The team has been playing amazing defense lately. I'd push Nellie out to upgrade Smart. Seriously though...Kwan, I think you have it right. The team needs to get back to making the playoffs before you can worry about championships. IMO, Unless you can get an elite coach, Nellie's the guy that can make a decent team playoff worthy. And I don't see Sloan or Popovic coming here anytime soon. Has there ever been a city that forced the owner to sell, without having the team move?
Look at how Popovich, perhaps the best coach in the league the past 10 years, was wasting here then goes to SA. Otis Smith, architect/builder of Orlando, used to be here also. Even Donnie Nelson. Damn shame.
Why do you say wasting away? There's a lot to learn on the bench. Especially when you're talking about managing an 82 game season. I'd say that his timing was impecible.
I think most here, are talking about replacing Nelson with Smart AFTER his contract is up. However, I am talking about getting rid of Nelsonus now before he does any more damage, albeit he's not responsible for all of the following. It's near impossible to get back to the playoffs when: 1. We don't re-sign Baron and get a long term, high priced contract back in Corey Maggette. Also, we throw mega-dollars in futility to Elton Brand and Gilbert Arenas. The Warriors continue to make panic moves. Who were the ones panicking -- Cohan, Rowell, Nelson, or Riley? 2. The team wastes a conditional first round pick for Marcus Williams. Shapecity said, "Time isn't wasted when you're wasted," but this was a waste. 3. The head coach and management end up fighting with a few of their key players and staff, such as Nelson vs Baron, Nelson vs AL, Rowell vs Mullin, and Rowell vs Monta. 4. We trade a valuable trading chip and expiring in Al Harrington for a worse contract in Jamal Crawford. Nelsonus decides on his own, against management's wishes, that telling Crawford publicly to opt out or else he will trade him is the best course of action. 5. There's also the question of benching Crawford for multiple games. Is this the best course of action to improve Jamal's trade value? Nope. It's better to showcase him for the summer. Moreover, if Craw doesn't opt out, then we could be stuck with Nelson vs Crawford until 2011 . 6. Let's face it, our best assets lie in the future. We stand pat, depend on the draft, and get a younger, more patient coach to develop the talent we have and bring some defense to the team.
I think you just listed why we should fire Rowell and possibly Cohan. At the same time, I don't see a reason from the list why Nelson as a coach should be fired. There is no question that Nelson has an influence over personal moves. However, it's also true that Rowell is heavily involved in personal moves as he made Jackson and Maggette at least. At this age, Nelson just doesn't seem to have a will or energy to do both coaching and GM duties. 1. It's rumored that Mullin and Davis decided on 3 years extension for 13 mils per year. And, Nelson also wanted to get Davis back. I mean, why wouldn't he? But, Rowell vetoed the extension, which eventually lead Davis to go to Clippers. Maggette deal was also believed to be done by Rowell, as Chad Ford mentioned before. 2. I don't think it's ever known who made Williams' trade. But, one thing is for sure that it's not made from Nelson. Otherwise, why would Nelson make that move by spending future 1st rounder and absolutely buried him? If Nelson made that move, he would actually utilize Williams just to save his face. 3. Nelson does get into players' face. Or, because of Nelson, he can afford to fight against them. Rumor was that, Davis was wasted right before the Denver game, and that's why Nelson was angry at him. We all knew Harrington thought better of himself as a player, and he was even demoted to the bench in NY briefly. Harrington is putting better stats in NY, because he is in run-and-gun system and NY just doesn't have enough fire power, so that Harrington gets to shoot more. But, he is basically putting the same shooting % or rebounding numbers, and he is essentially the same player as he was here before. Once NY gets better talents, he will be in the same position again. Those two players deserve large portion of blames on themselves, and only Nelson and Harrington's relationship went beyond repair, which we can afford. The only odd thing is Nelson vs Crawford, because it doesn't seem like Crawford did anything bad. But, if this actually leads Crawford to opt out, I will be one of very happy Warriors fans. 4. Harrington's contract was indeed nice. But then, we couldn't get Bosh or those superstars for Harrington, and his best value lies on his contract, not as a player. So, even if Nelson gave Harrington a Marbury treatment, his value would be the same as before. Teams that wanted Harrington's contract were teams with caproom in 2010 for a contract longer than Harrington, and that's exactly what we got. If we wanted to, we could have had a large caproom in 2010 for ourselves, but