<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">OAKLAND - Never fear. Don Nelson has it alllll figured out. Plays? You bet the Warriors are going to have plays. "I'll have five plays which will have three different looks each," a relaxed-looking Nelson said at the Warriors practice facility Thursday. "I'm going to be very simple. I'm not going to overburden them with too many plays or too much thinking." Run? Yep, the Nellie II Warriors are going to run. Beginning on the first day of training camp Tuesday, and starting with point guard Baron Davis. "I like all my guys as light as possible," Nelson said. "Lighter than his lowest (playing) weight would be good for me." Expectations? Nelson knows exactly what to expect in the first season of his second go-round with the Warriors. He also knows what not to expect. "We're not talking about winning titles here," he said matter-of-factly. "We want to have a good team, and build from that. I don't think there have been many championship teams that haven't made the playoffs. You've got to do that first." Nelson isn't the same fish-tied my-way-or-the-highway type who first came to the Warriors as general manager in 1987. He has mellowed some. Now he's more of a my-way-because-it's-a-proven-method type. He knows the highway will be there if things don't work out -- and that he'll likely be the one using it. "I'll probably make more demands that they get the job done, or they won't play," he said when asked how his team will differ fundamentally from the team that went 34-48 last season. "If someone isn't doing the job, I'll go down the bench and get somebody else. When I run out of players, I get fired." Nelson talks like the mechanic whose first ride was a '46 Packard. He can diagnose a car with a glance, tell you what it needs, how long it'll take to fix it and how the car will run when he's finished. He's a technician, not necessarily a magician. He has sat through tapes of the Warriors' 2005-06 season (meaning he already has earned a good chunk of his 2006-07 salary). He can tell you about Mike Dunleavy's release, Andris Biedrins' footwork and Ike Diogu's outside shot. "Every player is going to have to make changes in their game," he said. "Most will be happy changes. Some will be unhappy changes." It either doesn't occur to him or doesn't concern him that some players might be resistant to change. Two immediate goals are for the Warriors to attempt fewer 3-point shots and make more free throws. "If you want an easy fix for this team," he said, "it's free-throw shooting. This team would have won six, seven more games just making their free throws, just making 75 (percent) instead of 71." Dunleavy, he said, "is going to do real well in our system. I'd be surprised if he doesn't." Davis will need to "make his decisions quicker. I think he'll be a real happy guy." And if he's not? Nelson's first term as Warriors coach imploded amid criticism he had trouble getting along with the strong-minded superstar type (then known as Chris Webber). Nellie II seems better positioned to deal with that dynamic. One, he has nothing to prove. It has been three decades since he took over a 52-loss Milwaukee Bucks team and led it to an average of 51 wins over the next 10 seasons. The Warriors have had just five winning records since Al Attles retired in 1983 -- Nelson was on the bench for four of them. He lasted less than one season with the New York Knicks but molded the Dallas Mavericks into an elite presence in the Western Conference. Beyond that, he has banks full of money, celebrity poker pals and a house on Maui. Fire him today, and he'll be teeing off at The Dunes at Maui Lani tomorrow. Where's the downside there? Meantime, he's pretty sure Mickael Pietrus will enjoy the coming season, as long as he understands he won't be shooting much. "The last thing I want anybody to worry about is numbers," Nelson said. "If that's important to you, you'll never have a winning team. You have a lot of agendas on losing teams. The only person who hasn't got an agenda is the coach. I could give a (censored) who scores what." It's almost comical how casual Nelson seems regarding what others would consider pressing issues. Organizational control, for example. "Never really talked about it," he said. "I'm the coach, (Chris Mullin) is the GM." The incredible shrinking role that awaits Adonal Foyle? "We'll have that talk." The Jenny Craig challenge that awaits Davis? "I haven't talked with him yet. We've left each other some voice mails. He's gotten that message." The one where Don Nelson has it alllll figured out. It won't be the last time he hears it.</div> http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctime...rs/15637593.htm
Thx for the post. I'm sure REREM will love this article because Nelson is definitely outside the box. He is attack, attack, attack type of guy rather than like Jeff Van Gundy or Larry Brown. I guess you got to go to war with what you got and our players don't like plays and they suck at half court except for inbounds plays. I still like fundamental ball where the center and power forward operate in the post (and at least one the high post) and the guards and wing operate from everywhere. The best game is one where we can mix it up so we can respond and make our own threats in any type of situation or matchup... Hopefully Nelson works out for us, ups the values of our players, so we can find the right guys. Because our draft picks will not be so great if we make the playoffs. We will be getting the Arron Mckies and Derek Fishers of the next few drafts if we make the playoffs.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">He has sat through tapes of the Warriors' 2005-06 season (meaning he already has earned a good chunk of his 2006-07 salary)</div>I got a nice laugh out of this! So the things I like most about what Nellie has been saying: -- He understands the importance of freethrows and will hopefully take whatever steps are necessary to improve them. I heard a nice interview with JRich on KNBR today, I think he said he's shooting something like 1,000 free throws a day -- excellent. (Just a side note on JRich -- it's too bad he doesn't get interviewed more often, he just a really humble, likable guy who is constantly striving to upgrade his game and he clearly places team success above personal success). -- He's aware of the random 3-pointer problem that killed the Warriors so many times last year and is determined to correct it. -- He's not afraid to sit anyone who isn't doing their job. That means anyone, starters and stars included. There's a decent amount of talent sitting on the Warriors bench that didn't get a chance to play as much as they might have last year because Monty was too much of a pu$$y to sit the starters that weren't pulling their weight (Foyle, Dun) or weren't running the system (Baron), and he seemed to think the most highly paid players were the ones who had to get the lion's share of the minutes, no matter what. I really think Zarko will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Nellie's way. -- His plans to use pick and roll and give and go plays a lot more. Hopefully he can work with Ike to help him set more solid screens, I think he was a little sketchy there last year. What I don't like about what Nellie has been saying: -- His (IMO) misguided obsession with Dun. Yes, he can handle the ball better than most players his size. But there's so many negatives that go along with that, is it enough? -- He still seems to think young players deserve to sit on the bench. Most of the time I'd say that's true, but Ellis is ready to play big minutes right now, and Ike and Andris are making a lot fewer rookie/young mistakes than at the beginning of last year. I hope they get a chance to play.
I just hope that Jrich is making at least 850 of those 1000 free throws a day because maybe in real game time when he's tired and nervous he'll make 75% versus the 85% or so he'll make with his eyes closed without anyone watching during practice. I think everyone was well aware of the free throw problem and guys like Dun and Foyle and Fisher/Baron/Murphy/Jrich/Pietrus going nuts on threes. Nelson is definitely a PR type of coach. But I want to see results. We've got several guys who can do lip service like the Fish and Baron, but what they do in games is pretty much the opposite of what they say sometimes. The team just has to get better at all the things like shooting, dribbling, passing, defensive footwork, and things they can't improve like size and athleticism. I swear if we had some inside game, higher % shots would go up. But that's how teams usually fare if they don't have a center or a power forward that can't emulate center, plus trigger happy non-pure point guards, and scorers that can't shoot free throws and "shooters" that can't shoot. The most embarassing is that our guards can't shoot free throws compared to the other starting and bench guards in the league. Might as well throw us Darius Miles and Antoine Walker and Ben Wallace on our team.
