This week saw two unbelievably amazing Warriors-related videos come our way, and it's quite simply my duty to bring them to you.
First, we have this video of Baron, Stephen Jackson, and Al Harrington dancing to Soulja Boy Tellem. Shoals gave as good a take on the dancing as possible over at FD, saying that "The dance has become a tic, a comforting gesture, a stance." In the comments of that post, rebar makes an excellent point on the non-Soulja part of the video, explaining that Baron has become a combination of seriousness and goofiness that has before now been associated primarily with Agent Zero. Honestly, I don't have much to add to this one -- I just think it needs to be seen by everyone and hope I've touched someone's life.
Henry Abbott put this video up on TrueHoop the other day, but I think the link died, so I'm doing my part here. I really can't discuss this one rationally, so I'll do my best in bullet form:
Andris talks about horseshoes like it's a great American pastime. I think I've played it once or twice.
Why are they playing horseshoes in the first place? They couldn't just have a roundtable or video game battle?
Andris appears to be hosting the game. Apparently they don't put the rookies in the classy part of the resort.
The music and video quality makes me think they filmed this one in 1986.
Andris: "Marco's on fire." Get used to that one.
The Andris narration is fantastic. Sign him up for an audiobook.
Kosta Perovic appears to be the best at this game, which makes me think he has no chance of being a serviceable NBA player.
Andris: "See, me and Kosta, that's how we do here." I could not have said it better myself.
These videos both make one thing clear: I am very lucky to root for this team.
The Warriors announced their captains today, and, as you've probably heard by now, Stephen Jackson, Matt Barnes, and Baron Davis were the choices. As expected, there has been outcry against the Jackson choice, with Epic Carnival, Adonal Obsessed, Three Idiots on Sports, and Mavs Moneyball registering complaints. While my opinion is obviously biased because I'm a big Warriors fan, I think Jackson is a perfectly suitable, if unconvential, selection. Although the man certainly has some issues, Jackson's a phenomenal teammate, a proven player in the clutch, and a symbol of what this Warriors team is all about. He might not be the most upright citizen, but that doesn't mean he's not the best person to lead a team into a tough game in the playoffs.
First off, picking captains is not a public relations move. It's not a contest to see who gives the best press conferences or gets in the least trouble. Captains exist to lead their teammates in everything basketball-related, and that's pretty much it. Yes, to a certain extent, every announcement is PR-related, but at some point basketball function has to outweigh those concerns. I think that's exactly the case here.
Jackson's teammates have always identified him as a phenomenal guy in the locker room and on the court. He's proven beyond the shadow of a doubt (well, too much) that he'll back a teammate up if that person gets into trouble, earning the respect of anyone that wears his same uniform. It's extremely telling that a team as Right Way as the Spurs valued (and continues to value) his contribution to their championship team as much as they did. No less an unimpeachable source than Tim Duncan has claimed that Jackson is the "ultimate teammate", so it's not like this is something specific to the Warriors and Ron Artest. Simply put, Stephen Jackson is somebody that everyone feels perfectly comfortable going to war with.
Last postseason (and many postseasons before that), he also made it clear that he won't back down against a presumably superior opponent. Without Stephen Jackson around to get in the Mavs' faces and convince the younger players that the Warriors could win, there's simply no way that Golden State wins that series, although Baron would have kept it close just by the pure will of his balls. If a guy's an emotional leader and backs up his teammates, why shouldn't he be a captain?
There's also the issue of team identity, a point that Shoals argued in this pro-Jackson Fanhouse piece. The mark of insanity and on-the-edgeness are things that defined this team last year, so it makes sense that the organization would want to buy into those qualities going forward. Granted, those usually aren't traits that hold up particularly well over time, but there's also never really been a situation where those kinds of players defined the team instead of hanging around the margins as effective sideshow attractions.
My one major concern is that this new role could actually rein him in too much. Any attempt to change Jackson's mindset, particularly one focused on setting a Right Way example, will make him something that he's unequivocally not. Jackson -- and, by extension, the rest of the team -- thrives off of insanity. Losing that edge could throw off the Warriors' entire operation.
When you get right down to it, though, I'm not even sure this decision merits the attention it's getting. The NBA is not high school, where players don't have experience leading and thus look to older players for tons of guidance. Most of these guys have been captains or leaders at some level; they really only need someone to show them the ropes and set a general tone. Jackson does all those things and more. Captains certainly matter in the NBA, but they're not essential to the success of a team.
It might seem a bit silly to write consecutive posts on Marco Belinelli when I haven't even watched him play a full game in more than two months, but I couldn't let this one go: Marco has started writing for nba.com about his experience in Eurobasket 2007 (thanks to this GSoM diary for the link). The preamble to his post makes it unclear if this will be a regular or one-time gig, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to break down a post from one of my favorite players in the league.
When analyzing an athlete's blog, I think there are two important questions to ask: 1) Is it any good? and 2) Did he actually write it? In Marco's case, the first question is very easy to answer, but the second could create one of the great debates of our time. Let's take a closer look.
Is it any good? No, it's actually pretty awful. Gilbert Arenas's blog is obviously the gold standard for athlete blogs, and this one doesn't come close. As much as I like Gil's insane comments on issues such as his love of Tay Zonday, it's the insight into the experience of being a high-level basketball player, like his recent bit about trash-talking with Gary Payton, that make his blog a must-read instead of a pleasant diversion. Marco's work has none of these qualities. As far as I can tell, he says the following things: the summer has been busy, the American and European styles of basketball are different, Europeans take pride in playing for their countries, good NBA players play in the European Championships, his most memorable basketball moment was dropping 25 on Team USA last summer, and Italy has not played very well this tournament. Not exactly anything I couldn't figure out from box scores, prolonged exposure to Bay Area news outlets, and common sense.
Of course, that doesn't mean I won't read everything he posts. There's a lot to be said for quality, but who wouldn't want to read something from a guy this cool?
Did he actually write it? My first instinct with an athlete's blog is to assume that a) someone wrote it for him or b) he dictated it to a stenographer. In this case, it's important to note that Marco's blog is riddled with grammatical and stylistic errors, including (but not limited to) missing articles ("This has been very busy summer for me"), verb tense inconsistencies ("That game changed my life because I score 25 points"), circular arguments ("Nowitzki is incredible, now especially, because he is MVP of the NBA."), and general Eurospeak ("that is a game I remember especially").
