D- ?!? Come on folks!  

That rating is not normalized to the NBA let alone bad to NBA teams (GWS are one of the elite bad franchises in the NBA).

The kid is 20 as of April 2.  

# Was the youngest player in the NBA in 2004-05
# Became the youngest player ever to appear in a game for Golden State when he made his NBA debut as an 18-year-old.
# In 11 games during the FIBA European League, averaged 18.6 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.82 blocks.

He pays attention and is coachable.  He plays with high energy and effort when he's on the floor. He fouls to often but he defends. He cares and fights for the ball. That's a D- ?. On the GSW?

GSW lack big men so this kid is put out on the floor when he should be developing.  He plays too agressive and picks up bad fouls -- he's not a natural scorer but many useful big men are not nor are all NBA centers good free throw shooters.

At 20 as of April 2, he is right where you expect a 20 year old center to be for a young kid drafted #11 and playing at 18.

He's 3 years younger than Nenad Krstic who the Nets let develop in Europe. FT% is terrible but other stats (minutes rebounds and points) compare well to Jackie Butler who SA Spurs signed for 7M over 3 years.

C-

His negatives: Free throw below 60%, making stupid fouls, not progressing as needed last year (to unrealistic expectations) and playing poorly in the '06 summer league -- a bad sign.

C+

4 points and 4 rebounds needs to be taken in context and some of that context is < 15 minutes per game. Per game stats are somewhat misleading in this regard.  While part of this is his doing because his high foul rate meant that he had to go to the bench quickly, some of it was a lack of opportunity.  

Monty didn't play him much, though when he did, the Warriors were generally better off than when he sat.  This says something about the alternatives in an out of position defensive liability at center in Murphy and Hands of Tin Foyle, but it also says something about Monty and his shortcomings.  This team didn't shoot well.  If a team doesn't shoot well, one of the things it has to do is rebound the damn ball and Biedrins is a very good rebounder.  Offensive rebounds mean that a possession hasn't ended because of a missed shot.  Defensive rebounds mean that the opponents possession ended without a basket.  

The FT shooting was abysmal, but the FG% was stellar, and with the ratio of FG attempts to FT attempts he had, the latter more than compensated for the former.  Yes, it's all short shots, putbacks and dunks, but those shots count just as much. And if it were so easy to hit 63% of your shots by getting putback and dunks, why do most no-jump-shot big men still come far, far short of that.  For some reason, people seem to discount this but if were so easy to convert putback and dunks at that rate, why doens't anyone else do it? I'll take a guy who hits 60% from the floor and 30% from the line over a guy who hits 50% from the floor (which is still considered good) and 70% from the line because he's going to produce more.  This is simple math.  Biedrins doesn't put up bad shots from the floor, something that it seems most players--especially those with little skill--just can't seem to do and that's worth a ton.  

If Foyle had shot as well as Biedrins but as poorly as Biedrins did from the line, the Warriors would have scored about 60 more points on the season.  May not sound like too much, but that usually equates to 2 or 3 wins over the course of a season.

If we get rebounding and high-percentage 2nd chance conversions from Biedrins, he's an asset and a valuable one.  If he adds any improvement to his FT shooting, he's going to be a significant plus.

His big minus is really the fouls because that's what keeps him off the floor.  If he can cut down on those, he could average double digit rebounds and clos to it in points.  The points come on very few shots so while he wouldn't add a whole lot of total offense, what he would bring wouldn't take away from other players.

I agree with JAE. I give him a C+ too. Such great energy and is ready to score inside points (dunks/putbacks - unlike Foyle) without taking offense away from the rest of the team. He does foul alot, but also gets some of the most bogus foul calls of any player. It seemed like almost every game he had 1-2 fouls where he had clean blocks or never even touched the other player. He is so young that I think he wll improve alot. I also think he should be starting instead of Foyle - but I also like him off the bench for the burst of energy.