that dream was shattered with Jackson's unnecessary extension (thanks again, Rowell). Nobody will mistake Harrington as a budding superstar even though he puts current NY stats, so his trading value as a player would be quite minimal, and nobody would give up rising young stars for him like Randolph type. And as a matter of fact, if Nelson plays him 35 mins per game to pump his value, many fans would go nuts by saying Nelson is overusing vets and not developing young players like Wright and Randolph. Before trading Harrington, we were giving Harrington a Marbury treatment, and even if he wasn't traded, his value would not decrease. I mean, what would Nelson have to do to avoid the blame? Harrington obviously wanted more minutes than he deserved, and if Nelson gave in, Harrington would have put better stats in this meaningless season while taking playing times for young players. Nobody would give a young and promising players or less than two years contract for Harrington, and while we might have gotten something better, we didn't get fleeced in Crawford's trade either. We could have put Harrington a cold chamber, and let him sleep till his contract expires, and that's exactly what Nelson was doing before the trade. 5. Crawford is 9 years veteran, and even if he sits few games, his value would not be affected, because everybody knows his game by now. Heck, even if he showcases himself by breaking Wilt's 100 pts record, nobody will suddenly call our office for him. It will only improve our draft status. 6. At the beginning of the season, I thought Nelson might not be the best coach to develop young players. But then, when I thought of the result and history of our 14 years, I couldn't think of another coach who developed more young players than Nelson. First, Nelson is very good at developing players from nothing. For last three years, Barnes, Azubuike, Watson, and Morrow will find a job in NBA thanks to Nelson, and other than Cardinals and Boykins, we really couldn't make a NBA player from the trash can for last 14 years. Second, which players did Nelson failed to develop and blossomed in different teams? Nelson clearly didn't like either Diogu, POB, or williams and he abandoned them pretty quickly. And they didn't seem to do anything in this league despite changing teams multiple times (or not hired yet in Williams' case). In contrast, players like Monta, Biedrins, Wright and Randolph seem to develop nicely, and Biedrins was really abandoned under Monty. Even you look at Nelson's past, he developed Sprewell, Owens, Mullin, Hardaway, Dirk and Dallas from the bottom... Of course, he is not perfect, and there are plenty of blames to go as well. But, when you look at the result, he developed far more than any of our past coaches did. And, while it's nice dream for a young coach to develop young talents, it really never happens, because they are young coaches. Young coaches with no resume want to improve his win and loss record desperately. After all, even though he developed nice players by sacrificing the record, the only things he will get are a pink slip and bad win-loss record in his resume, while the next coach gets all glory. We saw Muss using vets even against the management's wishes, and Monty was notorious for milking vets like Fisher, Dunleavy, Murphy, Foyle and not giving any minutes to young players like Biedrins or Diogu. PJ even traded 11th pick for Mookie. And, it doesn't stop with Warriors. I would love to see some examples where a rookie coach benched veterans and played young players exclusively despite losing tons of games in the name of developing young talents. I bet you will have extremely hard time finding those cases, and even if you find few example, I bet they were fired within couple seasons. Only Nelson can afford to sit vets for multiple games, so that he can tank games and give some playing times to young players. Sure, there is a chance that Smart can turn this team around. But looking back history, the chance of that happening is very small, and most rookie coaches in a bad situation usually doesn't last more than two years as we saw number of times. Why should Smart be in a situation where he is most likely fail? I will switch the bandwagon when there are good evidences where Nelson is destroying the team instead of helping the team. So far, I haven't seen that many...
Layin down the law as always, Kwan. I totally agree. My only stance where I differ is I think Smart would have a pretty good chance of succeeding, at least he's in as good a position as any young coach. But I'm not calling for the firing of Nellie. I just think that, when we do make the transition to a new coach, I wouldn't mind seeing Smart if it means bring more defensive accountability to the team. I would love to see how a defensive minded coach fares with Randolph/Wright/Beans at the 3/4/5. Nobody will be going uncontested in the paint, that's for sure.
Great post, Kwan. Latrell Sprewell thanked Don Nelson for his career, btw. Let's not forget Steve Nash.
