime a dozen. We should be concerned about developing young, prototypical position players that will work in most offenses no matter which "savior" we try to bring in. This is so we can plug in a franchise type of guy without having to worry about having mixing and matching tweeners to compliment each other's weaknesses. For example, a shooting guard or point guard that cannot handle or shoot or make plays is a disgrace. To even tolerate such a disgrace we then have to cross match that guard role with a small forward that plays more like a shooting guard. Then if we have a power forward that plays nothing like a secondary center on defense, has no shot range, and cannot exhibit some basic basketball fundamentals... well you get the drift. But I don't see any of that with our team. I love our draft selections. It's not like our young guns are putting up Yi Lian Jian results and still continuing to get undeserved minutes. I figure an efficient player like Wright would be getting more burn because he tends to make guys like Biedrins better inside. He helps make up for the terrible perimeter d we exhibit each game when we fail to stop the ball on the perimeter. Plus, he's like having another Biedrins on offense. He doesn't need plays run for him to score which essentially makes him like a secondary Biedrins. We need all the big men help we can get when Nelly lets this team's guards run amok on offense and we cannot rebound or stop dribble penetration or avoid defaulting to zone defense. I also don't buy the crap that Steinmetz is writing about Wright's hands or else the half dozen scouting reports would have definitely exposed his inability to palm the ball. It's not like the guy can't catch or rebound. I think it's all strength related and the fact Biedrins is a great rebounder and nobody really plays like a team when it comes to rebounding/team defense in the first place. What do we play zone? That'll really screw things up for rebounders period. It's also incredibly hard to rebound when the team defense collapses, and the weakside help is also coming from your best rebounder. In addition, the other team packs size and quickness on the glass. But hey Wright is better than nothing IMO when the alternative is Sjax or an unmotivated Mags who doesn't want to get hurt unless it means free throw opportunities.
BTW does anyone think this whole incident is a little weird? What if it's like another beginning of a Chris Webber type episode where Nelly ships this guy out and he becomes a playoff star. I'm wondering if Nelly will bring this franchise down to 1995 era proportions... I mean not based on Randolph, but just his management style and him overplaying the nbdl nba hopefuls.
It's possible. Isn't that what we're all clamoring about these days anyway. BTW, I feel the Bay Area beat writers are not hard enough on the Warriors. They need to be more like the NY writers.
Like those NY sports writers, we also need to hear more about us getting Lebron James or <insert marquee player> in free agency or in an elaborate 4 team trade. Oh, and they need to leave out the rules of the collective bargaining agreement when they do such writing.
Well, I'm not sure how hard our writers are working to get all these questions answered. What's REALLY going on in the front office. SOMEONE has to know. Everything that's written these days is all speculation and while it might make for a nice soap opera one day, I just want to know the truth. Why is the Warriors' situation so hard to break?
CohanHater thinks it is Cohan and I tend to believe that. The warriors higher ups/majority owner have not changed despite all the GM/head coach hirings and firings. What is the one thing that is constant all these years and which dumbass got booed inside his own arena on all-star weekend in Oakland with his kids present?
You know, when we finally made the playoffs again I thought Cohan turned it around. But now, he's being outdone by the Yorks!!! I mean, it's sad for me to say, but I wish Cohan was more like Al Davis. Yeah, that's how bad the Warriors are right now.
A question to Warrior fans. Are you guys tired of Nelly's sometimes out of the blue decisions? Would you guys rather see him coaching else where?
With no Mullin to reign in Nelson, then I rather see him elsewhere. He does not have to be coaching. He could just lay on the beach in Maui like a big, fat whale (Oops, that's probably not PC for fat people and whales). Right now, it's Nelson and Riley taking a look at personnel. Both have gone to Bakersfield to check out the NBDL players.
More NDBL players, just what we need. Maybe we'll find the next John Starks, a future all-star. Yeah right. How about working with what you have. Maybe Randolph and Wright are head cases who don't listen and don't learn and are worthless. I'm not at practice or in the locker room so I don't know. But it doesn't look like it from the outside. I see them trying their best and not hogging the ball or standing around on D. Maybe Wright has small hands, but you don't fault someone for lack of physical skills, that's not their fault. Good teaching is working with them to make them a better player whatever their faults. I do not see the Warriors doing that.
Randolph played very well last night against the Lakers. In fact both Wright and Randolph were superb. It was just unfortunate that Wright dislocated his shoulder and couldn't play the rest of the game. Wright was +13 and Randolph +5 in the game. When either of those two guys were in the game, good things were happening. The defense stepped it up and was creating a lot of good basketball for the Warriors. Maybe Nelson is noticing this a little bit, since Wright and Randolph each got more PT than Turiaf (-17 in 10 minutes). I guess Nelson did not want to depend on Randolph late in the game though, since he decided to take Randolph out for the last minutes of the 4th. Nonetheless, both Wright and Randolph played good games. If Randolph can just focus on making impacts on defense and starting fast breaks like he did last night, then he can be a very good contributor to this team. When he's trying to be like Michael Jordan, he doesn't help the team much. It looks like there is some progress being made on all fronts between Wright/Randolph/Nelson. Also since there is no Lakers GT here I think it is at least worth mentioning that the Warriors did finally shoot more FGs than their opponent, and actually made more FGs than their opponent. The Lakers won the game though by the free-throw margin however. I liked the officiating in the game as well. They did a good no-call on Biedrins on one play, and it was against Kobe as well. I think normally a referee would call the foul in Kobe's favor. Overall it was a good game. The Warriors are just horrible late in games. They need the Boss back; he was always clutch for the team.
Yeah, they didn't play that badly all things considered (missing probably their two best players, plus Wright down the stretch, and the Lakers are just a much bigger and better team). I like that Wright came out really aggressive in the second half, but Belinelli really looked off his game last night. Randolph definitely made his presence felt but those turnovers and fouls make it hard to leave him out there for long. Small ball fails down the stretch, as usual.
