for Harrington's play. Since I don't live in the Bay, haven't had a chance to see the games live much.

But I can tell you this: if you measure defense by blocked shots and rebounds, then Adonal Foyle and Troy Murphy are excellent defenders.

From what I've read and what little I've watched, Harrington's value is in providing a long body that can nominally guard big men (especially against Yao Ming), while also opening up the floor on the offensive end with is ability to score from outside, forcing opposing bigs to choose between guarding the lane or contesting his 3s. On a team with Baron, Jax, Monta, Kelenna, et al, 15 ppg in 27 minutes is plenty respectable. He's not the first or second scoring option, and with some lineups, he's not even going to be the third.

While he's not ever going to be the mythical big man Dubs fans dream about, he's a good fit for the system. Not many guys his size can pass muster with Nellie.

of the Don more than anything else.  Ever since the roster got at full strength, Nelson has been playing Harrington out of position to take advantage of his quickness and range.  When his shot ain't falling, he gets the hook.  Problem is if his main value lately has depended on his ability to knock down the three, he's got a 50/50 shot, at best, to utilize his advantage since great 3pt shooting hardly is a given.  I never liked the idea of depending 3pt acuracy as an offensive scheme, because 3pt shooting is less dependable than 2pt shooting.  Hence the hot/cold nature of the warriors offence this year.

Yes, he can be disappointing, but he worked hard this offseason to be even more fit to run his opposing center hard.  Now, I don't like him taking minutes from Andris, but it seems to keep both of them fresh because depending on matchup one of them could easily go for 40 min and be the 2nd most important player on the floor.

So, he was recently interviewed about his minutes, and he showed a little disappointment, but ultimately trusted his coach to put the best lineup out there.  He would be ready when needed to do what he has to do.  Now, that might seem like the words of a 2nd year player, but its a better attitude than Starbury or something.  These Warriors all want to win.  I'd like to see Harrington finish and rebound better, and its frustrating to see him not improve as much as we would like.  Maybe, coach is just letting him know that is what we need from him.

WARNING NO STATS HERE.

I'm not basing my argument on any statistical evidence.  Just mine own eyes from watching or attending every game this year.  Harrington is a good defender.  Most ppl say that the biggest part of defense is effort, and Harrington tries as hard/harder than anyone on the team.  He doesn't get pushed around on the block despite his size and occasionally will have SHUT DOWN defensive performances(ala Yao Ming).

I've never felt he was a defensive liability(like i do sometimes with ellis) unless we play shaq.  As far as rebounding, the guy tries for sure, you can see it every game.  But unfortunately hes nellies favorite whipping boy so he gets yanked a lot.

As far as offense, hes got a lot of value.  His ability to his the three pointer and move their shot blocker out of the lane gives us a whole different dimension(WHY didnt we do this to Bynum?  Not like he wasnt gonna kill us anyway, might as well draw him out on D.)  Also, his driving game is decent now, and his midrange game isnt bad as well.

At the beggining of the year i wasnt a huge harrington fan....now tho, with his improvements, i think he adds a lot to the team.

I absolutely think Al does help the team, but I couldn't help but notice last night that Al seemed in a real funk.  After hitting a tough fadeaway to open the game, I thought he might be in for a good night; but in actuality he missed a few good looks  and spent a lot of the second half on the bench.  Other than one extreme hustle play where he went into the crowd to try and save a rebound, Al was virtually invisible on and off the court.  

Now, an invisible game for Harrington is something I've sort of come to accept; but last night was the first night where I felt like there was something mroe than just his own cold shooting in play.  From his body language and facial expressions, he seemed none too pleased about Nellie's substituting patterns, which leads me to wonder: will Al be okay with the fact that Jack and Baron are the only two guys guaranteed 30+ minutes in any given game?  

Obviously, I might be psycho-analyzing out my rear end here, but while Nellie's distribution of minutes can sometimes frustrate me as a fan (e.g., I want to see Wright!), this is the first time where I've really worried about the substitution patterns affecting our chemistry.  

Hopefully Al stripes a few threes early tonight and puts up a solid game against the Blazers (though I don't think he'll start).  Go Dubs!

Nellie isn't asking Al to be the #1 scoring option. We are not hurting in points scored. Basically, he is instructed to shoot when open, play solid D especially on big men, and rebound. He still needs to work on boxing out and getting the boards, but I think he is solid otherwise. He is going through a difficult phase from long range, but has had some nice drives and finishes in the lane. I for one think he is a good fit with our squad.

He definitely has a big impact on the court (for better and for worse), even when he does seem invisible on the offensive end.  Here's what I see from Al Harrington:

On team defense:
When he's at center, and everybody on the floor is ready to hustle, we can create alot of havoc on the defensive end.  The beauty of having a mobile center such as Harrington on the court is that it's hard for the other team to create mismatches or penetrate with the pick-and-roll.  Everybody on our team has the foot speed to guard everybody on their team (more or less), so every screen is seemlessly switched on without hesitation.  Because we have a fast defense, everyone can play tight on their man and play the passing lanes, causing a bunch of deflections and steals; and also making the entry post extremely difficult.

This is what we saw against the Spurs in the second quarter, when we went 30-12 on them.  Forcing turnovers and fastbreak baskets is Warriors Basketball at its finest.

In a perfect world, this is how the Warriors would always like to play defense.  But I bet that it's as tiring as it sounds, and the depth rotation is already short with players logging alot of minutes, so stamina is definitely a factor.

On individual defense:

Harrington's stronger than alot of people give him credit for; he's been able to deny good post position from Amare, Yao, and Dwight Howard.  He doesn't have the length to really contest their shots, but he does most of his work before the entry pass gets there and most of the time the other center isn't in a great place to score.  Harrington won't be a "lockdown the post" kinda guy, but he's doing an adequate job, especially for his size.

On rebounding:

This is going to be kind of hard to explain..  but  I think our defensive rebounding has improved over last year and it's a function of a couple things.  I never believed Harrington had the length and athhleticism to grab boards out of the sky like Biedrins or Wright can, but he does box out his man consistently now.  We've seen our guards get alot of rebounds this year.  On paper, it looks like all of our guards (Baron, Ellis, Jackson, Azubuike) have magically become great rebounders overnight, all of their rebound rates are up from last year.  But I've also noticed that our guards actually crash the defensive boards this year instead of just always looking for the fastbreak, or they now have better judgment about when to crash and when to streak.  Harrington and Biedrins boxing out allows our guards to collect more rebounds, even if they aren't in position to pull down the rebounds themselves.

Fastbreak:
Harrington's ability to lead the fastbreak is a bit underrated.  The fact that all 5 of our guys are very fast down the court means that, more likely than not, we'll have numbers on the other end and be able to finish with ease

On offense:
The mismatch we'd like to exploit is that Harrington has range beyond the arc which could force opposing teams' centers to abandon the paint and create more points-in-the-paint for us.  But that hasn't really worked too well as of late,  Harrington misses a few threes and gets the quick hook from Nelly.  But when this strategy does work and Harrington hits his shots (he usually does), we get to see all the wonderful guard penetration and finishes that we love to see because their center has to go out of the paint and guard Harrington (those Ellis-To-The-Rim type moments).  

The flaw I see is that the Warriors rely too heavily on Harrington's three point shooting too much when he is in the game.  He doesn't have to shoot the open three every time he has the chance, he still has a huge quickness advantage over centers that he doesn't exploit enough.

late

is useful because he is an option for Nellie to go to in certain mismatches.

He's a swiss army knife. An Ak47 makes a bigger impact, but it's not as versatile.

hit a three