After killing the Warriors for years, I got on the bandwagon last fall and predicted that Golden State would break the longest playoff drought in the league. Baron Davis and Jason Richardson gave them one of the most promising backcourts in the league. Warriors VP Chris Mullin was raving about Mike Dunleavy's improvement over the summer and eventually signed him to a substantial $45 million extension. Troy Murphy was healthy. Ike Diogu was supposed to add rebounding and toughness in the paint. But once January hit, the wheels came off. The Warriors were 17-14 on December 31, but went 3-9 in January and never recovered. By the end of the season, the team had won just 34 games, duplicating their miserable 2004-05 outing. Losing Baron Davis for 28 games was part of the problem, but the truth is that the Warriors were just 23-31 when he played. The last month was ugly. They endured a nine-game losing streak that stretched from March into April. It appeared that several players had quit. According to one player on the team, the tension between some players on the team and head coach Mike Montgomery was combustible. Mullin went into the summer vowing to change the team's chemistry around, but three months later . . . the Warriors look the same. Mullin has been working the phones all summer but has very little to show for it. He did manage to move Derek Fisher's hard-to-trade contract, but he got nothing but future salary cap relief in return. The free agent market has been unkind. The team made a major push for Al Harrington, but the Hawks didn't want the bloated contract of Troy Murphy or Mike Dunleavy in return. The Warriors' problem is that they continue to remain on the fence between winning and development. As always, they have a number of talented young players (Monta Ellis, Mickael Pietrus, Andris Biedrins, Diogu and rookie Patrick O'Bryant) in the pipeline. They don't want to trade them. However, their veterans, with the exception of Jason Richardson, are virtually untradeable. Mullin is guilty for most of the bad contracts. He vastly overpaid Murphy, Dunleavy and Adonal Foyle, limiting his ability to make changes to his team. A number of GMs have told me they've been offered all three, but no one will touch them. The word around the league is that Davis is also available, but given his injury history and rep as a chemistry killer, no one will touch him. If the Warriors can't trade the millstones that are dragging them down (those four are still owed a combined $182 million over the course of their Golden State careers) and refuse to trade the young talent that can't get them anywhere yet, then Warriors fans can rest assured that another 30-to-35-win season is coming.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting shapecity:</div><div class="quote_post">Confirmed.</div> thx Shape!
Bashing the Warriors off-season is the hottest new trend -- what else did we expect? As soon as it's fashionable to say "Warriors" and "playoffs" in the same sentance, Ford will be right back on the bandwagon again.
