Warriors could have had Mayo and Thabeet

Ellis is awesome, but how do you build around guys like him and Gilbert Arenas, Allen Iverson, Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis, etc. You send those guys to the olympics with all-star bigs, you're probably going to end up getting silver and bronze compared to putting pass first guys like Kidd, Deron Williams, and Chris Paul in.

I think it's easier to plug and play a guy like Curry into whatever star big player we get (if we can get that player). If we can't, we're pretty irrelevant if we should make it to the playoffs. It's like trying to play chess with out the queen piece. It's that much harder when your big players can't rebound, can't score inside against tougher defense, and can't defend against the more dominant bigs.

 

lol

Why are you guys hating on Monta all of a sudden? Weren't you guys pissed off he didn't make the allstar team?

 

Even though I wouldn't have hated this trade, plus I have advocated trading Ellis for a long time, I don't fault passing up this trade. This is probably the first trade that involved Ellis that was even close to passable, but it doesn't give us a huge improvement other than financially, so passing on it isn't the end of the world. Ellis to Mayo seems lateral at best, plus it would be a huge disruption to the current team. It's not like we can't find another offer that might be better or try to rework this deal over the summer. Like everyone else says, ideally the trade would involve a good big man for us.

 

Not me. He's simply one dimensional. Watch his struggles right now, its not because he's hurt (affects him somewhat) but its because they are simply packing the lane on him and paying more attention to him. He's regressing, not expanding his game. Yes he's a devastating scorer but I see someone like Brandon Roy and see someone who can make the extra pass, get the tough rebound, who can still make that clutch shot and score to keep his team in the game.

Like CR2 said, Monta is a scorer but how do you build around those guys? MJ was knocked for being a scorer, but he showed everyone that he can do other stuff, defend, rebound. More importantly he led by setting a great example. Monta is not that kind of guy.

OJ Mayo is not MJ either but I think he's got a better chance of rebounding and defending, being multi-dimensional, whatever Thabeet is. Dleaguer or not.

 

Yeah, seriously. I think Warrior fans are too quick to judge sometimes, myself included. It's the result of failure after failure after failure.

But, I'm going to stand my ground and say that this was a good non-trade.

Right now, Monta isn't playing the same he was earlier in the season. During that time, Curry wasn't playing as well as is now.

Here's an idea, let's see what happens the rest of the season and even next season to see what kind of chemistry they can build. It's very possible.

 

do you think when he was younger he had respect for the veteran (Davis), and now that he's been in the league he wants the ball in his hands, and is too reluctant to say the rookie (Curry) could work in the same way as Davis. i know there not the same players, but he didnt seem to mind when Davis had the ball in his hands

 

I think the more Ellis hears the National media praise Curry and downplay his presence, the more he'll hog the ball to prove that he's special. Unfortunately, I don't think he's mature or secure enough in his abilities to let Curry make him a better player.

 

That's total speculation. You're better than that.

It sounds like everyone is drawing their own theories on how Monta's mind works. I think it's bogus (no offense) because none of us know exactly what Monta is thinking and what he will do. I think it's fine for discussions, but again, we're all very quick to judge based on a small sample size (2/3's of a season, basically). Remember, this is Monta's first full year as a "franchise" player. I think we should be a little flexible on letting him adapt to his turbulent surroundings.

When Monta was playing well, no one complained. Now that he's regressed a little, gotten injured, and Curry is playing out of his mind (for a rookie), we all want to give-up on Monta.

Don't get me wrong, the same thought crosses my mind everyday, but I think we need to put things in perspective a little bit.

We don't know if Monta is unwilling to trust Curry. We can only wait and see. I think that'll take the rest of this season and the beginning of next season.

If Monta is indeed moved in the off-season, that will confirm everyone's theories on Monta being a selfish ballhog volume shooter extraordinaire.

