The Bulls have supposedly promised Tyrus Thomas that he will be picked at #2, but there could be a trade in the works. Let's hope it's with the Warriors, because I think this is exactly what we need. Let's talk plausible scenarios. Who would the Bulls want from us? Who would they target at 9 (and 16)? Who would we be willing to give up? I could see them wanting and needing Murph or Pietrus.
another thing floating out there, Murph, Pietrus, #9 and 07 1st for Chandler and #2. I'd do that in a heartbeat.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The problem for Charlotte is that it?s not a given that their other invites will show up either. Tyrus Thomas is also rumored to have pulled out of the workout, as he did yesterday with the Portland Trailblazers. Many feel that a deal is already in place for a team to trade for the Bulls? #2 pick, and that Thomas has been informed that he?ll be the one taken there. Brandon Roy is also rumored to be pulling out of the workout on Thursday, although this makes quite a bit less sense.</div> http://www.draftexpress.com/viewarticle.php?a=1358 I think it's local media speculation doing its work to create some draft buzz... I think they have less of an idea than we do what is actually going to happen. But hey, this whole workout thing with the Warriors is pretty strange. We really could use a small forward or a real center prospect if it happens to be a BAP of some sorts, and we're not really working many prospects out. So I wonder what the Warriors intend to do.
While there are many types of players the Warriors could do with, what's more evident is who they could do without: Foyle and Fisher. Therefore, in my opinion, it will be a failure on Mullin's part if he seeks to move any other chips or acquire any other players without addressing these two bloated contracts. IMO the only trade scenarios that he should be looking at with his #9 pick are those that can potentially move either Foyle or Fisher. I mean, Patrick O'Bryant will be a good center, but we already have Taft, Beans, and Foyle. and Foyle will be making nearly $10 million a year towards the end of his eternal contract. And I'll bet you Montgomery gives Foyle the biggest slice of pie at the center position. Otherwise, we'd have a $10 million back-up center. And that would mean admitting failure, something Mullin absolutely refuses to do. So, unless Foyle is moved, he'll be getting hefty minutes and Beans, Taft, and whoever else the Warrios get there (O'Bryant) will be chillin' on the bench.
I'm split on POB because he's nothing but "potential". His skills are far behind guys like Sheldon Williams and Tiago Splitter, but at least his free throws look decent compared to our two current Warriors centers. I think like Monta Ellis, he might have underperformed in his capabilities in those strengths and lane agility tests. But the dude is a project who probably has fewer post moves/skills than Biedrins I bet and he isn't going to help us get to the playoffs anytime soon. That's the downside to drafting big men, if you get a prospect that turns into a good one he'll make your team good for a lot of years. But you have to be patient as hell... I don't think the majority of Warriors fans are patient enough to bear another losing season. But I agree with everyone that Foyle is the #1 factor why this team sucks more than usual, not Dunleavy's inconsistency, not Murphy's poor D, not Dfish's bad point guard skills, not Monty's coaching. Of course all those problems we have (which can be fixable) compound into an even bigger mess where we're essentially getting mad at the same team put together in '04 ('05 the team hardly changed). Yeah it might be unfair to blame Foyle because the Warriors have all along needed a franchise guy for a long time. This is so we can finally have some direction to build upon, rather than just collecting talent and seeing the mid lottery every season. But Foyle... that guy just plain sux so bad it makes us a donut squad destined to never see the playoffs unless this issue gets addressed. I think Mullin/Monty/Higgins realize that Foyle is the #1 liability to this team. It's because look at how many times we changed our roster to get some offense going. Our lineup changes were always the ones involving him more than Dunleavy, but nobody off the bench could fill in like a true vet center (Ike is too small to play center, Murphy is no center). A center is that important of a franchise position in any offense and defense whether they score the ball or not. Our center is neither big, fast, coordinated, intimidating, or baskeball smart. A center need to get touches and be able to catch it, throw it back out or bounce pass it in. All this and be intimidating on both ends. Ours is so slooooowww, stiff and he bats everything around like volleyball or he just plain clumsy. And we don't need another project like Biedrins who isn't ready to step in and take over Foyle's responsibilities. I'm sure if Monty had any one of those centers that were drafted out of stanford, they would help our offense flow a lot smoother than Foyle ever will. Also if we want to be a running team, we gotta do something about our front court on offense and also our backcourt on defense. Everytime we miss a shot the other team just smokes us in transition. All scoring teams generally don't get far if they're doing something like missing free throws and not being quick enough down the floor through 4 quarters. Our players get tired quite a bit, especially when we can't rest guys like Baron and Jrich and we have to bring out Fish/Pietrus. I used to hate Fish because of his signing in '04 as starter, but now I like him as a backup point. Financially it's probably not a good idea to keep him around for long, but he'll earn his pay in the playoffs. That's why I didn't think it would make much sense to get him if the Warriors didn't really have the pieces to even get there. Fish only worked because he punished teams for leaving him open. When Baron got hurt and there was no other guys to collapse defenses, he became pretty hard player to watch trying to carry the load. So I don't blame Fish as much because he's been successful, he just never will on this team that lacks so many things in a starting five + a reliable bench. This team is neither great runnning the floor or playing halfcourt and definitely not good at D either to play either style honestly. Fix the center spot and interior defense and we could be talking going a bit further like we did in '03 when Dampier was practically team MVP and Clif Robinson didn't even need to rebound more than 5 boards a game to do a good job at starting PF.