I'll have to go point by point because of the length of your post Kwan. First, I think you made some good points, but there are a few that I can come up with arguments against. I agree Rowell scuttled the Davis extension, but I'm not sold that Nelson wanted Baron back. If he did, then he would have made a bigger argument to Rowell and sided with Mullin. We know that he's not one to shy away from taking a different tack from managment. I have not heard Nelson say he wanted Baron back. Instead, he was the one who kept talking about Monta as his PG and this was reported several times through the course of the season. Remember Baron and Nelson had a falling out at the end of last season, and Nelson has been known to turn on a player and try to get rid of him as his history has shown. I think Williams was a panic move by Rowell and/or Mullin. Once Baron opted out after Rowell went against his extension, then Rowell/Mullin had to get a starting point guard after finding out Monta was hurt. Nelson getting into players' faces isn't the problem. It's his playing players out of position most of the time and anarchic substitution patterns that bother players. For example, Nelson said he wants to get Amare. Most teams will play Amare at PF, and he's said he prefers that position. Instead, Nelson said he wants Amare at C. I think most NBA players learn to deal with coaches getting in their faces. They can get over it, but if you're getting beat up in order to get wins and Nelson gets credit for it, then those things have to wear on a player. I play basketball and I'm a point guard, but sometimes I end up playing small forward. Then I get jostled around more and get more tired even though it's a *friendly* game. In the NBA, playing out of position must be brutal because just playing your position is tough. I'll give you that AL may be the same player in New York, but my point is Nelson has a history of getting into feuds with his star players. I'm not saying D'Antoni doesn't get into feuds, but the writing clearly on the wall with Nelsonus. He broke up Run TMC and the Webber-Sprewell-Owens trio. As for Craw opting out, it does not seem like it depends on anything Nelson does. More likely, it will depend on whether another team will offer him more money or a better situation. He just knows now that if he stays here, then he may end up in situation where he is ostracized from the team and bought out. I just think Nelson and the Warriors did not do their homework on him. A smarter GM and one who did their homework would have kept AL even though he may have been banished from the team. A smarter GM would have kept his mouth shut about Crawford the first time. I really differ with you here. To me, even if Harrington was going to be ostracized, then I still have his cap space at 2010. Furthermore, that cap space could become even more valuable as the deadline nears and free agents are still available. I know you're going to say what free agent wants to come to GS, so I agree with you there. For the Warriors, the cap space would be a better trading chip and it could mean getting a young player in the deal such as Ramon Sessions. Again, we went from a nicer trading chip to a worse one in Crawford. I agree the nine year vet status helps Crawford, but teams and other GMs still want to see a player and scout them. If they saw Crawford play yesterday and he did well, then they would have a higher opinion of him. History has shown that showcasing a player helps increase a players worth. And if Crawford breaks Wilt's 100 pts record, everybody will be calling our office for him. The media will have a field day with him. You quickly forget what happened with Morrow after his first two games. It generated a lot of pub and excitement. You really sound like a Nelson fan boy here. It's like saying Nelson teaches defense. You conveniently forget Mullin had to tell Nelson that one of a duties of a coach is to develop young players. I think it was more the the assistant coaches like Keith Smart who helped them more. Nelson didn't play rooks/sophs and even AB still does not get the minutes or touches as the other players. I'll agree on the Nelson instills discipline part of the argument and that rooks/sophs have to earn their stripes under him, but it takes years and not months. I already mentioned Larry Brown did the same tack in Detroit, but with Charlotte, he's doing a better job with the young talent. If you want to keep Nelson here, then GS needs stronger management to keep a muzzle and leash on Nelson. We don't have that in Rowell. There is no way I can argue that Nelson is a bad coach. He knows a lot about basketball and is top five in the NBA in regards to that. But Nelson's lack of GM skills and problems getting into feuds with players are another matter. Suffice it to say that Keith Smart has paid his dues and deserves a chance as a head coach. If not at GS, then with another team. With Nelsonus doing GM duties, GS is like where the players become better once they get to another team again.
