2009/2010 Team Preview: Golden State Warriors

Is this even worth doing??? I mean, we know they won’t make the playoffs, someone will have a sook and demand a trade, and a rookie won’t be treated properly and will leave to join another team and flourish there. Are we done? Actually no I should be fair and do this properly I guess. Here’s the depth chart for the Golden State Shooting Guards – I mean Warriors:

Liek Bobby and Whitney before them, you just know this is going to end in tears or fistycuffs... Or both.

PG: Stephen Curry, CJ Watson, Acie Law, Speedy Claxton

SG: Montas Ellis, Anthony Morrow

SF: Stephen Jackson, Corey Maggette, Kelenna Azabuike, Devean George

PF: Anthony Randolph, Brandan Wright, Mikki Moore

C: Andris Biedrins, Ronny Turiaf

Looking at that lineup one can immediately see that it’s chock full of young talent, and chock full of people 6’6 or below. For the record, the average height of the team is 6’6 without taking into account some generous “listed heights”. What’s also obvious is that Golden State isn’t short of shooters – apparently that’s what Nellie wants in his uptempo offense – or of depth at the 1/2/3 positions. What’s disturbing is the other positions – 4/5. If Beidrins goes down then the season is over – he is possibly the most important player on any team to hardly get the recognition he deserves. 10+ boards, 2+ blocks and solid percentages make Biedrins an antidote to Nelsons virus. Anthony Randolph is an intriguing prospect as well – we know he can get up and down well, but he can also jump out of a building so if he’s coached well he could transform into quite a handy shot-blocker. Possibly the most disturbing Golden State fact however, is the list of first round picks that have gone wandering elsewhere after their rookie contract or been traded ASAP.  Marco Bellinelli, Patrick O’Bryant, Ike Diogu, Mikael Pietrus to name a few and Brandan Wright looks like he might be growing wings soon as well. Something about Don Nelsons Golden State makes it an awful place to develop young bigs… Who’d have thought?

If Golden State are to be taken seriously this year, and they have the players to do it, then they have to lose the attitude, the coach, and several toxic players. Basically I’m calling train-smash on Golden State and saying “start again”. Here’s why:

• Stephen Jackson is not and should never be considered, a team leader: “Wacko Jacko” is aptly named and is a terrible role model for up and coming players. He’s selfish, he has no tact on or off the court, and he brings organizations down (even though he’ll tell you it was him who took them to the playoffs in 2007). At present WJ is calling to be traded. If I’m Golden State – I trade him for draft picks or up and comers. Whatever it takes, get him out of there.
• Fire Don Nelson: I’m not comfortable calling Nellie a coach. He has no strategy, no play book, and no idea how to manage Gen Y players. I’d hire anyone ahead of this guy, though I’d be paying special attention to the Sam Mitchell’s floating about who are famous for getting young bigs to play to their potential.
• Move the big contracts: Lose Maggette, Montas Ellis and Speedy Claxton and get in some expiring contracts and draft picks. Even if Maggette et al. are given away ala Zach Randolph style it doesn’t matter – they’re no help to you on or off the court. Maggette is like WJ just more often injured. Montas is a little nutter developing some serious attitude and we all know his play was flukey thanks to B Diddy being around. Claxton has an expiring contract which is good and hopefully he can be a role model for the young guys coming through but if you can get a draft pick for his contract why not grab it?
• Kill the front office: Metaphorical or not a lot of the problems stem from here…

The Warriors should scrap their plans and build arounf their young core of Randolph, Curry and Biedrins.

The Warriors are going to have another up and down season. They’re like a good action movie – creating suspense, some action, then a soft finish EXCEPT this team won’t live happily ever after. They’ve got enough raw young talent in Curry, Randolph, Morrow and Azabuike to catch some teams off-guard when combined with the ever solid Biedrins but they’ll be lucky to finish better than 12th in the west.