This is ridiculous. I already mentioned Channing Frye when he was available. Now there's Tyrus Thomas on the market. If they *had* Al Harrington, then they would have him now. How short sighted can the Warriors be? I gotta laugh to keep from crying . EDIT: If I were GM, I'd build around Biedrins and Monta. Biedrins has not been a disappointment. The management and coach has been one. I think Walcoff needs to stick to football. He's talking about the give and go, something the Warriors do not do on a regular basis. EDIT 2: I doubt the Clips would trade him, but Blake Griffin for Randolph after they come back.
I actually do think that Biedrins has been a disappointment this season, but I will stick with him. I love Biedrins and think he's definitely worth his contract, but at the same time, Biedrins is not going to develop or improve much past where he is now. However, I never really expected him to; I only wish he could stop fouling so much. Recently, he's regressed back to his rookie state of being overly foul-prone on defense. I thought he worked past it and was decent for the past 2 years, but this year, I know injuries are killing him, but those fouls are as well. But despite all the negativity, he's clearly an excellent complimentary player and hard worker. As far as making FA moves last offseason, I've agreed with the Frye thing, but I don't know if he would have given enough "impact" - the problem is that we lack the big man to draw defenses inside to stretch the defense. Phoenix has Stoudamire, and we know how that possible trade worked out. With us, maybe he doesn't get as many easy looks, although Frye's defense is actually better than I expected. Al Jefferson is rumored to be available, but Minnesota is probably looking for a lot in return. Boozer or Camby also rumored of course, but they're expiring, so they would be traded for financial reasons, and not solve the Warriors problem. I've already stated my desire for the Warriors to tank and rebuild in the 2012 season, because no matter how many trades or plans I map out, I can't see any way that the Warriors can be fixed in the short-term. While a lot of the blame can be placed on the Warriors, putting myself in the GM shoes, I don't know if I could have done better draft-wise, and thus I really think the article is stupid. How can the article be dreaming of "Dwight Howard, Tim Duncan, Andrew Bynum, Chris Bosh, Nene, Jermaine O’Neal, Brook Lopez, Pau or Marc Gasol, heck, even Shaquille O’Neal, Al Horford, Kendrick Perkins, Joakim Noah, Tyson Chandler, Marcus Camby, Mehmet Okur, Andrew Bogut, Andrea Bargnani, Emeka Okafor, Samuel Dalembert, Brendan Haywood, Hasheem Thabeet, maybe a healthy Greg Oden or Yao Ming" when out of all of those players, only Marc Gasol or Noah are even in the realm of possibility to have signed; and you can read my note on Noah below. And who in the heck would want Jermaine O'Neal at his contract price? He makes it sound like we could have signed one of these guys instead of having to sign Chris Hunter. Dream on, yeah, right. Too many what-if's, the article lacks an appreciation of the history of the Warriors. Here's my (very abbreviated) analysis of the situation. 2009: Curry, a decent choice, but the landscape always changes looking a year or two back. Thank goodness we didn't get Hill at least? 2008: Randolph, a great choice for 14th pick 2007: Wright/Belinelli, Davidson in 2nd; Wright's been a disappointment, but Noah was until this season. This was a huge what-if moment that I would not have foreseen. Noah and Biedrins are similar players, as well. Would Noah have thrived on this team behind Biedrins? Moving on, we had a chance to nab Marc Gasol in the 2nd but back then, Gasol was not anything close to a sure thing. He worked really hard to develop into the player he is, and that kind of thing is hard to foresee - I watch a lot of Euro basketball and I didn't really think he'd be starting material, but here he is. 2006: POB/Perovic was downright horrid even at the time of drafting, but would you have picked up Millsap (or Rondo)? 18 teams passed on Rondo and virtually every NBA team passed on Millsap. Looking at the talent pool with hindsight, any other realistic choices would have been nearly as bad, and we might have been stuck with them instead of noticing that they were so bad, they could be cut loose immediately. An ironic twist, perhaps? 2005: Ike/Monta. Ike ended up being a journeyman, but the Warriors actually did well in trading him for Jackson and Harrington in '07. This trade, along with drafting Monta, shaped the entire Warriors franchise today. If Mullin had made just 1 more great decision in the meantime in 2006 or 2007, a trade or a great draft pick instead of a mediocre/horrible one, I believe that the Warriors outlook would be vastly different today. Would that have been possible? Mullin made a lot of great decisions and made trades (both Baron and with Indiana) that I didn't think were possible and thus has to be given a lot of credit, too. Yeah, he also made a few poor ones as well, but at the end of it, he's not at the top of bearing responsibility for the blame for this year's Warriors mess. I blame, in order: 1. Cohan for cultivating a history of losing which made it difficult for the Warriors to attract free agents in the first place, 2. Rowell for Jackson extension and Baron non-signing (even if he is in the downside of his career, he was our only real leader and NBA ambassador), 3. bad luck for our draft slot ping pong balls, and then Mullin, for his poor draft choices in 2006 and failure to turn Richardson into something better than Wright (although with the whole rumored failed Garnett-draft-pick-trade-thing, there's probably more than just Mullin who's at fault for that). By the time he made the mistake of signing Magette in 2008, the Warriors were already destined to fail because of Rowell's choices, Cohan's leadership, and some plain old bad luck. Well, who knows, as with all what-if scenarios, it's only a dream. Better to focus on the future.
