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Warriors disappointed me the most
April 14, 2006
We're in the heat of a fascinating playoff race in the East -- I won't call it a "great" race, because we're talking about five teams that are at .500 or below -- but I just spent a few days in Oakland watching the Warriors, and I can't escape the gloom of disappointment that surrounded the entire city because of Golden State's failure this season. Of course, it might have been the 30-plus straight days of rain that caused the gloom, but I like to think it's the Warriors.
Seattle, Houston, Utah, Philadelphia, Indiana, New York -- there have been quite a few disappointing teams in the NBA this season. But the Warriors rank No. 1 on my list.
That may be because I overrated Golden State coming into the season. They had a very strong finish to last year (18-10) after they traded for Baron Davis, and with a roster loaded with young talent, things looked good. They could be this year's Suns, I was thinking. It probably did not help that Raymond Ridder, the Warriors' impossibly upbeat public relations guy, had been telling me all summer that his guys were going to the playoffs. (I should have known better than to listen; Ridder is kind of guy who, if he jumped off the Titanic into the icy waters of the Atlantic, would say, "Did you try the crabcakes? They were great!")
Anyway, the Warriors are 31-47, which puts them, oh, about a month out of the playoffs (more like 5.5 games, actually). With the injuries that Houston and Utah had, plus the subpar year from the Kings, this was a great opportunity for the Warriors to finally bust that playoff drought, which will hit a decade once this season finishes. At the very least, they could have been in the playoff conversation, like the Hornets.
Instead, they're twiddling their thumbs. It's a shame, because this could be a fun team, and I know the Warriors have great fans who would come out if the team just gave them something to root for. Hey, they had 12 sellouts this year. Not bad for a .397 winning percentage.
What happened? How did a team that I -- and many others -- figured was due for a breakout year wind up with a breakdown year? So many reasons . . .
Reason 1: Paint? What paint?
Not a news flash for those who follow the Warriors: They've got nothing inside. Adonal Foyle is a good defensive center who's simply got no game on the offensive end. His shots are flat, and when he hurls a hook shot, it frequently looks like he's trying to break the backboard glass. Troy Murphy is a jump-shooter and has done little to hone his back-to-the-basket game in his career. He has 3-point range, but that does not mean he should take as many of them as he does. He is shooting 32 percent from the arc.
Reason 2: The bad side of Baron Davis.
We know the good side of Davis: strong, tough point guard who can lead a break and is as good a finisher as there is in the league. But Warriors fans saw the bad Baron this year. Not in shape. Prone to injury. All too willing to forsake his driving skill for 3-pointers.
Someone in the Warriors organization needs to sit down with Davis and remind him he is a basketball player. Davis has a litany of outside projects, including a movie production company and some charitable organizations, but the outside stuff is killing his game. He is not focused. He is not in top shape. He needs to put everything else on a shelf and focus on being a point guard for the Warriors. He missed 24 games this season and, given his injury history, it's clear that he does not take conditioning very seriously. That must change, though it may already be too late.
Reason 3: Back up Baron.
Derek Fisher has his positives: He's a 3-point shooter who is willing to take clutch shots. But if you are going to have Davis, you better have a quality backup. Fisher is a shooter, not a point guard, so when Davis is out, the Warriors are essentially point-guard free.
Reason 4: Repetitive parts.
Sometimes you can have too much good, young talent -- it gets to the point where it's tough to pick a rotation. Who should play more, Mike Dunleavy or Mickael Pietrus? Murphy or Ike Diogu?
Changes this summer are a must. Murphy is the most likely to be dealt, but the Warriors will certainly field offers for Dunleavy and Pietrus, too. They've got a terrific rookie in guard Monta Ellis, who has future star written all over him, and they must free up some playing time for him. It would be nice, of course, if the Warriors could come up with a decent big man in a trade, but if they come out with Foyle and Diogu as the starters in their frontcourt next year, they'll improve inside. Diogu is a tough cookie, and he can score in the paint.
Reason 5: More Rich.