I'm puzzled. There are some trade rumors but nothing with the Warriors. Also, the Warriors look as if they already worked out all the players they were interested in unless they're going to bring some in during the last week. Here's who they worked out so far (according to Dxp): http://www.draftexpress.com/workout.php?sort=0&pid=0&tid=26
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting jason voorhees:</div><div class="quote_post">I'm puzzled. There are some trade rumors but nothing with the Warriors. Also, the Warriors look as if they already worked out all the players they were interested in unless they're going to bring some in during the last week. Here's who they worked out so far (according to Dxp): http://www.draftexpress.com/workout.php?sort=0&pid=0&tid=26</div> Well, the Warriors were rumored to be in attendence for the Tyrus Thomas workout according to a Portland article which was posted on the Blazers forum. But... I'd say $10 bucks says the Warriors draft Paul Davis or Kevin Pitsnoggle and we miss the playoffs again and scratch our heads wondering why...?
Here's the link: http://www.justbball.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55241 It says Toronto was there too.
I find the false promise that Dun will have a good game is deadly. We run him out there and he does NOTHING well,yet he's getting more touches than Murphy-Foyle-Ike-Andy combined,he's showing decent technique on D but everyone either can blow past him or overpower him. His passing is "in theory" as it's mostly playing catch 25 ft out. Foyle is the guy who has some size-reach-ability to defend the rim. On offense he adds little-and yet he's over 50% fg,it's not Foyle going 3-15..hell,he probably doesn't get 15 touches unless things breakdown so bad he's the last ditch option. Fisher + Monty = a slow,uncreative game,they feed on each other. Co-dependant.
- so Tyrus Thomas has some value as MAYBE an answer at SF. Forget PF,he weighs a bit less than J Rich and Pietrus,and that speed/hops goes away as we bulk him to 240+. If Thomas is not a big plus outside,or a ballhandler..okay,we shoot enough low % long shots. What MIGHT be the payoff is a Thomas-Diogu-Murphy front line,as Thomas is an above the rim guy,a defensive plus )(with experiance) letting Troy turn into a high post C who hits 12-15 ft J's,becomes a passer,yet still gets his 10 + boards. We don't have a non scorer up front. We have good D on average... Is it WORTH the cost? Not likely, 2 round ones,Murphy and Pietrus for Chandler and #2? Kind of defeats the purpose as Chandler-who I LIKED caught Dunleavy disease...got $5 mill beyond his production-and got worse from there. #9 this year and -? next year COULD be a couple of bigs as good as Chandler-and less $. Thomas may wind up a skinny K Mart,can look great,but the numbers are not that special. Likely at #2 we'd be taking Morrison -----28 ppg,or Aldridge----6-11 and making progress. Thomas? We might trade down 2 slots for him,at a much lower cost.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting REREM:</div><div class="quote_post">I find the false promise that Dun will have a good game is deadly. We run him out there and he does NOTHING well,yet he's getting more touches than Murphy-Foyle-Ike-Andy combined,he's showing decent technique on D but everyone either can blow past him or overpower him. His passing is "in theory" as it's mostly playing catch 25 ft out. Foyle is the guy who has some size-reach-ability to defend the rim. On offense he adds little-and yet he's over 50% fg,it's not Foyle going 3-15..hell,he probably doesn't get 15 touches unless things breakdown so bad he's the last ditch option. Fisher + Monty = a slow,uncreative game,they feed on each other. Co-dependant.