 

I sort of agree with you Dr. K, we can't really know the mind of Monta, but I don't think it's accurate to say no one was complaining when Monta was scoring big. I think at the time there was in fact a lot of concern over his shooting volume, lack of ball movement, his high turnover rate, and the fact (not entirely Monta's fault) that his big scoring wasn't leading to any more wins. People were appreciating his effort, but not without a lot of doubts whether that was a good trend for the team overall.

 

Good points. You're absolutely right. Monta's +/- was a concern. At the time, I didn't want to hear any of it, saying that his +/- should be disregarded because of his effort and scoring. It's panning out now that his +/- is definitely a concern.

I don't know how bad ball movement was during Monta's stretch of incredible scoring. If I remember, Maggette was also playing really well (i.e. not forcing things, passing, setting screens, rebounding) too and contributed to good team basketball. But I guess that answers my own question: Monta and Maggette both playing really well means that the rest of the team had to take a backseat. I don't know if there's a simple formula to all this.

I just know that Monta shouldn't be thrown under the bus just yet. If he is going to be traded, he should stick to the team plan right now that focuses on Curry being the PG and leader. This will increase his efficiency (+/-) and his trade value. By next year, that'll be another year of his 5 year contract off the books. The latter is probably more important to most teams anyway. Sadly.

 

I don't see who is "hating" on Monta. Being in favor of a trade doesn't mean you hate the person you're trading. I love Monta, but I would have done OJ+Thabeet+Hadadi for Monta in a heartbeat.

Now Maggette, I don't love...

 

Figuratively speaking, of course.

I think Thabeet and Hadadi are attractive simply because they're big, but I haven't seen anything about their games that would translate to a good career in the NBA. Thabeet's potential is being compared to Erick Dampier and was just sent to the D-League because, well, he sucks. That's scary. Hadadi is a complete unknown (to me, at least).

So the only instant equity we'd be getting is OJ Mayo (plus Monta's contract off the books, which IMO is the bigger draw), who again, I don't think is a better option than Monta. He may be bigger, but he's still an undersized 2 at 6'4" who isn't known for his defense or passing. He's known for what Monta's known for but not as good.

Monta's performance between now and the end of the year will be critical in what decisions will be made in the off-season. If he shows some level of trust in Curry on the offensive end that translates to better ball movement and ultimately wins, I think the FO will be inclined to keep Monta. If the Warriors win more than expected, they probably won't end up with a top 3 lottery pick, so no chance of landing Turner any way.

If Monta continues to be an inefficient volume shooter that kills ball movement and all the little things we like to see a team do, then it'll be a good reason to ship him out this off-season. However, I still think Monta and Curry need more time together.

Monta had the luxury of playing with a veteran PG in Baron Davis but now he's stuck with playing with a rookie PG in Curry who is developing while Monta himself is developing too. Curry has only started to play really well since January, which is around the time Monta started to regress a little. So again, we need to be able to see both Curry and Monta play well at the same time.

I'm not holding my breath on it happening but I think it's worth a shot to be patient until at least the beginning of next season where they have the entire off-season to think about the team's situation and pre-season to try to spark some sort of chemistry. Of course, Monta will have to want this to happen. A lot can happen between now and then so everything I'm saying might turn out to be bogus.

 

Very true. Total Speculation. I admit that wholeheartedly. It's a gut feel. I was for moving Monta at the trade deadline because I thought there was an opportunity to sell high on him. Perhaps I should just leave it at that instead of trying to get into his head.

 

Sorry, I should apologize. There's nothing wrong with speculation. I'll be the first to admit that I do it more than I go out and find hard evidence to support what I'm saying. It's all we can really do most of the time any way.

 

No need to apologize. I try to put an IMO or I think if I'm speculating, but it drives me crazy when others write total opinions without stating why they think that way. So it was a well deserved call-out in this case.

 

Although I find it hard to argue when a non-Warriors fan tells me "Warriors Suck!"

 

Yeah, they're supposed to say "IMO Warriors Suck!"