Lost in the shuffle of the Warriors' problems is the fact that Jason Richardson has had a great season at shooting guard. Once upon a time, I feared Richardson was trying to do too much, to the detriment of the team. Now, I'd like to see him do more.
Richardson shot the ball well, from the field and from the 3-point line. He has gotten much better at getting contact and getting to the free-throw line, and he is absolutely explosive with the ball. His turnovers are down, and his defense is better.
Now that Richardson is a more complete player, the Warriors need to send more of their offense through him. This team loves the 3-pointer, so why not let Richardson handle the ball more, let him draw double-teams and develop his passing to set up better perimeter looks?
Reason 6: The coach.
The Warriors include a tally of the team's losses in close games in the team game notes, and if I was Mike Montgomery, I'd ask the PR staff to please stop. The Warriors are 11-16 in games decided by five or fewer points, and 6-13 in games decided by three or fewer. That's a pretty damning indictment of a coach who's not quite sure what to do in late-game situations.
OK, it's true the Warriors are young and the lack of an inside presence hurts their chances in tight games. But the Warriors almost always seem to be running broken plays in the final minutes of close games. That aspect has not improved a bit since the beginning of the season.
And Golden State is just terrible defensively. Again, that is not entirely Montgomery's fault. But, again, it's not like Montgomery has gotten this team to show any defensive improvement. The Warriors don't have a very athletic defense, and they seem to have trouble closing out on shooters. As a coach, though, if you know that is the case, then you can't afford to double team.
Example: In a goofy loss to the Rockets, the Warriors gave up consecutive wide-open 3-pointers to Rafer Alston and Luther Head, because Montgomery sent Fisher into the paint to double Yao Ming. If you know Fisher is not quick enough to get back on Alston and Head -- both very good 3-point shooters -- then, fer-cryin-out-loud, quit sending Fisher in there!
Sigh. The Warriors were 17-14 on January 1, and it sure looked, at the time, like Ridder's playoff projection was on the money. They've gone 14-33 since. And there's so much blame to go around.
He nailed it for the most part..I hope Mullin realizes all this..especially on the coaching.
Warriors disappointed me the most
April 14, 2006
We're in the heat of a fascinating playoff race in the East -- I won't call it a "great" race, because we're talking about five teams that are at .500 or below -- but I just spent a few days in Oakland watching the Warriors, and I can't escape the gloom of disappointment that surrounded the entire city because of Golden State's failure this season. Of course, it might have been the 30-plus straight days of rain that caused the gloom, but I like to think it's the Warriors.
Seattle, Houston, Utah, Philadelphia, Indiana, New York -- there have been quite a few disappointing teams in the NBA this season. But the Warriors rank No. 1 on my list.
That may be because I overrated Golden State coming into the season. They had a very strong finish to last year (18-10) after they traded for Baron Davis, and with a roster loaded with young talent, things looked good. They could be this year's Suns, I was thinking. It probably did not help that Raymond Ridder, the Warriors' impossibly upbeat public relations guy, had been telling me all summer that his guys were going to the playoffs. (I should have known better than to listen; Ridder is kind of guy who, if he jumped off the Titanic into the icy waters of the Atlantic, would say, "Did you try the crabcakes? They were great!")
Anyway, the Warriors are 31-47, which puts them, oh, about a month out of the playoffs (more like 5.5 games, actually). With the injuries that Houston and Utah had, plus the subpar year from the Kings, this was a great opportunity for the Warriors to finally bust that playoff drought, which will hit a decade once this season finishes. At the very least, they could have been in the playoff conversation, like the Hornets.
Instead, they're twiddling their thumbs. It's a shame, because this could be a fun team, and I know the Warriors have great fans who would come out if the team just gave them something to root for. Hey, they had 12 sellouts this year. Not bad for a .397 winning percentage.
What happened? How did a team that I -- and many others -- figured was due for a breakout year wind up with a breakdown year? So many reasons . . .
Reason 1: Paint? What paint?