Given that Marco doesn't speak English very well, it seems entirely plausible that he wrote this without editorial input. I don't have any idea why the league's website editors would allow an ESL student to write without help, but the evidence at hand certainly indicates that there is a slight possibility that this is the case. There's also a chance that Marco dictated it to a typist, which would be in keeping with what we know about Arenas's blog.
However, I find it extremely hard to believe that someone working as a transcriber for nba.com (someone who's presumably interested in writing as a career) could refrain from making simple grammatical changes such as putting verbs into the correct form. So, we have a situation in which a lack of editorial oversight seems highly unlikely due to the sheer stupidity of the decision and a stenographer probably didn't transcribe Marco's words due to the easily correctable grammatical errors throughout his entry.
Given this dilemma, I would like to float out another possibility: nba.com had an intern fabricate a Marco Belinelli blog post. Imagine, for a second, that an intern interviewed Marco about his time at Eurobasket. That would seem to jive with the post's content -- the information is so bland that only a corporate entity could have forced Marco into saying it. (Once again, this suggestion seems to refute the possibility that no editors looked at the post.) Using that information, the intern then set about writing the post, keeping in mind that it had to look like it was written by a 21-year-old Italian shooting guard with remedial English skills. Thus, we get a post with glaring errors, but not too many in every sentence -- that would arouse suspicion.
If this is the case, then I think we can assume that nba.com has a genius intern working for them. It takes great skill to create a poor post like Marco's without having it seem like a parody. Work of this quality demands public recognition.
The Painted Area's been providing insanely excellent commentary on Eurobasket 2007 over the last few weeks, and I've been eating all of it up. On Monday, though, they made their best post yet, if only because it features the following video. Please watch it with the sound on, if you want the full experience.
We arewell-establishedfans ofMarco Belinelli -- I think Carter actually got upset with me when the Warriors drafted him one spot ahead of the Lakers. But, in the break between summer league and this tournament, I'd forgotten how frickin' awesome it is to watch him play. I honestly don't know if this post even has an original point to it (note the time I put it up), but I still think it's important for a few reasons: a) pretty soon, plays like this one will show up every night on our TV screens; b) YouTube is doing divinely ordained work, and it needs to be discussed as much as possible; c) Mullin did his homework, because Marco is an absolutely perfect (I am not throwing that word around lightly) fit for the Warriors.
Now that all that's out of the way, make sure to check out another excellent article on stats by Tom Ziller at Ballhype. The commenters have done their jobs once again, so I'd advise you not to stop with TZ's post. Thanks to anyone who's commented anywhere on the internets about this issue over the last few days -- it's been fun and we feel privileged to have been a part of it.
First things first: On Ballhype, Tom Ziller of Sactown Royalty and Fanhouse wrote a great rebuttal to Carter’s Friday post on PER. TZ's post is terrific, but the discussion in the comments is even better, so I’d advise anyone interested in stats to check it out. That is all.
This summer, I’ve avoided writing about the prospect of Don Nelson leaving the Warriors for several reasons, most notably that I've never believed owner Chris Cohan would be nearsighted enough to actually let it happen. Well, according to Geoff Lepper of the Contra Costa Times, the latest round of negotiations seems to have gone poorly and Nellie is returning to his home in Maui (via Fanhouse). There now appears to be a slight possibility that he won’t coach the team this season.
I can’t even begin to imagine the kind of karmic hellfire that will be visited upon Cohan if Nellie doesn’t come back. As Ziller wrote in the Fanhouse article on the same story (via’d up top), the fans will go apeshit if a deal doesn’t get done. Nellie is our shepherd, the man who brought us back to the playoff promised land. This team is on the rise, and you sure as hell don’t let the coach who helped you get there leave this late in the offseason.
The fans’ retribution, though, should pale in comparison to that of the players. As anyone who watched last year’s Dallas and Utah series knows, the Warriors have a lot of volatile personalities with histories of acting out on the roster. Baron Davis is a noted coach killer, Stephen Jackson can go off at any moment and has said he loves Nellie (“I don’t love no coach, but I love that man.”), and Monta Ellis might start openly weeping if the new coach makes him slow down at all. (At least Patrick O’Bryant would be happy!) I actually think the team would be decent with Keith Smart or Paul Silas running the show, but I’d feel a lot less comfortable about the team’s long-term prospects if one of them was thrown in right before training camp.
For those reasons and more, I still think Cohan’s eventually going to get something worked out. As the recent Foyle buyout and his willingness to sign players like Mike Dunleavy and Derek Fisher at above market-value have shown, Cohan is not cheap (whether or not he’s misguided is another story). If money’s the issue here, then I have to think the two parties will work something out.
Of course, if money were the only issue, the whole deal would probably be worked out by now. From this vantage, the whole argle bargle looks like a high-grade pissing contest, with one participant wanting an ultimately unnecessary extra few million for his troubles and another trying to reassert that he still writes the checks at the Oracle. (Note: For betting purposes, keep in mind that Nellie has the Bud Light Advantage.)
The good thing about pissing contests is that each participant eventually has to finish. Here’s hoping that Nellie and Cohan zip up soon and get back to the real business at hand: forcing out Sarunas Jasikevicius.
This post marks the second in our “Bloggin’ to the Oldies” series, for which I watch one of the “NBA’s Greatest Games” and both relate that game to the current NBA and revise common impressions of the players and style of play. Today, I’ll be talking about Game 2 of the 1991 Western Conference Semifinals between the Warriors and Lakers. Some brief background on the game: the Warriors won 125-124 in the final minute, tying the series, which clearly motivated the Lakers, who won the next three (two in Oakland) to close out Golden State. Chris Mullin went out of his mind to lead the Warriors, missing just a few shots attempts on his way to more than 40 points. Magic Johnson had around 40, too. (Unfortunately, I can't find a box score anywhere.)
As a Warriors fan, I came into this game most interested in how much Nellieball has changed over the years. Defensively, things look just about the same. The Warriors used an undersized starting lineup with Alton Lister at center and Mario Elie, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin at the forward spots, requiring double-teams to the post and general swarm nearly identical to the defensive tactics that characterized last season’s team. Of course, all that running around led to a lot of open looks for the Lakers, but Nelson and the players seemed plenty content to let that happen if it meant for chances for running.