</div> First of all what do you expect when our only point guard depth is an nbdl rookie and a high school ball rookie. Fisher gets the nod under almost any nba coach, like it or not. I don't even think Kobe Bryant or T-mac got major minutes out of high school and we're talking a high school point guard, not a shooting guard. Second of all, Dunleavy gets more touches on offense probably because he knows what the coach is trying to instruct. The problem is weak team = weak execution. No stars or veteran depth = we're going to suck. Third of all, you can't be serious about getting Foyle more touches... He's the whole reason why a 5 man motion offense doesn't work because he can't f'n catch. That and he's dumb. He's a cancer. But again, poor depth in this area doesn't help get Foyle demoted for more than a few games. Ike is not a center. Biedrins didn't really show much except how to foul a lot. They tried to make up for this by bringing in more firepower, but Pietrus didn't really steal Dunleavy's job for long for a big reason (the guy is dumb). Foyle also only scored 50% because they were the easiest shots of the game. Now if he could catch, maybe we'd win a few more close games if he could also make layups or not f-up a dunk. Contrast his fg % with Biedrins who actually makes a simple play pretty automatic. Both Biedrins and Foyle had different minutes on the floor, but they were used in the same manner with some of Fisher/Baron/Dun/Jrich feeding them passes inside. Now if Biedrins was further along in the physical strength and not-fouling-every-minute department, he'd steal Foyle's job and show that 50% could actually be turned into 70% fg. That's because if Foyle could just catch the f-ing ball and make a decent layup that's what his fg% would be like. Instead you got Foyle bobbling passes right to his hands and him fumbling it out of bounds. He also screws up even dunk attempts when he tries to one-hand it. Why is this guy dunking if he can't make it 100%? Why is he ruining an almost sure thing when he fumbles passes and can't make easy layups? This is why I don't buy Foyle getting more touches than Dunleavy. At least Dunleavy can catch, make layups, and he knows what to do with the ball. Murphy + Foyle combine to make some pretty serious blackholes in the F/C lineup. Again I wouldn't blame Dunleavy because he's always kind of a non-factor, but Foyle's been especially horrendous. Factor in no Baron it also means no more wins than we had in '04 when we were without him and this team was built to have Fisher and Foyle as long term vet starters at the franchise's most important positions. Plus with Baron, not sure it helped us if he felt there was nobody reliable to pass to or it didn't play enough defense to try and focus there. I think Jrich and Baron know this team needs to play defense, but it wasn't built that way by Mullin. Any combo of Murphy + Dunleavy just plain sucks and will get smoked in transition or off the drive. I'd hate to think it has anything to do with their skin color, but guys probably just want to dunk on their asses anytime they see a white dude with only a 6'9 slowpoke carribean center from an obscure basketball school called "Colgate" and some small guards to stand in the way of the rim. And the stink of it is only Dunleavy/Fisher is willing to take a charge while Murphy stands back and allows other guys to take the intentional foul for him. At least Foyle and the others besides Murphy are trying not to give up a basket. You're totally misappropriating the blame. Monty is probably last compared to what we got as players. Be creative all you want, it's still going to suck running the floor, in isolations, on defense, in halfcourt or whatever. You can't make filet mignon out of dog sht and then blame the waiter for bringing it out to the table when its the cook's fault. Face it, rookies weren't going to bust out like Lebron all of a sudden. If the rookies are truly mentally ready to handle the reigns over our current guys and they display their flashes of brilliance in starter's minutes consistently, then I can see this team turn around some. But dude, forget playing rookies in a losing situation. That is not cool. That's the kind of crap where guys want out if they ain't mentally or physically ready to increase their roles and be scrutinized by the media/fans/coaches/whatever. There's probably more to developing a guy than just throwing them out there and that means team practice where they can review mistakes easier and getting a more natural feel for their own game. Don't forget Monty used to recruit his own guys so I'm sure he knows something about properly vetting them rather than toss them in the fire and make them hate playing for the Warriors. Which brings up another point, did Mullin even bother doing his homework on what kinds of guys Montgomery likes before hiring his butt? Again another Mullin blunder coming from an obviously rookie GM.
