Now dunleavy doing so well kills me. I want to die thinking about him doing this the whole season.

You'll be back.

On the other hand, Dunleavy could lead the league in scoring and I'd still be glad we dumped him.

Greatest of the playoff drought era, okay sure, but ever?  Come on.

Nate Thurmond (holler at me after "Big J Rich's BBQ" opens in the Bay!)
Rick Barry (underhand free throws and STILL out shot almost our entire squad % wise)
Sleepy Floyd
Chris Mullin
Tim Hardaway
Mitch Richmond (bonus points since I'm from Richmond born on 23rd street)

Was it J-Rich's veteran leadership that made us contenders?  No it was the trades for Baron and Al and Stephen Jackson.  Also, who was the hot head that punked Okur at the end of game 4 in the playoffs?  J Rich was a true Warrior and gave his heart and soul to the team but Baron almost single handedly carried us through the Mavericks series.  

I'll give you that dealing JRich may have been a bad move for the 2007-08 season but when you look at this deal in 2-3 years I think it will make more sense.  I'm a firm believer in trading a guy a year early instead of waiting till his value drops, especially when we're not realistic contenders for an NBA title with any move we could have made for J-Rich this year unless we could have landed (Duncan or somebody like Dwight Howard who could stop him).

Let's see the stat lines when JRich plays some Western conference teams!  And ideally with one of the top 3 Bobcats players out to make the stat lines even.  

J Rich was awesome. Obviously his shot was on (he finished 10-16, but one miss was a half-court shot at the buzzer of the shot clock on a broken play and another was a circus 180 backwards flip shot where he thought he had been fouled), but it was much more than that. On D he was guarding Udonis Haslem for most of the fourth quarter, and he boxed out and boarded extremely well against the big guy. On the game-deciding play - Heat down 2 and less than 15 seconds left - J Rich guarded the Heat's best player, Ricky Davis, who first went for the shot then ended up turning it over with a bad pass. And as you could tell from the game 1 quote, he's hustling just as hard as he always did with the Warriors. In fact, with Raymond Felton and Gerald Wallace playing the same way, the Bobcats are a very entertaining team to watch. Every Gerald Wallace drive seems like a potential season-ending injury, but he just keeps on getting up and doing it again.

J Rich's game wasn't perfect. He turned it over a few times in the fourth quarter with some shaky ball-handling as the Bobcats blew a double-digit fourth quarter lead. But he had a great overall game and it was exciting watching him play well. I'll definitely try to catch as many Bobcat games as possible, especially when it's not a gameday for the Warriors.

Hopefully he brings the Bobcats to the playoffs and makes the All-Star team as well!

Are we going to use this diary as a rational debate about whether the trade was a good idea or not; or are we going to use this a diary to let people vent about their feelings?

I'm down for either, just let me know.

Questions? Complaints?

(AIM: JetForze; email: Jon.d.ma@gmail.com)

I do laugh at the memory of hearing these same sentiments after the Jamison trade.

No one harbors those feelings anymore.

I probably shouldn't say anymore, I might get flamed.

BRING BACK JRICH!
WE WOULD BE THREE AND OH WITH HIM!
COHAN IS CHEAP!
MULLIN SUCKS!

um what else

BRANDAN WRIGHT SUCKS!
BIEDRINS IS OVERRATED!
TRADE FOR GARNETT!

wait. scratch that last

TRADE FOR KOBE!
TRADE FOR LEBRON!

TRADE FOR DAVID STERN!

Questions? Complaints?

(AIM: JetForze; email: Jon.d.ma@gmail.com)

But the proof is in the pudding. We'll take up this conversation again on April 5th.

However, given all of the pain we have been through the last 12 years, and given that this makes the team worse in the short run (and thus increasing the likelihood of an implosion and a BD and Nellie departure in the summer), I would have voted for another fun season, playoff appearance and probably early departure. That's all.

Twenty-one regular season games. That's all that squad had the chance to put together. After making history, they were dismantled.

Maybe that makes good traditional NBA GM logic, but in the context of the Unstoppable Baby 2007 Golden State Warriors, not so much.

So the trade gives us a net increase in value in our assets while giving us increased financial flexibility.