At the offensive end, the Run-TMC team looked like they had a plan in a way that the current team does not. I’m not sure that difference has anything to with the team’s actual game plan, though—I stress that it just looked that way. In reality, Hardaway, Richmond, and Mullin were so clearly leaders of the offense that they necessarily had to take more shots. If Nellie’s system works because it gives players opportunities to score, then the best players on the team would logically have more opportunities to score just because their skills allow them those chances. Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington, while very good, are not on the same level as Richmond and Mullin, so it makes sense that the current team would have a more balanced look. I’m sure that would have changed had Mullin been able to trade for Kevin Garnett.
Chris Mullin was a great player, and I’m sure he would have thrived in any system, but the nature of his amazing performance in this game is part of what has me so excited about Marco Belinelli. Mullin hit an unbelievable number of his shots in this game, but most of them were the sort of looks that Nellieball creates for everyone. Last year’s Warriors team didn’t have an objectively great shooter; Jackson, Baron, Barnes, Harrington, and J-Rich can all make them fairly regularly, yet none would ever participate in a three-point shooting contest. Marco, however, has the chance to be one of the best shooters in the NBA. Additionally, while Mullin hit a decent amount of shots with hands in his face, he did so because of his extraordinarily quick release, and Marco has the same type of trigger. I doubt that he will ever get to Mullin’s level, but all Marco really has to do to be a valued member of the team is hit open shots, and there should be a ton of those.
Moving on to the Lakers, I now better understand why Jerry West’s reputation as a GM is as strong as it is. I always knew he did a great job putting together the 80s Lakers, but looking at this team—the second wave of the Lakers dynasty had Magic not contracted HIV—it’s clear that West had a clear vision with this group, as well. The frontline of Vlade Divac, Sam Perkins, and James Worthy was incredibly versatile, capable of scoring from the perimeter or post, running or playing a slower game, etc. This is something I’ll talk about more when I get to the Bulls/Lakers series from the same year, but it’s unreal that the Lakers could play such a fast-paced game against the Warriors and then beat the Bulls in the first game of the finals by slowing things down with the exact same lineups on the floor. It would’ve been interesting to see how long the Lakers could have kept up their regular runs to the finals with Magic still playing. Alas.
It bears noting that the Warriors won this game because of a ridiculously questionable foul call on Elden Campbell with three seconds left. Elie grabbed the board, Campbell got his arm tangled, and some bozo zebra called the foul. The Lakers lose, fans have to watch free throws instead of a potential game-winner, and an amazingly entertaining game comes down to the referees instead of the players. Referees seemed to be more consistent than they are now, in general, but it’s nice to know that they’ve always sucked in some areas.
Some random notes on the game: The score was 99-97 Warriors after three quarters. More evidence that a Suns/Warriors playoff series would have been the greatest thing ever. … I’m pretty sure Tim Hardaway’s early years will somehow get lost in the shuffle as the years go by, but, like Kevin Johnson, at least those who saw him will remember. … There are few sights that make me as happy as that of Sarunas Marciulonis barreling into the lane. He’s the reason I get upset about the Spurification of Ginobili. … I’m not sure there will ever be a player again like this incarnation of James Worthy, a small forward who spends a healthy chunk of his time in the post. … The Warriors could definitely use a guy like Tyrone Hill, a reasonably athletic power forward who doesn’t really need to do anything other than rebound and defend. I expect bigger things out of Brandan Wright eventually, but maybe he can be that type of guy for the next year or two. ... Jack Nicholson attended the game sporting dark, slicked-back hair, a moustache, and a dark suit. He looked more like Dan Aykroyd from the old SNL bad toy sketches than the coolest guy in the world.
The Warriors have bought out the last two years (via this Tom ZillerFanHouse article) of AdonalFoyle's albatross contract, signifying the end of Chris Mullin's purge of his less-than-stellar first few years as GM. I'm guardedly excited to get arguably the worst contract in the NBA off the books, but, without knowing the exact terms of the buyout, I will reserve judgment and simply lament that I won't get to say that one of the best guys in the league plays for my favorite team. What really excites me about this buyout is that it suggests another move will occur soon. If that doesn't happen, though, I fear Mullin will have missed a chance to take advantage of one of next offseason's best expiring contracts.
On Draft Night '97, I remember yelling at the radio (we did not yet have cable) that the Warriors should have taken Tracy McGrady. History has proven me correct, but I've always been a fan of Adonal, even if more for his off-court personality than for his on-court performances. That said, he was a decent rebounder/defender in his best years, and I still think he could be moderately productive on a slow-it-down team. The Warriors are not constructed to do anything close to slowing it down, of course, so getting rid of the contract was a good move if only for that reason. I'll miss the guy, but only on an emotional level.
In terms of depth, I'm not sure the buyout really changes anything. The Warriors had little post depth last year and weren't going to have much this year either. The deal could have some effect on team chemistry and general locker room morale, but this team belongs to Baron Davis. I'm not even sure any players have been around long enough to truly appreciate what Adonal's ten years of service stood for.
The roster implications of this deal are quite interesting. Before buying out Adonal, the Warriors had 15 players under contract. That number does not include MickaelPietrus, who was given a qualifying offer at the beginning of the summer and thus has the choice to return. So, as of now, the Warriors have 14 players under contract, leaving one spot open. That means one of the following things has to happen: (1) a trade that brings back one more player than they give up, (2) Pietrus comes back, (3) a sign-and-trade involving Pietrus, (4) the team keeps an open roster spot (unlikely). Of these options, I think (2) and (3) are the most likely, although I won't speculate about the specifics of any deal right now.
I want to make it clear that this buyout needs to lead to a real trade for it to be an incredibly smart move instead of just a good one. The buyout money still applies to the salary cap, so there's not a great difference between paying Adonal for sitting on the bench and paying him for sitting at home; this situation is not analogous to that of Steve Francis, who the Blazers brass thought might be a bad influence on the young 'uns in Portland. If no move happens, Mullin just squandered an opportunity to hold one of the most coveted expiring contracts in the league next offseason. The Lakers outright released Brian Grant instead of waiting for his expiring contract a few years ago, and I bet Kupchak now wishes he'd kept and moved it for a serviceable player.
