Short of Watson showing himself to be an adequate backup as a shooting point guard, nothing has gone right.

Man, sad to say, but that’s about right. Two weeks ago we would’ve said that Biedrins’ further improvement was another big bright spot, but he’s taken a bit of a step back since. Guy’s still great and we’re lucky to have him, but he’s not getting back to 17/15 without some adjustments.

I’d say Wright’s continued good play has been a positive sign… he’s playing even better than last year in increased minutes, putting the lie to the idea that he’ll be exposed with playing time. Turiaf has also been more of a shot-blocking force than we could’ve expected. Morrow, if nothing else, has proven himself to be a better end-of-the-bench option than Marco. That’s really about it.

Like you, I can only see things getting better from here. Maggette is now settling in offensively, and while he’s a bad defender, he looked game when defending 3s again last night… I’m not too worried about him. The light seemed to go back on in Jack’s head yesterday, and hopefully that’ll continue. And Monta’s a month away at most, barring complications.

But the biggest variable is the simplest one: Nellie’s playing too small. Corey Maggette can’t fake being a 4 the way Matt Barnes sometimes could (not that that really worked brilliantly over time either), and without a game-changing scorer to bail us out, we just become a tiny, ineffectual team with one big in the lineup. Yesterday was a positive step towards playing bigger… let’s hope Nellie realizes the biggest stretches were our best ones.

for this season was ill concieved even before Monta got hurt. Not even Nelson was willing to say he thought Monta was really ready to play the point position. He was forced into that situation when Rowell let Baron walk.

But even if Monta was ready, it just seems like a silly idea to take a natural scoring phenom and put him in an un-natural position that forces him to focus on something other than scoring. I still can’t understand that logic… They have been forced into it, but I’m just tired of hearing that this season would have been so great had Monta simply not gotten injured. People need to face it, losing Baron was a major mistake at best and closer to total ignorance ( = Rowell).

Some underestimate the importance of chemistry. Many overestimate it. Nothing in Crawford’s past suggests that he’ll gel into becoming even a moderately high efficiency scorer or a front line point guard. Chemistry is unlikely to make him shoot better, to be a better distributor, to play defense or rebound. It’s not something he’s done before.

Marbury is a superstar in his own mind and by paycheck, but he’s never been as valuable as he thinks he is or the hype machine that once surrounded him made him to be.

Basketball and football are very different. The importance of “chemistry” for lack of a better word, does seem to be more important in football, where one individual has less impact on a team for if no other reason than that there’s 21 other guys out there at the same time. Football performances swing much more from season to season. Maybe this is “chemistry” or maybe the nature of the game. Far less seems to affect basketball players’ performance as it’s more constant from year to year.

The key to this team’s success is going to be luck, luck that some improbable events occur, like several players getting much better than they have been or project to be. Not many expected the playoff, but few expected complete directionless implosion. Nellie doesn’t seem to be sacrificing wins to bring on the younger players. He seems to be overplaying older guys and plays Wright in a totally haphazard manner. It’s not at all clear what is going on as the model doesn’t seem to be effectively developing the young guys OR winning games.

I don’t know, maybe if Pietrus and Barnes weren’t playing the 4 (add Maggette playing the 4 to the list of complaints) they may have played better, don’t you think?

Marcus Williams recently asked for a trade I believe.

I’m not defending the front office, they suck too, which makes it more depressing. But the question asked for the Warriors biggest problem. The funny thing is, I think that despite all the mishaps, despite all the attempts to entrench our franchise in mediocrity, the team is still promising. If utilized effectively.

“and still others complain that he plays a different lineup every night, mixes up the group too much, the team is too young etc. He can’t win for losing”

Not sure how this is relevant to my point.

“Do you really not remember that Nellie was the one who brought Barned to the team when he was literally out of the league after being left for dead by countless teams??”

I think that players fresh into the system will thrive, because they will love the freedom. But as one plays more and more games with this do whatever the hell you want on offense, occasionally play defense, they will develop more and more bad habits that balloon and really hurt their level of play. They got comfortable unless a fire was lit into their ass. Remember all those comeback wins last year? Why did we continually go down ten points in the first place? (By the way, terrible job by Nelson last year, exhausting the veterans to increase the win total, but costing the Warriors any chance of advancing in the playoffs even if they got there. If he develops the bench early in the season, he does a couple things. He keeps his stars fresher, and he gives game experience to more players who will be able to contribute later in the season. You think Phil Jackson wants to sit Kobe for Ariza or Vujacic or whoever in the second quarter? Hell no, he does it to keep Kobe fresh. Obviously, playing the young players could have cost us some games, but that was a risk we needed to take, because if it were to pay off then we would have had a chance to advance in the playoffs rather than barely reach them before running out of gas. But I digress…).There are obvious exceptions like Biedrins, and possibly Brandan Wright (how would we know though, am I right?)

I mean, come on, it seemed pretty obvious that a player like Pietrus needed discipline. Barnes too, he started out with a chip on his shoulder but when he lost them he was a chicken with his head cut off out there. He needed direction. Nelson never provided that.