French Fried

Kwan covered well the whole range of issues on the horizon. It's clear that NO other team sees Dunleavy as a $10 mill per year player-or even close. I would say that if MD improves significantly-the most optimistic scenario,he can be around an $8 mill guy. If the gain is little or none,perhaps few go above $5 mill. Because the W's have waited so long for the playoffs,I think we will be willing to pay some Lux tax for a few years. Probably we won't get extreme,and so another "generous" deal could mean troubles ahead.

The idea that Pietrus COULD win the SF role is not a reach. How that unfolds has to be considered before the team lays a big contract on Dunleavy.

 

I agree with the concern for future cap flexibility. The problem with most GSW fans is that we think all of our picks have the potential to make the All NBA team. The only person who has the possibility of that right now is Baron Davis. Jrich has the possibility of making the All Star team this year, but probably not as a starter. Dunleavy will probably never make the All Star team although he could be a very nice complimentary piece like a Tony Kukoc was for the Bulls. Murphy will not be an All Star unless he ups his scoring to above 20pts per game, and guys like Tim Duncan get injured. As far as our young guys go; Pietrus at this point shows the highest potential for stardom, but he also shows the potential to be a Calbert Chaney or Bruce Bowen. Biedrens is not going to be even as good as Vlade but he may be ok. People are worried about not being able to sign these guys like they are going to all be All Stars. I say quit worrying about things you cant control. I hope we wait to sign Dunleavy until next summer and let the NBA set the market value for him. Dunleavy is not going to command a huge salary just because he is not very athletic or exciting. He might collect slightly above the MLE and to me that is fair.

 

The problem I have with doom and gloom, is that your acting as though Mullin doesn't think about the future. I'm very happy to leave the capology to him, as it's his legacy. I like the moves he's made, and barring a huge overpayment of Dunleavy, will continue to support his decisions. After all what choice do I have?

As bad as the deals for Fisher and Foyle might be to some of you, we can all agree that they are serviceable players with some positives to their games. I believe that in the right circumstance they are tradeable assests.

I personally don't feel the need to trade Murphy. Nor do I think his contract is a bad one. That's just my opinion though, as he's probably my favorite player next to Baron of course.

I really think Mullin has the future signings on his mind. If you don't your just plain stupid. If he overpays Dunleavy, I'll be very critical of him. Until then I'm confident he'll have resigning the youngsters on his mind. Anyway, some of these guys need to show what they really can do with playing time. Resigning all of them is probably unrealistic. We just love them all already, so it's hard to imagine them not being around.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting mylie10:</div><div class="quote_post">The problem I have with doom and gloom, is that your acting as though Mullin doesn't think about the future. </div>

I think we all lost some trust when he signed Fisher and Foyle to 6 year contracts...

 

1) Foyle was signed (at market rate) because Dampier decided he wnated to leave. Ther was a good offer on the table for Damp, but he wanted out. Biedrins as our starting center wouldn't have been the right option.

2) Fisher was signed when we had Claxton as the other point guard. Now that we have Baron as the starter, the need for Fisher has been greatly reduced. The pressure was on to make any free agent signing we could, when we signed Fish. Fish was the only guy willing to come here at the time.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting mylie10:</div><div class="quote_post">1) Foyle was signed (at market rate) because Dampier decided he wnated to leave. Ther was a good offer on the table for Damp, but he wanted out. Biedrins as our starting center wouldn't have been the right option.

2) Fisher was signed when we had Claxton as the other point guard. Now that we have Baron as the starter, the need for Fisher has been greatly reduced. The pressure was on to make any free agent signing we could, when we signed Fish. Fish was the only guy willing to come here at the time.</div>

Oh, I agree with the reasoning. It is the exact argument I made. But 6 years! There comes a point when you are supposed to say, I want to win but at what cost? 6 years? If they had such great deals, Mullin should have called their bluff. We went with Clif Robinson for half the season as our starting center even AFTER we signed Foyle. We could have found SOMEONE. As far as the PG situation goes. Dun could have handled that if an emergency arised. I dont care. 6 years at those figures for BOTH OF THEM! One of them, OK it was an emergency, but BOTH OF THEM! No way....

Let alone giving in to Richardson and Murphy's agent threats....

 

So Warriorsfansnc93, Do you like Mullin as a GM? Or not?