But that's all idle speculation. For now, let us appreciate one of the most impressive people in the NBA and perhaps the only GM in the NBA with the balls to admit that he made five poor decisions in his first years on the job. Quite shockingly, Mullin has rectified all of those mistakes, and the Warriors' future looks brighter for it.
For those of you haven't already, it's worth checking out Adonal's website democracymatters.org. Some good work going on there.
Preetom Bhattacharya of hoopsworld.com is reporting that the Warriors will sign Matt Barnes tomorrow to a one-year contract (article found via GSoM). Once it looked like Mullin had no chance of getting Garnett, I made it clear that I think resigning Barnes--particularly for just a year or two--would be the best move for this offseason. Now that it looks like things have turned out exactly that way, I don't think I have much to add on the Barnes subject, but the way that the Warriors have gone about their free agent business this offseason bears some deeper analysis. Along with the recent signing of Austin Croshere for one season, the Barnes deal exhibits the foresight that Mullin has brought to his dealings this summer.
As I said last month, Barnes is a much better option than Mickael Pietrus for the Warriors if only because he appears to have turned into a decent outside shooter. (No idea what happens with Pietrus now, by the way. I wouldn't mind seeing him signed-and-traded along with Sarunas Jasikevicius or Patrick O'Bryant, though. Doesn't matter who we get in return.) Barnes also becomes an important rotation player when he contributes the sort of floor game he did in last year's playoffs, although I wouldn't run to Vegas to bet on that becoming a regular occurrence.
It's that uncertainty surrounding Barnes's play last year that left him few options other than to take the Warriors' offer. Most teams likely took issue with Barnes being a probable "system player," but I applaud Mullin for not buying that Barnes is a sure thing just because he was successful last season. Barnes was good, but his season still had its valleys. The one-year deal gives the Warriors the chance to judge if Barnes can be consistent while also giving him the chance to make big money on the open market next season.
The other recent deal by the Warriors shows similar smarts. To be sure, I'm not ecstatic about Austin Croshere considering KG's name has been thrown around the whole summer, but I don't see many bad things about this signing. Basketball-wise, Croshere can hit some threes and has experience playing with Nelson. As Say Hey said a few days ago, it might have made more sense for Nelson to take a chance on a possible sleeper, but I really don't see anything awful about picking up an older player, either. Croshere was considered especially bad when he was with the Mavericks because he was way, way overpaid. That's not an issue now that he's been signed for the veteran minimum. (The one thing I really don't get about this deal is that Baron and Croshere are known to dislike each other. Hopefully they'll get things right during camp.)
Evidence now suggests that Mullin focused on giving the team long-term flexibility once the Garnett deal fell through. (Actually, taken out of the Garnett context, everything from this summer seems to have been about keeping the future open.) Given the options, these one-year contracts are exactly what Mullin needed to do. This next season likely won't result in a better finish than the conference semifinals, but nothing short of Garnett would have bettered last year's showing. Golden State still has an excellent shot at making the playoffs next season, especially now that Elton Brand will be gone until February at the earliest.
Most importantly, giving people long-term contracts would have been a problem considering that Nelson probably won't be back in 08-09. I would bet that the team hires another coach who likes to run, but no one does anything close to what Nellie does, so creating the roster of the future based on his specifications would be a mistake. As I've said before, with a lot of important players coming off the books next summer (even Adonal will turn into an expiring contract!), Mullin can mold the next version of the Warriors without having to worry about players picked specifically for Nellieball.
One other Warriors-related note: everyone should check out this immeasurably terrible LA Times article on Baron's respective relationships with Oakland and LA. Fear the Beard and Tom Ziller have both written excellent reactions, so I will defer to them for analysis. I just can't believe Kurt Streeter's editors published this monstrosity.
Whenever a star gets traded, any fan of a team not receiving him feels some sense of disappointment, if only because a superstar was available and the team failed to pick him up. Such is the case with Kevin Garnett, except this time it’s even worse because everyone has to listen to insufferable Celtics fans yapping about the inevitable resurgence of the greatest franchise in the history of organized basketball. (I kid, sorta. Like Billups said earlier today, the Celtics are now about three aging stars trying to win, not some return of the shillelagh.)
For a few teams, though, this trade stings more than for others. The Suns, Warriors, Lakers, and Bulls all had better-than-awful chances to deal for Garnett, but circumstances left them on the sidelines. Where do they go from here? Can they take any consolation in what transpired?
Phoenix Suns I already submitted my thoughts on Phoenix’s offseason last week: they’ve only gotten worse, but this trade should make it even more clear that the Suns have had a dismal summer. Right around draft night, the Suns were close to landing KG in a three-team deal, with Amare as the main piece. That deal fell through due to numerous factors (including the Hawks deciding they didn’t want an All-NBA player), and after the draft the Suns quickly fell off the list of strong contenders for Garnett. After taking Amare off the table, it looked tough for Phoenix to get a third party involved.
Yet KG seemed to doom Boston’s hopes of landing him during the week of the draft, and he still ended up in green. Things clearly changed when Ainge acquired Ray Allen, but the Celtics still had to convince Garnett that he would enjoy being a Celtic. Where was that kind of perseverance from the Suns? Amare and Shawn Marion are tradeable pieces in spite of their big contracts, and it was Steve Kerr’s job to get creative and swing a deal. I realize that Sarver restricts Kerr’s ability to take on contracts, but he must have signed off on KG at some point if Kerr tried to get him in late June. I love Amare to death, but Garnett would have come as close to guaranteeing them a championship in the next two years as any trade could have. You have to make that leap.
This situation would probably be easier to take for Suns fans if Sarver ever gave any indication that he cared about winning a championship. When the news broke on Sunday night, though, I’m sure he was sleeping on a pile of money with many beautiful ladies.
Will the Suns do anything else of substance this summer? Of course not, because that would cost money.
Golden State Warriors If we take Tim Kawakami’s sources at their words, the Warriors were a miscommunication between McHale and MJ away from getting Garnett for Monta, Richardson, and Al Harrington. That wouldn’t have been a bad trade; the KG/Andris combo inside would have stood toe-to-toe with any frontcourt in the league. But, alas, the geography major at UNC didn’t teach His Airness how to make phone calls, so no luck there. All evidence shows that Mullin tried to work something out with McHale after the trade. In the end, no Warriors package other than Andris, Monta, Harrington, and a lot more cap filler would have surpassed the quality of the Boston package, and I’ve never been a fan of putting Monta and Andris in the same deal.