Biedrins is 20 years old, averages 4 and 4 in 15 minutes, more PT at the end of the season where he does somewhat better than this.  He hit more than 60% of his shots from the field, meaning that when he shot the ball, he scored more often than not and he didn't hand the ball back to the opponent by missing a shot.  More often than not, when he's on the court, the Warriors outscored their opponents. He gets a no-pass for being young and the rather important basketball things he does well that help teams win games --rebounding and hitting a high percentage of his shots-- get overlooked in favor of Montgomery's poor personnel decisions.

He gets a "D."  

Montay Ellis is also 20 years old.  Ellis averages a bit under 7 in 18 minutes, doesn't appreciably rebound, got assists that are strictly pedestrian for a guard.  He hit 41.5% of his shots--a figure that is frankly not very good, 34% from beyond the arc (a figure that is adequate, but not stellar).   Though widely acknowledged that it's not really in line with the numbers he put up, he get rave reviews from the folk here, largely because he's young and has "potential" and no one expected anything from him prior to the season.

He gets an A.

Y'all have a whacked grading curve.  

i thought that andris hustled and played with a lot of energy and heart.  He rebounded well especially on the offensive end getting extra possesions and he did a great job catching the ball and dunking it or laying it in.  He is a lot more athletic then i thought he was.  I didnt see very many post moves from him, but i saw a few and  in his first year, i didnt see anything in the post from him.  He got  too many quick fouls, but to me, it seemed like right when he got  in the game someone would drive at him and he would be called for a ticky tac foul alot of the time.  In some of the games i watched he blocked and contested some shots and that looked nice.  his freethrows were pathetic.  that is the one aspect of his game that i thought he definately should have been able to make a dramatic improvement from his first year.  I thought he improved but i didnt think much of him in his first year and didnt really expect much from him.  He hardly played at all in his first year and he came back the next year and was able to be in my mind a reliable backup.  I do have one question though.  When andris comes in gets a quick foul or two, why do they bench him?    are they saving him for the end of the game or what?

C+    

For the record -On the radio listening to Mullin - I hear that AB sometime hits 45/50 FTs in practice. JRich hits reguarly over 80%. Dun shoots the lights out. Not for lack of practice, but they all have trouble translating their shooting into game situations.

I'd give him a C-.  He's not that good of a player, but it's still too early to judge.  He may very well be great when he's 23.

I do think you need to keep him around until he's 23-24 years old and see where he ends up.  Right now he's at least Andrew DeClerqc, and that's a valuable piece to have.  The Warriors have all the quality depth at back up but lack one more star in the front court.  Andris will not be that star.  Not without some kind of outside shot.

In two years I'd expect him to be better than Foyle, but only slightly.  He will score and rebound better because of his hands, and he can run the floor pretty well, so he can play on a running team.  He's worth keeping, but pay him like a true back up center and don't sign him to a big contract.  He's just a piece, and not a huge one.  He could be a key rebounder to replace Murphy's rebounds if Murphy's traded.

And, Baron could feed him the ball more often and his scoring could rise to the 12 points a game average on it's topside.

So, at age 23 we might have a center who can average 10-8 a night in about 25 minutes and defend pretty well.  If POB or any other center can do similar in 20-25mins a night then we will be getting 20pts-16reb from the center position or better and that's an improvement from current conditions.  But not by a huge margin.

He's a keeper as long as he's cheap.  He might be really valuable to a running team that needed 15 minutes from him a night as a back up.  Right now, the Warriors need a front court star, so he's expendable for the right player.  Mullin must turn his many capable players into fewer capable back ups and more stars.

I wouldn't expect Beidrins to ever be a star.  He might be a 15-10 guy at his peak.  Maybe when he's around 26 or so.  But then again, that's a long ways away.  I don't expect to ever see a dramatic off season improvement from him.  I just rated him a C- because that's what kind of player he is, and it's not from a bad attitude or anything, it's just that I don't see him ever getting above a B grade even at his peak.

I think that Andris is already better than Foyle.  He rebounds better--much better--and converts more of his shots.  Since neither of them actually extend the defense, that Andris actually possesses hands of flesh and blood rather than stone digits useful only for blocking shots makes him more valuable because he converts a higher percentage of those putbacks and grabs a higher percentage of the misses.  Neither looks spectacular, but over the course of a game, it helps.  