Not a news flash for those who follow the Warriors: They've got nothing inside. Adonal Foyle is a good defensive center who's simply got no game on the offensive end. His shots are flat, and when he hurls a hook shot, it frequently looks like he's trying to break the backboard glass. Troy Murphy is a jump-shooter and has done little to hone his back-to-the-basket game in his career. He has 3-point range, but that does not mean he should take as many of them as he does. He is shooting 32 percent from the arc.
Reason 2: The bad side of Baron Davis.
We know the good side of Davis: strong, tough point guard who can lead a break and is as good a finisher as there is in the league. But Warriors fans saw the bad Baron this year. Not in shape. Prone to injury. All too willing to forsake his driving skill for 3-pointers.
Someone in the Warriors organization needs to sit down with Davis and remind him he is a basketball player. Davis has a litany of outside projects, including a movie production company and some charitable organizations, but the outside stuff is killing his game. He is not focused. He is not in top shape. He needs to put everything else on a shelf and focus on being a point guard for the Warriors. He missed 24 games this season and, given his injury history, it's clear that he does not take conditioning very seriously. That must change, though it may already be too late.
Reason 3: Back up Baron.
Derek Fisher has his positives: He's a 3-point shooter who is willing to take clutch shots. But if you are going to have Davis, you better have a quality backup. Fisher is a shooter, not a point guard, so when Davis is out, the Warriors are essentially point-guard free.
Reason 4: Repetitive parts.
Sometimes you can have too much good, young talent -- it gets to the point where it's tough to pick a rotation. Who should play more, Mike Dunleavy or Mickael Pietrus? Murphy or Ike Diogu?
Changes this summer are a must. Murphy is the most likely to be dealt, but the Warriors will certainly field offers for Dunleavy and Pietrus, too. They've got a terrific rookie in guard Monta Ellis, who has future star written all over him, and they must free up some playing time for him. It would be nice, of course, if the Warriors could come up with a decent big man in a trade, but if they come out with Foyle and Diogu as the starters in their frontcourt next year, they'll improve inside. Diogu is a tough cookie, and he can score in the paint.
Reason 5: More Rich.
Lost in the shuffle of the Warriors' problems is the fact that Jason Richardson has had a great season at shooting guard. Once upon a time, I feared Richardson was trying to do too much, to the detriment of the team. Now, I'd like to see him do more.
Richardson shot the ball well, from the field and from the 3-point line. He has gotten much better at getting contact and getting to the free-throw line, and he is absolutely explosive with the ball. His turnovers are down, and his defense is better.
Now that Richardson is a more complete player, the Warriors need to send more of their offense through him. This team loves the 3-pointer, so why not let Richardson handle the ball more, let him draw double-teams and develop his passing to set up better perimeter looks?
Reason 6: The coach.
The Warriors include a tally of the team's losses in close games in the team game notes, and if I was Mike Montgomery, I'd ask the PR staff to please stop. The Warriors are 11-16 in games decided by five or fewer points, and 6-13 in games decided by three or fewer. That's a pretty damning indictment of a coach who's not quite sure what to do in late-game situations.
OK, it's true the Warriors are young and the lack of an inside presence hurts their chances in tight games. But the Warriors almost always seem to be running broken plays in the final minutes of close games. That aspect has not improved a bit since the beginning of the season.
And Golden State is just terrible defensively. Again, that is not entirely Montgomery's fault. But, again, it's not like Montgomery has gotten this team to show any defensive improvement. The Warriors don't have a very athletic defense, and they seem to have trouble closing out on shooters. As a coach, though, if you know that is the case, then you can't afford to double team.
Example: In a goofy loss to the Rockets, the Warriors gave up consecutive wide-open 3-pointers to Rafer Alston and Luther Head, because Montgomery sent Fisher into the paint to double Yao Ming. If you know Fisher is not quick enough to get back on Alston and Head -- both very good 3-point shooters -- then, fer-cryin-out-loud, quit sending Fisher in there!
Sigh. The Warriors were 17-14 on January 1, and it sure looked, at the time, like Ridder's playoff projection was on the money. They've gone 14-33 since. And there's so much blame to go around.
He nailed it for the most part..I hope Mullin realizes all this..especially on the coaching.