GSW currently has the same major hole at power forward that they did at the beginning of the summer. Options approaching KG’s caliber are basically nonexistent now; fast power forwards who can rebound and defend don’t stay on the market for long. AK47 would be a tremendous fit, but I don’t see a wing on the roster who fits what Jerry Sloan wants to do.
Drew Gooden’s name has been mentioned in rumors, and he’s a strong enough rebounder to make him a decent option in spite of the fact that he doesn’t play much defense. The major issue with that trade involves money: the trade exception could be used on Gooden for this year, but the following year his salary would put the Warriors over the luxury tax should management do the right thing and reup Monta/Andris. At any rate, Gooden probably wouldn’t make a big difference in a playoff series. I’ve resigned myself to the Warriors not making another big move this offseason, which would be tougher to handle if I didn’t like every player on the team not named O’Bryant.
Los Angeles Lakers I doubt the Lakers were ever serious contenders for Garnett; McHale never seemed to like the Bynum/Odom package much, and in today's press conference KG said he wasn't interested in the Lakers because of the uncertainty surrounding Kobe. The Lakers are on this list almost exclusively for what the trade does for Kobe’s emotional state. Logically, this thing would upset him, but I believe more and more everyday that Kobe is insane, so who knows what he’s thinking. It’s entirely possible that he’s devoting himself to finding rare Hakeem tapes for Andrew Bynum.
Here's the thing: Kobe’s desires shouldn’t affect the Lakers at all in this case, because he’s the best player in the NBA and anyone with a half a brain should do his best to give the best player in the NBA some help. The Lakers have no direction, though, so too bad for Mamba.
I adore Odom (so misused on this team) and sorta like Bynum (not as a perennial all-star like some Lakers fans seem to think, but he’ll be solid for years), but someone like Jermaine O’Neal would do wonders for this team. Carter (and most Lakers fans, it seems) thinks that it's not worth it if Odom has to be part of the deal. I disagree, citing Odom's poor fit on the roster and the two-star/role player game plan. Additionally, Carter often tells me how the Lakers don’t need to do anything except surround Kobe with decent role players if they want to be a middle seed. I think that’s right, but screw being a four seed. Get another star and challenge for a championship; that system works. The last name won’t fool anyone into thinking that Jermaine is Shaq, but at least LA will be real again. The front office needs to stop making this whole Kobe thing harder than it actually is.
Chicago Bulls For my money, the biggest losers here. They have the most tradeable pieces on their roster, so enough players would have still been around to make them a legitimate contender in either conference. Adding to that point, all those players are young enough to make them attractive to the Minnesota rebuilding process. KG also played his high school ball in Chicago, so the geographical ties are there. Bill Simmons claims that Paxson rolling over PJ Brown’s contract one more year would have made it a sure thing; I’m not convinced they couldn’t have worked something out this summer anyway with some creative trading. Now KG’s playing for one of their traditional conference rivals. Oops.
The Bulls still need a reliable post scorer if they want to take the next step, and Pau Gasol seems like the best big-time option. Again, they have the pieces needed to make a deal, although it’s very possible that Memphis doesn’t want to trade Gasol now that they have the makings of a pretty solid team.
The best case scenario for Chicago would probably involve Kobe flipping out on the Lakers again and demanding a trade. The Bulls are the most obvious destination for him, so it would once again come down to Paxson having to pull the trigger. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
For the second time in two weeks, one of my posts has become mildly irrelevant just hours after I posted it. Tim Kawakami has reported that Mickael Pietrus will be back for either one or two years at something around $3.4 million a year (the qualifying offer extended at the beginning of the summer), making my call to look at James White somewhat inconsequential. My immediate reaction: good deal, largely because of its short length.
Kawakami does an excellent job of outlining the reasons why this is a smart move by Mullin, but I'll expand on some of them. As I said above, the best part of this contract is that it seems to only be for one year. Pietrus just isn't good enough to warrant a multiyear contract. Mullin played the negotiation correctly. At the same time, his rebounding and defense are worth something, so picking him up for another year -- particularly when there isn't anyone obvious available -- seems like a good idea.
(Update: Looks like Kawakami may have spoken too soon: the Pietrus camp says he has other options. Might be agentspeak, might be true. Only time will tell if I've written another instantly irrelevant post. Stay tuned.)
In the same post, Kawakami says that the Warriors will probably give Toby Bailey a camp invite based on his excellent shooting during summer league. As an ex-UCLA fan, I can get behind that move. Wouldn't expect it too pay many dividends, but it's worth a shot.
So what do the Warriors do the next? As a qualifying offer, it's my understanding that Pietrus's deal does not count against the mid-level exception, meaning that they can go after Matt Barnes with a portion of it. As I've said before, at this point in the summer I think he's the best option out there.
As for White, I still think it's worth giving him a look. If they can get away with just a camp invite (which seems fairly likely), I think it'd be a phenomenal move. He has far too many intriguing qualities not to get a look. Like I said in my last post, though, I really just hope he gets a chance with someone who lets him play his kind of game.
On an unrelated note, I wanted to pass along my condolensces to the family and friends of Skip Prosser and everyone at Wake Forest. Prosser died of a heart attack this morning while jogging.
I’ve made it pretty clear that I’m not a fan of the Warriors bringing back Mickael Pietrus for anything close to his asking price. He’s simply not that productive a player relative to that kind of money, and there are many players in the NBA who can play decent defense and not make threes. Of course, that means that Mullin and Nelson have to sign one of those players. With that in mind, I think they should take a long look at James White.
White is far from a sure thing, though, so the GSW brain trust would probably need to pick up another wing; it’s not best to place too much confidence in a guy who just got cut by the Spurs before training camp. But White also has a reputation as a solid defender and one of the best dunkers ever, so it’s not as if he’s chopped liver. During his last season at the University of Cincinnati, White was definitely considered one of the best wing defenders in the nation. (He originally attended Florida, where he was supposed to be everything Corey Brewer became—plus a lot more.) I’d assume that the Spurs gave him a shot at the end of last season mostly because of his potential to turn into a lockdown defender. White did score a bit in his six-game stint with San Antonio, though, turning in 8.3 ppg in 22.8 minutes of play.