Andris isn't going to be a big scorer.  I don't think a 'per game' scoring average is as meaningful as what it will take for him to get that average. There are a limited number of shots to go around in a game.   A guy who scores 15 points but takes 15 shots to do so is less valuable than the guy who turns 5 shots into 8 points.  He's not blowing possessions trying to score when someone else on the team can do it better.  Those missed shots are likely going to end possessions and mean that the team didn't score. Because of this, it's more important to see how players get their stats than just adding up their scoring totals and concluding that 20 points from the center position did or didn't help or hurt the team.

While the Warriors do need some offensive impact from the front court, getting it from the center position has historically (for all teams--not just the Warriors) been tough.  Undervaluing a center who converts the slop and grabs rebounds over a scoring center who requires shot after shot to get more points would be a mistake.  A power forward who wasn't struggling to hit 44% from the floor would help every bit as much as a center who tried to score more often.

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but then again, a lot of nice assists are finished by someone else. Biedrins catches the ball very well--check out some of the up-close broken play passes that he fielded and converted. He also follows plays well, meaning that he's in position to tip in or flip in when someone else throws it up or throws it in.

Biedrins shoots 50% from the line in practice sometimes--the other guys, Richardson and Dunleavy, show a drop=off from practice because pressure is pressure and it's rare for players to shoot as well in games as in practice.  But a player who shoots "45 to 50 percent sometimes" in practice simply doesn't have a reliable shot. Biedrins will never rise above 50% FT without someone teaching him the mechanics of the shot. His current method involves flinging the ball before he's aligned it in his field of vision, a la Manute Bol. No one can shoot consistently that way. There are blindfold free throw shooters who don't miss, but they got that way by bringing the ball to a balanced released point high and in front, not low and at their ear.

So: the Warriors owe it to themselves and to Biedrins to pay someone to teach him. Period. Teach him to shoot, not throw. Completely undo his current shot and start over, even if it's underhand, even if it means he shoots 25% while he's getting the hang of it. Biedrins doesn't have a physical defect, like Shaq, that prevents him from releasing the ball correctly: he simply doesn't know how to bring the ball to a balanced, aligned, consistent release point, and that's something that he certainly could learn. It ain't rocket science, but if you never learned, someone's got to teach you and guide you and overcome your fear of even greater failure while you go back to being a complete beginner for a while.

Here's my new proposal for the Warriors: write in Adonal Foyle for President, launching him on a whole new career. Have him voluntarily, in the service of peace and democracy, forgo the rest of his contract while he runs the free world. Let Troy Murphy be his, um, Secret Service agent. (Please no Cabinet level position for Troy.) Let Andris and POB and Ike do their best and worst.  Have Troy, in his new security-gadget career, secretly install an electroshock device on Mike Dunleavy's frontal lobes to wipe out self-consciousness during games.

How about it? Universal health care, better schools, more respect for the US abroad, and the W's finish 7th in the West!

Yes, most of his shots were set up by a teammate...but that's because he's ALWAYS MOVING off the ball and gets the first step often on his defender.  As many have said, if it were so easy to get 63% on just putbacks, all the stiffs would be doing it.  They didn't.  No one came close.

INARGUABLY the Warriors as a team played better with AB on the floor.  On court and off court stats prove that.  Opposing teams scored less and were scored upon more.  The team rebounded better AS A TEAM when AB was out there.  While the W's team fouls went up when AB was out there, SO DID OPPOSING TEAMS'.

To those who say "well, he didn't get the playing time, so that proves he's no good." let me remind you that we're talking about Monty's decision-making abilities there.  Monty is an idiot when it comes to trusting his younger players.  We all know it.

Finally, to the person who said "well, if he makes 45-50% FT during practice..., it's 45 of 50.  AB's FT shooting problems are clearly mental.  His form goes to hell in games.  Luckily he's only 20, so it is possible for him to get more mentally strong/confident.

He did hit his FTs at 59% in the Latvian league over an entire year with more playing time than.