For the most part, 2 Guards are a dime a dozen, especially undersized ones. Ellis is exciting, but I'm still not sold on him as someone to build around. Beidrins...build around him? He's a nice 5th piece on a starting lineup...but build around him? I think the only player on the team that might be worthy of holding onto (and this is a HUGE maybe) is Curry. I think he'll be a player. But if the right deal comes around, I'd be willing, and ready to ship each and every one of them out. Not to say that I don't like them, or enjoy watching them. I just don't see any of them as the main piece on a great team. Ellis has great trade value right now. I'd love to see the team sell high and buy low right now for once.
I'd love to see Cohan sell low to some other owner who can do it right. Cohan is all about the money, no matter what his pr will you. He has no understanding of winning basketball. He's a bean counter. Rowell has no business being that high of a position. He's equally as bad.
Even with the horrible season, the Warriors still are in the green due to the loyal-as-all-hell fans. Last season we were 10th in earnings, beating several playoff teams, despite our 29-53 record. Only two or three years in the Cohan era have the Warriors lost money over a season ('02 and '05, and even then the losses were fairly small) - few other teams can boast such decade-long stability for a constantly losing team (The Clippers actually make a lot of money for sucking also, see the fun fact at the bottom). A strange oddity in Warriors basketball evaluation is probably why Cohan is desperate to hang on, because the longer he does, the greater his pockets are sure to be. Cohan originally purchased the team for $119 million, and now it's appraised at $315 million. The Warriors made a profit of approximately $53 million the past 10 years, but the team value increased by $200 million despite all the losing and lack of yearly profits. The team's appraised value did decrease $20 million this past season, but in spite of objective judgments, Cohan is rumored to still be looking for an offer closer to the $400 million range because he's trying to squeeze everything he can. Fun NBA business facts: the Blazers are actually the worst team financially to operate, having lost approximately $230 million over the past 10 years. Paul Allen loves his team and truly pays for it. Mark Cuban has also lost quite alot, approximately $160 million over the past 10 years. On the other hand, renowned cheapass bastard Donald Sterling consistently makes over $10 million per year with the Clippers.
I think Cohan still draws fans to the Arena because the Bay Area draws Lakers, Knicks, Philly and other big market fans. They also get Cavs and Phoenix fans. Up here in Sacramento, we have some good owners in the Maloof Family, but they are having trouble attracting fans since the team isn't doing as well as it did during the Webber and Vlade Divac years. If San Jose can attract an NBA team and give Cohan a run for his money, then he would have a harder time drawing fans to the Arena and would not be making money imho. San Jose Kings? Nah. I don't want Sacto to lose the Kings.
I was listening to that blowhard Stephen A. Smith tonight and he said that Andrew Bynum was more like Kwame Brown than Kevin Garnett. He blew off a couple of Laker callers, but it got me thinking. The Lakers are supposedly offering Bynum for Chris Bosh straight up. That's not even a fair trade. Sure Bynum can provide more offense than AB, but AB is a better defensive player. If the Warriors can put together a package of AB, BWright, their number one and an expiring, then the Raptors may go for it. We could sweeten the deal with Turiaf or Morrow. Certainly, the Lakers cannot beat that package. Then the Warriors next year would be: PG - Curry, CJ SG - Monta, Bell C - Bosh, Hunter SF - Mags, Buike PF - Randolph, Radman Raps would have: PG - Calderon, Jack SG - DeRozan, Marco, Morrow C - ABiedrins, Turiaf PF - ABargnani, BWright SF - Hedo, AWright
If that trade were to go through, it's just 1 more example of how the league sets up the Lakers for success. Pretty gross if you ask me.