Yet it’s unclear how much we can take from White’s time with the Spurs. In that offense, wings aren’t really asked to do much more than make open threes and play defense. White only took seven threes last season, so who knows if his .286% shooting from beyond the arc is worth using as a predictor of things to come. In a somewhat recent post for TrueHoop, Henry Abbott makes an observation that White played “only OK defense” in Vegas. While you would expect someone fighting for his job to try his best, I’m not sure anyone goes all out on the defensive end during summer league. All that adds up to a situation in which a supremely athletic wing with a high-major college basketball pedigree played no better than decently for an NBA team that didn’t allow him to play to his strengths.
Regardless of his production, White can be a good fit for the Warriors; lord knows Nellie loves athleticism. White might still be too raw to get immediate playing time, but Pietrus still hasn’t learned how to dribble and found a way to earn some legitimate burn. White can likely be had for a meager contract, so why not take a chance?
With the Warriors angle covered, I’d like to return to the issue of White’s time with the Spurs, because I think it gets at one of the major reasons I dislike the organization. Before I start criticizing them, I should make a few points clear. My opinion on the use of assembly-line, part-for-part systems in the NBA differs greatly from my opinion on their importance to college teams. I’ve already fired the opening shot in my argument that the system path is perhaps the only way to go in the NCAA, mostly because it’s almost the only way to foster continuity within the program. I would think I'll have a lot more to say on that topic in coming months.
More importantly for this topic, I don’t disagree with the fact that the San Antonio system works incredibly well; no one can really blame them for doing what they do. As I said in my Suns post yesterday, there’s no point in not trying for championships, and the Spurs always do their best to win.
However, they do so in a way that often keeps players from utilizing their strengths, which in turn makes the Spurs an exceedingly boring team to watch. That does not mean that San Antonio does not have exciting players; Parker and Manu can do things that only a few players in the league can replicate. But try to imagine what those two would be like if they played in more open styles. For one thing, they would regularly hurl their bodies into the lane and finish impossible plays in traffic. They still do that now, but I always get the sensation that both players exist as bastardized versions of what could have been.
Parker and Manu are best case scenarios for non-Spurs fans. They can still be successful in the Spurs system because they’re excellent players, and both maintain massive portions of their individual games. But in the case of someone like James White, who isn’t yet good enough to fit in any system, PopBall (or, perhaps more accurately, DuncanBall) limits his ability to succeed in its relative refusal to adjust to the skills of the player. In a TrueHoop article from Tuesday, Abbott claims that White “didn’t look like a Spur,” which would seem to jive with his earlier comments on how White was “calling for the ball all the time” and “shaking his head every time a teammate fails to send him an alley-oop lob.” I’m not sure Abbott meant for it to come out this way, but those remarks make it seem like there’s something wrong with White, when in reality it’s perfectly reasonable for an amazing dunker to get upset that his teammates aren’t letting him do his thing in a glorified pickup game. Otherwise, Abbott’s right: this is an issue of a player not fitting with a particular team. White never looked like a Spur, but that’s only because it’s categorically not his brand of basketball.
For these reasons, I’m actually quite glad that San Antonio cut him. Even if the Warriors don’t end up signing him, I’m excited that he’ll get an opportunity with a team that wants him to be James White. I don't expect him to be a solid player immediately -- he's just not that good. The guy has a long way to go before he’ll be a legitimate NBA role player, but teams need to let him be the sort of role player that his skills allow him to be.
Well, so much for my stealth KG trade idea. Wolves owner Glen Taylor announced today in an interview with the Pioneer Press that Garnett "expressed a preference to remain in Minnesota" for the coming season. So no KG in Oakland, Monta and Andris both probably stick around, and the Warriors still have a hole at the four next year.
This move makes a ton of sense for Garnett. Every trade scenario involving him took a substantial hit out of the team he was moving to, so it's unclear if his presence alone would shift the balance of power in the West. Now he can wait a year and sign with a contender at a reduced rate, virtually ensuring himself of a championship at some point in the next few years.
Not sure where the Warriors go from here. The lack of activity in the free agent game now appears to be nothing more than a lack of activity. A few trade options probably exist, but I'm not convinced if it's worth moving one of the young studs for an aging player who won't make much of a difference.
One familiar name will keep popping up in Golden State trade rumors: Yi Jianlian. With the announcement today that the Guangdong Tigers (Jianlian's Chinese club) will block any deal with Milwaukee, his trade value will only get lower. Trouble is, I don't think he's better than Brandan Wright, and I imagine it would take at least him to pick up EEE. I also don't believe he adds anything to the team that isn't already here. I was for the J-Rich trade at the time, but I don't want to see it turn into someone who's so hit or miss. You could make the same criticism of Wright, but at least that's a more known unknown. Yi's problems could come from anywhere.
A fair NBA comparison (not a ceiling) for Jianlian seems to be Al Harrington, and I guess I wouldn't mind a straight up trade there. It would dump salary, and the potential-soaked combo of Wright and EEE would be pretty damn exciting. But I highly doubt Milwaukee would go for that right now; they'll likely try to convince themselves that Yi will decide Milwaukee is truly "The Good Land."
Short of waiting out the Bucks until they have to make a terrible trade, I'm not sure the best idea isn't just to largely stay put and hope to make a big splash next offseason. It seems counterintuitive to go with a youth movement the year after finally making the playoffs, but I'm not convinced this team can't make it again. Next offseason will be a busy one anyway (Baron, Monta, Biedrins all up for new contracts), so it might be worth betting everything on next summer.
In my last post, I briefly mentioned the possibility of a Warriors/Timberwolves deal for Kevin Garnett already in place that could not be consummated because of collective bargaining rules. Since the time of the post, I’ve thought about that idea some more, and the more I think about it the more it seems possible.
Before jumping into the possible reasons for the stealth trade, I should note that I’m far from the only one to consider this possibility. I’ve seen quite a few mentions of the idea over at Golden State of Mind over the last few weeks, and just today Warriors play-by-play announcer (and, for those who remember him since his first years in broadcasting, the best sports radio call-in host ever) Bob Fitzgerald strongly hinted at the possibility (although it was unclear if he had inside information) on his KNBR radio show (they only archive interviews, unfortunately, but it was on Monday around 1:30 pm) this afternoon. I’m also sure the Merc’s Tim Kawakami wrote something of the sort in one of his 46732 articles/posts on Garnett this summer, although I did not dig through his archives for confirmation.