 

For years, we ripped and shreaded other GMs for not doing their job, despite they are hired as GMs. And, we witnessed how GMs could screw up the team, despite they are getting paid for more than couple peanuts. So, exactly where did you get a confidence that Mullin is different from other GMs and knows exactly what he is doing? If Warriors hired some random guy instead of Mullin and made exact same decision, do you think he will get your blind confidence like now? Did he have any previous record as GM before? Did he have a degree in Business? For years, people blindly ripped Saint for every wrong things, whether he deserved the critism or not. And, when Mullin stepped in, people blindly supported Mullin when he was a rookie GM with not much business training background. He was a great Warrior as a player, but that has not much to do with GM and operating the team. I do not question Mullin for his scouting skill. After all, Davis, Zarko, Biedrins has been right on, and Diogu and Monta look very solid as well. However, every single signings Mullin made were all overpaid when they were signed (thanks God that Richardson actually matched his salary), and based on past history throught the league, we got zero flexibility and no room to even resign our young players for next 4 years. So far, Mullin didn't show much sign that he really planned for the future, and those things happen quite often in other places as well, where GMs put all eggs for short term success, and pay the price later. If Mullin wasn't a former great Warrior, he would have been ripped just like our previous GMs for obvious overpaying contracts.

I am not going to say I know more than Mullin, because I am not in his shoes. Best I can do as a fan is look at the past and predict the future with limited resources. But that doesn't mean I am also going to say just because he is paid, he will make everything right. We saw years that just because they are getting paid, that doesn't mean they will always make things right. And, Mullin made a lot of not-so-sound financial decisions to receive a benefit of doubt on financial department. Until Mullin shows enough evidences that he is actually concerned about our financial problems in the future, I have to question his moves and analyze how it will affect our future. If you have a problem with my argument, tell me which part of my argument you don't agree on with some convincing reasons, instead of just coming up with "He gets paid and you don't. So Mullin must know what he is doing and you are not" or "I don't know what will happen, but something good will happen and everything will be fine" type of argument...

 

Mullin has put this franchise in a position we haven't been in for 10 years. There is something to be said for keeping a core group together, even though you may have to give a little. You can't say that the Murphy signing is a bad one. You may not care for Murphy's game, but there are many teams that would have given him at least as much. Mullin may not be the best GM in the league, but so far no one else has come as close to the current state of the franchise.

Part of being a GM is talent evaluation, that includes draft picks. It's not just the money 100% of the time. It's not blind faith, it's tangible optimism. We can actually see a light at the end of the tunnel. What other W GM has done that? Whether or not we can resign the youngsters remains to be seen. There are many scenarios that can happen.

For you to say the sky's falling, because that's the way you see it, doesn't mean it's falling!

As far as I'm concerned Mullin has done a great job with what he's been given. The Foyle and Fisher signings are questionable, but put them in their proper context. Don't blindly hate the moves without relizing what was happening at the time. Meyers right that we could've probably gotten a cheaper center to do what Adonal does, but then again, we're familiar with Adonal as a person, and at times he can be a game changer. You could call the Fisher signing a bad one. But Mullin did it to say look we can bring in free agents. Bad move for the amount of years? Yes. Fisher being traded in the near future? Not likely, but not impossible.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting mylie10:</div><div class="quote_post">Mullin has put this franchise in a position we haven't been in for 10 years. There is something to be said for keeping a core group together, even though you may have to give a little. You can't say that the Murphy signing is a bad one. You may not care for Murphy's game, but there are many teams that would have given him at least as much. Mullin may not be the best GM in the league, but so far no one else has come as close to the current state of the franchise.

Part of being a GM is talent evaluation, that includes draft picks. It's not just the money 100% of the time. It's not blind faith, it's tangible optimism. We can actually see a light at the end of the tunnel. What other W GM has done that? Whether or not we can resign the youngsters remains to be seen. There are many scenarios that can happen.

For you to say the sky's falling, because that's the way you see it, doesn't mean it's falling!

As far as I'm concerned Mullin has done a great job with what he's been given. The Foyle and Fisher signings are questionable, but put them in their proper context. Don't blindly hate the moves without relizing what was happening at the time. Meyers right that we could've probably gotten a cheaper center to do what Adonal does, but then again, we're familiar with Adonal as a person, and at times he can be a game changer. You could call the Fisher signing a bad one. But Mullin did it to say look we can bring in free agents. Bad move for the amount of years? Yes. Fisher being traded in the near future? Not likely, but not impossible.</div>