But, for the sake of putting an end to this subjective discussion, let's submit the trade to an objective test. Something that would allow us to evaluate the test on a easily definable basis.

Clearly the W's wouldn't have continued on their 16-5 pace, but, could you acknowledge that, with that same roster, and all of the momentum from last year, and all of the roles clearly defined, the W's were at LEAST going to the playoffs this year? Even if as an #8 seed? In my mind, that's pretty much a given. I will, in turn, acknowledge that the W's were never going to win a championship with that roster.

So the test is:

• If the Warriors go to the NBA finals in the next 5 years, it was a genius trade.
  
• If the Warriors fail to make the playoffs in each of the next 3 years, it was a disaster.

I've read GSOM for about 6 months now. I've only posted a few times. Might as well jump in.

I consider myself a Warriors outsider. I moved to the Bay Area in 2001. Let's just say that Jim Barnett's analysis dragged me in. Anyway, I was always wondering how a team could be perennially bad, so I watched a lot of W's games. And like anything, over time, you grow attached, as you get to know the team better. I admitted my fandom in 2004, and I swear on my life that after the debacle at Washington last season I said to my buddy, "Well, I still think they can make the playoffs." And the next evening, since I had no TV in my new apartment, I went alone to the local sports bar, and stared in utter astonishment as the W's ripped up the Pistons. I was the only person in the bar that night. Then I knew. So, a few points.

First, the general community here is not negative. For the most part, they are (like someone else said) passionate, wildly creative, and fairly well informed. A few wild hair-brained trade ideas, but still fun.

Second, I do believe the J-Rich trade was an ill-conceived idea. The simple business concept of acquiring a highly coveted product, and then developing and investing resources into that product and then turning around and selling somewhere between low in the short term and medium to high in the long term is flawed. And the basketball notion of trading a proven commodity for an unproven talent is like playing the lottery, a couple of huge notable winners and a lot of losers. J-Rich clearly had a bad season because of injury, but he would only have increased in trade value, as the number of years and dollars on his contract gradually decreased (a certainty), and as Jason proved to the rest of the league that he was still a legitimate scorer and rebounder as well as an improving defender (fairly likely). Some have mentioned the lack of turning the TPE into a proven player is a mistake. I agree. But a much larger mistake was not properly scouting the available talent in a deep, diverse draft. OZ loves Noah, and he would have addressed many short-term problems. But the W's banked on Wright being more attractive on the open market, and then made no trades. Wright will be a good player, but when and for whom?

Third, no one has brought up Baron in all of this. I'm not sure if there's been another diary on this subject, but doesn't he just HATE the trade? They asked him on opening night how the team would respond, and it looked for one moment that he was going to scream out. But he didn't. He's matured. There's no doubt that Baron often looked for Richardson to lead the team, even for stretches of games. And who else on the W's could penetrate, draw the D, and kick to Baron for the open 3? All of Baron's jumpers are coming off the dribble.

Fourth, just for full disclosure, one of my flaws when discussing and analyzing the NBA is I tend to get seduced by game-changers, guys who have a turbo gear when no one else does. I sometimes neglect guys who just get it done. And I write overly long sentences.

Fifth, thanks for reading. I'll be the guy with the random "I love the AB-POB 4/5 combo but I wanted Al at the 3,"  "Did Nellie fall asleep in the 2nd quarter?" or "I don't care what happened before 2000" comments.

Oh, I have tough skin and enjoy a good argum....er, discussion.

Go Dubs!

1)you guys make way too big a deal of OZ's style.  Hes arguing and so should you.  Present your argument and let the public decide. just whatever you do, dont make fun of franco finn.

2) about the actual subject.  OZ is what we call a JRICH hater.  Most dubs fans are enamored, he is not.  He is the opposite of all the cats who show love for JRICH.  Kawakami is a hater too, and they are both wrong about him.

Huge Jrich fan here. Huge.  im super emo, and im not fact based at all. completely subjective here.

food for thought tho friends.

Jrich is a talented player.  Anyone disagree?  

Could we use that talent right now?

wish i could have gotten in sooner...Atma directing his occasional negative energy to someone else BUT ME? cool.  OZ taking on the websites creator?  someone call GTOE!  Franco my man you here??

anyways, all love here from jrizzle

also, its only 4 games.  we'll bounce back.

go dubs