Now, enough of my yappin! Let’s boogie:
Brandan Wright signed earlier than most rookies. Players cannot be traded within 30 days of signing new contracts, so to get a deal done featuring Wright (a likely prospect given his potential) in the next month or so, he would have had to sign relatively early, which in his case happened to be July 6th. The timing of this deal seems particularly odd given that the Warriors made no clear effort to sign fellow first-rounder and longtimePlisskenHero Marco Belinelli, who just signed Monday, at the same time. One possible hole in this piece of evidence is that Utah Jazz rookie Morris Almond signed on the same day as Wright, and no one has been arguing that Almond’s going to be traded soon.
Brandan Wright didn’t play in Vegas. Reports surfaced on the Friday before summer league that Wright would be held out of the games in Vegas with a strained hip flexor. Apparently he sustained the injury in April while working out with UNC teammates, but he still followed through with workouts, which makes some sense given that he was trying to get drafted in the Top 5. If there’s already a deal in place, the reasoning goes that (1) the Wolves and Warriors would want him to stay out of action so he wouldn’t get hurt badly and (2) the Warriors would want him to stay out of action so as to not show that he actually stinks. The first reason makes sense; the second is largely garbage because it’s summer league and everyone realizes that it’s hard to get a read on players. (Does anyone honestly believe that Oden will foul out of every game?)
I’m inclined to believe that injuries are real because of the consequences of assuming they’re not, but it bears noting that in this Jay Bilas article (ESPN Insider, unfortunately) from before the draft, he mentions nothing of Wright seeming hurt. Of course, this is Bilas we’re talking about, so it could just be that he was really excited to be in a position of authority—no matter that the event was orchestrated by EA Sports and therefore promotional in nature—and therefore didn’t pay much attention to Wright outside of his incredible length. Conspiracy theorists should also note that the announcement of Wright’s injury came on the same day he signed his contract.
The Warriors haven’t done much of anything after the Richardson trade. After the draft night deal, Golden State seemed in prime position to make a big-time move with the trade exception and new long-term cap flexibility, but, as I said in my last post, they haven’t seemed to actively pursue several players that would seem to fit. (They did contact both Darko and Gerald, but the subsequent lack of discussion makes those calls seem perfunctory.) The idea could be that Mullin has a deal worked out for KG and thus can’t do any more fiddling until he has pieces to fiddle with.
This possibility actually hints at what the secret deal could be. The Warriors haven’t been running after many big men, so Andris Biedrins likely wouldn’t involved. But, then again, the Warriors haven’t really done anything other than resign Kelenna Azubuike, so should that lead us to assume that Monta Ellis wouldn’t be traded either? Seems unlikely.
Kevin McHale went fishing. Several reports have stated that McHale went on a long fishing trip recently, suggesting that he has no more work to do until a presumed Garnett deal goes through. I think this piece of evidence is pretty silly, so let me start with the most obvious rebuttal: Kevin McHale is an awful general manager. What makes you think he wouldn’t go away and choose not to be in close proximity to his most trusted advisors when the face of the franchise is on the market? We’re talking about the guy who paid JOE SMITH a gargantuan deal under the table!
While I would question any decision to leave Minneapolis during that time, we should also remember that we live in a digital world. It’s not as if McHale can’t communicate with the rest of the front office by way of cellular telephone (he may even have a landline in his cabin!) or the internet online. Unless, of course, he’s in one of those ice fishing huts on a still-frozen lake somewhere. I wouldn’t rule that out.
Baron Davis has been very quiet. One would assume that Baron would have something incendiary to say about the J-Rich trade given that they’re good friends and ostensible running mates. A gift-wrapped KG would obviously shut him up some. But maybe Baron realizes that Nelson is one coach he can’t drive out of town, and the situation he has in Oakland is something he probably shouldn’t try to screw up.
In the end, I’m not really sure this evidence adds up to a likely stealth deal, but I’m also not ready to dismiss it. When the draft dust settled, the Warriors seemed to be ready to pounce on something big this offseason, and the period of silence does not seem to jive with that feeling. Or maybe we’re all just trying to explain away our disappointment that no big deals have been announced. Either way, I’m marking off the days. By my count, we’ve got until August 5th for Wright’s 30 days to run out.
The Warriors have resigned Kelenna Azubuike to a two-year deal worth approximately $1.5 million, a move I expected them to make and one that you can’t really argue with. He was a particularly good garbage time contributor last season, and when he got the chance to play meaningful minutes he had a few stellar games. While Azubuike has the chance to take on a bigger role this season, this signing also has implications for the rest of the Warriors’ summer, most notably in the cases of resigning Mickael Pietrus and Matt Barnes, as likely now only one of the two will be back.
The D-League’s leading scorer when he was called up in January, Azubuike immediately showed that he could score at the NBA level. He hit double figures in four of his first six games, proving that he can hit threes and also drive rather effectively. All four of those games were Warriors losses, though, and three weren’t very close at all, suggesting that Kelenna was better suited for mop-up duty at that early stage. Things stayed that way for most of the season, although he did log some significant minutes in games against the Clippers (28 in 48 minutes), Nuggets (23 in 38 minutes), and Bulls (23 in 30 minutes). At the very least, Azubuike is an exceptional garbage time player, and those guys are necessary over the course of an 82-game season.
This summer league, Azubuike looked like he’d taken it upon himself to show everyone that he belongs on an NBA roster for a long time. He forced the issue throughout each game, attacking players he knew he was better than and scoring regularly. Now, these opponents didn’t play much defense and the refs were calling things that don’t get whistled in normal NBA games, but the simple fact that Azubuike wanted to show people he was a real NBA player says something about him. He looks ready to step up from garbage time player to real contributor, and at that salary I think he’s a real bargain.
