Was thinking about how the Warriors are likely going to ship Brandon Wright off or he will leave as a free agent and how sad that is. Its not like he's a knucklehead like J.R. Rider or druggie. How do you just turn your back on a #8 pick who is 6'9" and has soft hands? Well, looking at history, Nellie will have run off Chris Webber, Timmy Hardaway, Baron Davis, and B Wright. Is B Wright in their class? No. But would other Hall of Fame coaches have run off such talent? I believe a Riley, a Phil Jackson, a Chuck Daly, a Popovich would have found a way to keep their talent and adjusted. Nellie? Nope. Now look at the disarray in the franchise. There is no way that it was Mully's fault. Its on Nellie. He can point to Rowell but we all know that if Nellie wanted something Rowell would have done it. As much as I admire Nellie for the success he's brought to the franchise, I think he's done a very poor job of alienating quality players.
I'm not a big fan of the way Nellie interacts with young players either, but the only reason people are talking about trading Wright is because of Anthony Randolph. Randolph looks to be projecting as a PF, the only position Wright can really play, and while I like Wright quite a lot, Randolph really has it over him in just about every category except shooting percentage. Randolph, while also lanky, is stronger than Wright, fights for position better, is more aggressive, blocks more shots, runs the floor and finishes at the rim better, has a developing jump shot out past 15', and is a better rebounder. While I don't think Randolph is a full time starting PF yet, he's going to be getting more and more minutes, which means fewer and fewer for Wright. The year after next, Randolph should be the full time starter. Nellie also likes to use Turiaf at PF sometimes, not to mention Maggette and Azubuike (I know, yuck). This year we could probably use both of them, and in an ideal world I'd want to keep both, but the year after I don't think there will be room for the two of them, and when both need to be re-signed in a couple years, the Warriors won't be able to afford to keep both anyway. As we've been saying all along, the challenge for the Warriors is turning a collection of good, but misfitting, players into a couple of great players and some good role players that all fit together. Really Wright should take it as a sort of compliment, because his trade value is pretty high right now, and the Warriors need to spend that value while they can, to improve the team for the future (even if it hurts in the short term). He's shown off his potential, is young, and relatively cheap, a lot teams will be interested in a guy like him. If he helps bring the Warriors a true point guard and/or helps shed some of their bad contracts that are hamstringing the club, them I'm all for it. Look, if Ike Diogu was able to enable the dumping of Murphy and MDJ, both with bad 5-year deals at the time, then Wright (a far better talent than Diogu) should be able to enable the dumping of Maggette/Crawford/Jackson (all of whom have more talent than Murphy or MDJ, and two of whom have shorter deals). But I know what you're saying, it is a bit sad. Wright is a homegrown talent, a pick that is maybe working out rather well for them (sorry, JRich). I don't want to see him go, but I'll be surprised if he's in a Warrior uniform at the start of next season.
Hardaway was traded during the 95-96 season, Nellie had left after 94-95 and was with the Knicks then. He didn't run Baron off either, Baron had a contract in place with Mullin that got shitcanned by Rowell. Baron opted out and signed with the Clips. When he came back to clean out his locker it was reported that he and Nellie had a long conversation in Nellie's truck. I think they did like each other despite reports from the end of the season. Can't deny Webber really. As for Wright, hes not run off yet. He was starting a pretty good portion of games when he was playing. I think Nellie is very frustrated by his injuries and lack of aggressiveness though. Before Randolph busted into the rotation Nellie made quotes about how Randolph was better than Wright was the year before and if memory serves I even want to say he told the media that Randolph was ahead of Wright in the rotation during training camp. My take is that Nellie seems to like Wright- Wright seems like a hard worker, hes athletic, hes got skills, seems like a really good dude, takes orders, etc. etc. In contrast to that you have Randolph who was kind of the opposite at the beginning of last season. Uber aggressive and competitive, really talented and athletic like Wright but had poor practice habits and a bad attitude. Nellie put Randolph "on ice" for a while and really pissed Randolph off. We had a potential Webber situation on our hands when AR wanted a trade. Eventually AR changed his ways and got some PT due to injuries. After that we basically couldn't stop playing him. Hes still kind of a punk ass when it comes to showing up other players, mugging guys, etc. but he seems like a good team player, plays his ass off, super aggressive, super competitive, tough, plays like a maniac, etc. So now you've got two 6'10 athletic stick figures. One is a calm, cool headed low-post/faceup kind of player who is unaggressive, doesn't rebound well, really weak, and injury prone. The other is described by Bill Simmons in the following way: 'He's like a cross between Josh Smith and Lamar Odom, only if you fed him 10 Red Bulls and told him right before the game, "If you can make 10 things happen during the 10 minutes you play tonight, we will quadruple your salary and you will start for the rest of the season" ... and then he does just that, but the coach reneges on the promise so Anthony has a near-crying meltdown on the bench.' (link Before Randolph I don't think anyone wants to trade Wright. Nellie doesn't seem to have anything against him other than the lack of aggressiveness and injury prone-ness. But Randolph just seems like more of a killer, hes got a KG type personality and he goes all out for 48 mins. He seems stronger, handles better, his j seemed better than Wright's by season's end, hes 2 years younger I think, way better rebounder. Wright's got a better post game but thats about it. Like with a lot of the players on the team, I wouldn't trade him for the sake of trading him or trade him for a marginal role player. Hes still young, hes got nice moves and great touch around the rim. But if you can get a big upgrade by moving him then you've gotta do it. If we didn't have Randolph then maybe you do hold out and hope Wright blossoms, but we do have Randolph. And you could make the case for Randolph vs. Wright long term but don't act like Nellie has no idea what hes doing. Dude traded Robert Traylor for Nowitzki and everyone thought he was nuts. He knew Ike and POB were worthless pretty quickly. He cut Hendrix/Nelson to keep Morrow/Kurz (got a few good games out of Kurz, Hendrix was never called up). He does make some wacky moves but hes not as bad as people often make him out to be.
Everything BJM said. BTW...Adleman Benched Hardaway and Mullin for Kersey and BJ Armstrong. I still hate him for that.