To answer your first question; yes, I like Mullin as our GM or Vice President of Basketball operations to be exact. Rod Higgins is actually our GM.
I would say I pretty much agree with your assessment. Of course hindsight is 20/20 so for me to say the Fisher and Foyle signings were bad would be wrong of me. At the time we had NO CENTER! We let Damp go and go SOMETHING out of him. Foyle was expected to expound upon his game the way he had played as a back up to Damp. With Damp out of the way and Foyle to start all 82 games we all expected him to pretty much average a double/double and maybe come close to leading the league in blocked shots. Since he has not done this to this point he was a bad signing. But again, that is wrong of me to say. When we signed Fisher we were all excited a free agent would actually chose to play for Golden State. When was the last time that happened? Well, Calbert had too, but he did not have too many options. At least with Fisher, Houston was pursuing him too. But we all asked at what cost? 6 years AND a big contract? That was crazy. But we thought we were going to the playoffs and he would be invaluable to our team's performance in the playoffs. As far as Richardson and Murphy goes. I thought Richardson deserved every penny he got. Murphy on the other hand had not had a healthy season and I wanted to see how he played last year before extending him. Just like Dunleavy, he will be a restricted free agent. No need to jump on him since he is not an All star type player. Jrich was so I definately think he should have been extending. Plus I did not like Murphy's away from the post game from a PF. I like his game as a shooter, but I think a PF should be posting up more often. An outside game should only COMPLIMENT a PF's game, but make up his entire game.

 

Did I question Mullin and his eye for talents? No. Talent can make a winning team, but financial ability make teams intact. We saw over and over from A's and Billy Bean, who can can grap talents after talent, and how financially strapped team loses talent after talents. Or, we saw how World series winning Florida Marlins have to completely destroy the team, because the owner will not pay anymore. Every single team in pro sports has their financial limits, and at this rate, we are getting to the limit. If we can't maintain finance, we will lose our talents like any other teams in pro sports, and I talked about that over and over for last year+.

Obviously, you do not want to hear anything bad about Mullin, and that's fine with me. But, if you ever want to argue why Mullin will go through this financial crisis, give me more than just...

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting mylie10:</div><div class="quote_post">Whether or not we can resign the youngsters remains to be seen. There are many scenarios that can happen.</div>

followed by...

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting mylie10:</div><div class="quote_post">For you to say the sky's falling, because that's the way you see it, doesn't mean it's falling!
</div>

I believe I went through my point over and over with past examples and financial stats. So far, I wasn't able to hear more than 'something good will happen'. Frankly, it does not make a very good discussion...

 

You're right Kwan you bore me.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting mylie10:</div><div class="quote_post">You're right Kwan you bore me.</div>
Hey man I know you didn't mean that in a disrespectful way, but can we avoid such remarks even if they are in jest? I highly respect a guy like Kwan that's going to present a mature, detailed discussion regarding a very little known subject of "salary cap management" to back up his philosophy about team management (of course from our outsider's perspective). Very few of us even understand the way the financial situation works, but if you research you'll see that Kwan brings a lot to the table that many other Warriors fans don't see or know about. Even some sports writers fail to do their homework on this subject matter and knowledgeable fans have to correct them. It's true that teams like the Spurs keep getting better and better because they really manage their team well financially, they draft well, attract talent for a reasonable price to play with their core group and they've done it incredibly well for a small market team. Unless our team has the Knicks owners, things can get ugly fast for us so there is some concern if one is only looking through rose colored glasses.

Anyway, I see what you're saying about Mullin finally being able to turn the corner with this franchise, but you can't base everything Mullin has done so far off one trade that a bad Hornets GM threw right into our laps and the fact we had little leverage to make good signings off of. There's going to be some tough decisions made in the future by Mullin and if he locks up the wrong players or can't find a way to ditch the bad contracts, we may find ourselves back to square one very quickly.

The fact is the Warriors overpaid two players and one marginal starter that might spell the difference between losing a really good impact player later on. Did we have a choice, yes and no. We had to overpay for talent, but we could also chose not to have signed them at the expense of not improving for the short term or maintaining contuinity/momentum. We could possibly have found similar players if they knew where to look.

So just a word of advice, your enthusiasm as a Warrior fan is awesome, but if you're challenging someone's philosophy based on the numbers being seen, you got to bring some facts, links or express something more in-depth about what you see. And then compromise on some things.

You should definitely read "Money Ball" by Billy Beane. If you're an intellect and an athlete/sports fan, you should read it. It'll enlighten you.

 

Hey Custodian, I've said on many occasions that Kwan is the capologist. But beyond numbers, many things can take place to change the numbers. Just because he brings insight into the financial side, doesn't mean he's right about everything. And yes his constant doom is boring, and it says something about his personality. Last time I checked Kwan wasn't one of our GM's, so his opinion, though valid, is just his opinion.