Assuming that the front office thinks he’s ready to make that leap as well, it seems like either Mickael Pietrus or Matt Barnes will not be back. The team doesn’t seem to have much interest in resigning Pietrus, who was given a qualifying offer and not much else. MP can does some things well on the court, like defending and finishing, but his weaknesses make him a bad fit for Nellieball. Simply put, the man can’t take anyone off the dribble and he isn’t a particularly good outside shooter, meaning that he cannot actively participate in the team-wide one-on-one and drive-and-kick clinics that typified the Warriors in the last few months of the season. He can help someone, but he’s not worth anything close to the mid-level exception for Golden State given their impending cap problems.
Barnes presents a trickier case. No one expected him to contribute like he did when he came to camp last fall, but his season really had two clear peaks: the December/January scoring explosion when people figured out he learned how to hit threes and the late-season/playoffs exhibition of a well-rounded game. Barnes gave Warriors fans many things to be happy about last year, but I wonder how his dry spells would have been received had he been making money close to the mid-level exception.
The MLE is the big question regarding Barnes this offseason. If he can regularly play like he did throughout the playoffs, he’s probably worth something close to it; his play in those games made him a great fit for Nelson’s style and he obviously has the balls necessary to step up in the clutch. If Barnes continues playing like he did for the entirety of last season, though, the MLE is too much. The fact that he hasn’t signed a contract yet suggests that no one has offered him that kind of money, likely due to other teams not being sure if he’s a great fit for their more conventional systems.
But who else can the Warriors hope to pick up in this offseason? The free agent market has dried up, with Gerald Wallace and Darko Milicic, the two best fits on the market for Golden State, signing contracts last week. KG rumors continue to swirl, although it’s hard to tell how close both sides are to a deal that works for both parties. It’s possible there’s a stealth trade lurking somewhere (or even a readymade Garnett deal that can't yet be announced), but that’s just wishful thinking until something tangible pops up.
That leaves Barnes as the best option on the table, and at this point I can’t really blame Mullin for pulling the trigger soon. The length of the contract probably shouldn’t exceed two years (maybe three if it involves a discount) due to the questions surrounding Barnes’s ability to replicate his success, but after the J-Rich trade this team needs guys who can hit shots. With no other talent readily available, Barnes looks like the best fit.
That move wouldn’t be quite the splash I hoped to see shortly after the Richardson trade, but the KG possibility still remains. I just hope this long period of radio silence isn’t evidence of Mullin and Nelson focusing solely on Garnett when there were other options worth exploring.
A post by Shoals over at FreeDarko yesterday got me thinking about why I care to watch summer league. The games really tell nothing about player development, there’s some pretty awful basketball, and especially poor or great performances don’t accurately predict futures. I mean, Skita was twice a summer league phenomenon, and Pierre Pierce is scoring in bunches by pulling the kind of ballhog antics that he’ll never get to try if he finds his way onto an NBA roster.
Yet I’ve still found myself drawn to the games anyway, so there has to be something bringing me there outside of the fact that it’s basketball and it’s on tv (baseball usually fills my summer sports fix just fine).
The most obvious reason for my interest is that this year is the first time I’ve really been able to watch the summer league, so the novelty factor is pretty strong. They’re not quite NBA games, but there’s something interesting about watching NBA-type talents (and in particular the rookies) play in half-empty volleyball gyms. It’s like finding a feed of an exceedingly good pickup game, except there are coaches and people pretend to run plays.
There’s also the thrill of watching former college stars try to make the league even though it’s clear that their careers should have ended after their senior seasons. This is cool on a psychological level, but I’m having more fun watching guys like Toby Bailey for the sake of seeing what they’re up to now. Bailey looks more like Morris Day than anyone ever should without trying (or maybe he is trying!), and it’s incredible.
As a Warriors fan, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I watch their summer games with intense excitement over the impending takeover of Marco Belinelli, someone Carter and I love to death and have talked about in almost everypostfor thelastthree weeks. At the same time, though, I’m getting less excitement than I expected out of watching Kevin Durant and Greg Oden go through the motions. Despite the fact that Bellinelli’s a member of my favorite team, there’s no clear reason why I should want to watch him more than Durant or Oden; those guys are objectively better. Likewise, while there’s certainly a strong desire inside me to watch Marco play in the non-YouTube world, it’s not like these games are going to tell us anything incredibly significant that won’t show up in three months when the real games start. Intense curiosity is definitely worth a lot, but there has to be something else.
In his post, Shoals writes that “the purpose of college ball is to deliver players into the league with some nascent version of how their complete game might look,” but I think it also gives us a chance start formulating a greater narrative for each player’s career, so that the eventual NBA success or failure makes sense in the context of his basketball career. We’ve all heard about or seen Oden and Durant enough for seven players’ worth of background info. Marco is something else entirely, a man who exists only in YouTube highlights, debatably relevant Euro stats, and breathless comments about his hot girlfriend. Watching him play in these games gives us some picture of what he might become, but it also provides us with a first plot point to apply to his greater narrative. At the end of his career we can say “He came to America and immediately kicked everyone’s ass, showing us that his success was never in question” or “He came to America and immediately kicked ass, giving false hope to those expecting him to help push the Warriors into the first tier of the NBA.” That might not amount to much in ten years, but right now it seems mandatory if I want to watch Marco and Yi (and Rodney Stuckey, if I ever get around to watching the Detroit game I taped) in the way I enjoy watching everyone else.
Some random notes: - Couldn’t be happier about the Marco Explosion. I definitely don’t expect him to do anything close to this as a rookie, but it seems like he’ll contribute if only becomes he moves exceptionally well without the ball and can hit open jumpers.
- Looks like Greg Oden will miss the rest of summer league with tonsillitis, and it’s just as well given all the uproar over two meaningless games featuring refs that call everything. This particular injury, though, adds to the mounting evidence that Oden is the biggest dork (not geek, that would be Duncan) to ever be the #1 overall pick. For extra fun, check out the opening paragraph of the AP article: “Portland-area hospitals may wish to stock up on ice cream for the arrival of a very big patient.” Gotta love AP writers feeling the need to compensate for not always getting a byline.
- The salary cap has been set at $55.63 million, with the luxury tax threshold at $67.865 million. I don’t want to do the math to figure out what that means for any number of teams, but putting it up here makes me feel legit. (The following video is long, but it will reward you.)
- Stronger chance EEE will end up playing for the Bucks than originally thought. All the coolest things that could have happened this summer (Kobe trade, KG trade, EEE starting WW3) are starting to seem less possible by the day. These guys really need to stop teasing us so often.