I agree with most of them, and those are few I disagree with. - To me, if there is the one guy who wanted Davis back the most, it would be Nelson. Nelson will be gone in next two or three years at most, and the best way to be #1 in winning is by obtaining Davis. Even though Davis became toxic asset in year 3-5, it really isn't Nelson's problem. Also, just because they had their difference at the end, that doesn't mean that the relationship was over. If that's the case, how can any manager get angry with his underlings? If their relationships were falling apart, we should have heard Nelson/Davis going at each other especially after Davis left like how Harrington did. But, I haven't heard a single article or interview that they didn't like each other, and instead, I still hear them talking to each other once in a while. And, even though he didn't go out in public and ripped Warriors management for not keeping Davis, you could feel that he missed Davis in number of interviews before the season started. - No question it puts more pressure/damage to the body if you are undersized. But, we really haven't heard anybody saying that they don't like to guard PF, because it's too much for me for last two and half years. One reason is that even though they might be abused from defense end, they will have a field day in offense end, like how Azubuike dropped 21 pts in first quarter against Stoudmire, and Nelson usually makes sure to exploit those mismatches. Besides, you may have a valid reason if you are complaining about how small line up hurts our rebounding or defense. But, to complaining the matter which nobody complained or even brought up... Don't you think you are digging the well bit too deep? - Nelson broke run TMC, because they were going nowhere, and Nelson traded Owens, because Webber was kept complaining about not having a center. And, if you are blaming Nelson for breaking those up, shouldn't you also give Nelson a credit for creating run TMC and Spree-Webber and Owens in the first place? Or bringing Mavs from the worst franchise in the NBA to a contender? No question Nelson made number of wrong moves. But, his positives far outweight his negatives. Other than Knicks, Warriors, Mavs and Warriors again are better off with Nelson (can't remember Bucks day, but then as far as I know, they also had success with Nelson). - Even if we didn't make Harrington trade and let his contract run out, 6 players alone, Monta, Biedrins, Maggette, Jackson, Turiaf, and Azubuike alone would take 45 mils. Then you add Wright, Randolph, Marco, few first rounders and few minimum contracts, we are looking at around 5 mils caproom even if we really really hold onto our purse (providing that caproom by the time is around 60 mils). So, even if we coldsleep Harrington's contract for two years, Harrington as a caproom would have no impact, because we will have close to MLE. Actually, I wanted Warriors to save for 2010 FA market (we could be a player if we didn't give Jackson an extension), and I went nuts when we actually gave Jackson an unnecessary extension and closed the door on possible 2010 FAs. I agree that we could have waited for better deal on Harrington, and the blame goes to our management. Whether Nelson is actively engaged with managerial duties or not is different matter though. While I don't doubt that Nelson has a good influence over Rowell, I don't see an evidence that Nelson is doing most of GM duties and Rowell is just a figurehead who does what Nelson told him to do. A lot of evidence points that Rowell is making number of basketball decisions (Davis, Maggette). For now, I tend to believe that Rowell is doing the GM duty. - Crawford already had one 50 pts game, one 40 pts game, and number of 30+ pts games with us. Yet, that didn't encourage other GMs to make a deal on Crawford. It's because other GMs knew Crawford based on 9 years of data, and no GM will evaluate Crawford based on two games he is sitting. I mean, can you imagine any GM saying "Well, I knew Crawford for 9 years, but since he scored 50 points two games in a row, let's offer Warriors our young talent and 3 first rounders"? They saw him 9 years, and if they want to scout, all they have to do is playing Crawford's old tapes, not sending scouts all of sudden. Do we really need to send scouts to see what Shaq is capable of at this stage? Morrow is in totally different situation, because he is rookie and nobody knows what he is capable of in NBA. That's why he was newsworthy when he had very nice first two games. Even last night, Morrow took Crawford's spot, dropped 20 pts, and possibly increased his trading value. Do you honestly think if Crawford dropped same 20 pts, he would improve his trading value as much as Morrow's? And, didn't Warriors benefit from Crawford sitting out? Then, shouldn't the credit goes to Nelson for deciding to sitting Crawford out instead? - I don't know why the credit of developing young players suddenly goes to Smart, when Nelson is a head coach. And I haven't heard of our young players giving credits exclusively to Smart for developing them yet. Then, can I blame Smart, the defense coordinator, for our dismal defense at the same time? At the end of day, Nelson is responsible for our offense, defense and developing young players. And, so far, our young players developed rather nicely, and that credit should go to Nelson, unless young players send credit to Smart exclusively. Also, just look at Nelson's track record, and even without Smart, he developed tons of young talents over years like Hardaway, Richmond, Mullin, Sprewell, Dirk, Nash and the list goes on. And, I don't buy that Nelson is not playing Rookie/Soph either. All Hardaway, Richmond, Sprewell, Dirk played significant minutes in their first and especially 2nd years, and wasn't Sprewell all first or 2nd team in his soph year? Monta averaged 34 minutes as soph, and Azubuike also got good chunk of playing time as freshman/soph. When young players can contribute, Nelson tends to give them minutes. Granted that Nelson cannot perfectly synchronize playing times and their readiness, and I do want to see more Wright, Randolph, Morrow and Marco. But then, at the end of the day (or season), how can you deny that Nelson can improve young talents? We may like or hate Nelson. But, let's fairly give a credit where credit is due and give a blame where blame is due...
I see more than a few, Kwan, but let us agree to disagree. Again, I don't hate Nelson and thought I was giving credit in regards to his coaching. But you know where I stand in regards to his player personnel decisions, lack of candor, bully personality, power plays, etc. It's always curious that Nelson is around when there are the player vs coach feuds, and the player ends up getting shipped out. It takes a strong GM to stand up to Nelson and without Mullin, the Warriors are toast. I'm going on vacation now .