I don't believe I'm basing all of Mullins success on the Baron deal alone. I like the J-Rich signing, Ilike the Murphy deal (although most don't), I like the eye for talent. I don't care for the Fisher and Foyle deals, but I look at the circumstance at the times of each deal, and understand why they were done.
I'm not looking at this through rose colored glasses. There is a tangible optimism about this team because of what moves Mullin has made. By the way were you there when Mullin made the deal? Did it really just fall into his lap? Give the guy a little credit. It's a gamble that we're all thankful he made, because after all if it fails, it's his butt on the line, not ours!

Why do you guys hold him to this standard of perfection? I believe only JC can bat a 1000%.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting mylie10:</div><div class="quote_post">Hey Custodian, I've said on many occasions that Kwan is the capologist. But beyond numbers, many things can take place to change the numbers. Just because he brings insight into the financial side, doesn't mean he's right about everything. And yes his constant doom is boring, and it says something about his personality. Last time I checked Kwan wasn't one of our GM's, so his opinion, though valid, is just his opinion.

I don't believe I'm basing all of Mullins success on the Baron deal alone. I like the J-Rich signing, Ilike the Murphy deal (although most don't), I like the eye for talent. I don't care for the Fisher and Foyle deals, but I look at the circumstance at the times of each deal, and understand why they were done.
I'm not looking at this through rose colored glasses. There is a tangible optimism about this team because of what moves Mullin has made. By the way were you there when Mullin made the deal? Did it really just fall into his lap? Give the guy a little credit. It's a gamble that we're all thankful he made, because after all if it fails, it's his butt on the line, not ours!

Why do you guys hold him to this standard of perfection? I believe only JC can bat a 1000%.</div>

I'm not doubting anything you said about Mullin doing a good job with drafting and building upon guys, rather than losing guys. The issue was finding a way to manage all the talent we have and payrolls. And that's why I said Kwan's analysis as an outsider is just that, but it's using the information he knows about our salary to make an opinion. And that information points to the fact we can't keep this going that long because we've put ourselves in a position that makes it hard to trade our bad contracts out and re-sign our own young talents. Then we also have to make sure we grab the team that will good for the next four years or so. That's pretty tough to do when you don't have the flexibility and there's a time limit.

Also, I did address the circumstances that we had to overpay to attract talent. One thing I didn't mention was that Mullin had to deal with Dan Fegan (Murphy and Richardson's ultra aggressive super agent).

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Mullin pulled the deal off for Baron, I'm just glad he wanted to be in California and that Mullin is the kind of GM that will take care of his players, develop them, so that the players can be confident, growing and concerned with just playing rather than not getting paid for all their hard work. Also, I'm not too optimistic about how well we can do for three years straight, but I'm optimistic for this year. So I tend to be a little bit pessimistic if we don't have a few things happen first. You're right about that anything can happen, though.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Run BJM:</div><div class="quote_post">
Other than that, Mullin has done a great job of drafting with Biedrins, Diogu, Monta, and Taft (it wasnt him who drafted Pietrus right?). Hell, he has such a great eye for talent he managed to steal Zarko from the Suns who thought he was trash, along with the rest of the league. Another underapreciated move he made was dumping Najera for a few young prosepcts and/or expiring deals, its a win-win for us; we got rid of a long term deal and if one of them emerged as a solid player we could have resigned them. I believe we gave a pick in the deal too but I still like it.
</div>

Without a doubt Mullin has been drafting well, but he's got to find some way to get out of the bad contracts without losing talent. Also, he's got to be wise about what draft picks to give up versus which to keep if he's using those as bait to dump bad contracts. We wouldn't want to lose any picks in the year we somehow flop.

 

We can't and won't resign every guy. We just have to make sure that our core is the right one. Unfortunately a few of these youngsters, aren't going to pan out with us. Whether it's Dunleavy, Pietrus, Biedrins, or Cabarkapa, one of them most likely won't be here in the next few years. We can all make a case for who's the best fit for our team, but I think they'll play themselves in or out of the rotation.

Right now Pietrus' attitude scares me. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be the man, but you have to earn it. So shut up and play hard, and good things will come to you.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting mylie10:</div><div class="quote_post">We can't and won't resign every guy. We just have to make sure that our core is the right one. Unfortunately a few of these youngsters, aren't going to pan out with us. Whether it's Dunleavy, Pietrus, Biedrins, or Cabarkapa, one of them most likely won't be here in the next few years. We can all make a case for who's the best fit for our team, but I think they'll play themselves in or out of the rotation.

Right now Pietrus' attitude scares me. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be the man, but you have to earn it. So shut up and play hard, and good things will come to you.</div>

I just hope Dunleavy is not part of that core unless he dramatically improves his defense...