I’m not even going to make the argument that JRich is better than Monta (although I’d go with BoomRich over BD+Monta any day). That’s not the point. Trading JRich for Brandan Wright was silly. Trading JRich for someone like Drew Gooden wouldn’t be all that popular either, but I’d buy it if someone said that was going to make the Warriors better because of their glaring holes up front. They needed (and still freaking do) a real PF who can defend and clean up the glass. Instead of moving J-Rich for one, they got younger and cheaper.

There is not a team in the league who wouldn’t trade Drew Gooden and his contract for Brandan Wright and his contract. Not one.

Trading J-Rich for Brandan Wright wasn’t about cheapness or lack of Belief… it was about valuable. Brandan Wright and room to maneuver is, in my and many people’s opinions, worth more than J-Rich. And it’s CERTAINLY worth more than Drew Gooden. We need an elite power forward, but trading for a bunch of crappy ones won’t get us there.

Re: the Bobcats:

But since you’re bring up the BETcats check the facts:
Gerald Wallace (who is arguably a better 2-way player than Jason) only played 62 games last season for the Bobcats

He only played 72 the year before. Also, like J-Rich, he’s a guy whose impressive production doesn’t seem to correlate with wins. I have trouble seeing this as the Demise Of The ‘07-’08 Cats.

Budding superstar Adam Morrison was out for the entire season (just seeing if you’re paying attention)

Funny, but you’re actually glossing over a pretty friggin’ relevant point. The Bobcats added J-Rich, and subtracted, quite literally, the worst player in the NBA. They didn’t improve.

The Bobcats just aren’t a very good team.

With or without Jason Richardson. I agree with you.

Everyone who keeps using this absurd argument about the Bobcats record last season to claim this was a good trade just answer this. If the Warriors moved Monta Ellis or even Baron Davis instead of J-Rich to the Bobcats do you really think their record would be any better? I’d say with Monta they’re actually worse (they don’t play fast and Felton+Monta ain’t so hot) and with Baron (he’d do wonders for Okafor) they’re just a few games better. With either Monta or BD or Biedrins (since the good man is so overrated by Warriors fans) last year instead of Jason Richardson on the Bobcats they’re still not a playoff team even IN THE EAST.

I’d say they’d have been a couple games better with Monta and a bunch of games better with Baron - absolutely a playoff team, not that that’s saying much. A healthy Baron Davis wins a lot of games for his team. Monta Ellis wins some games for his team - not all THAT many, but some, and more by the year.

Jason Richardson has a positive effect on the fortunes of his teams, but it’s not a big one—it’s less than Monta’s, and much, much less than Baron’s. I know it sounds heretical and counterintuitive, but there it is. He scores a lot and rebounds well, but he’s not a super-efficient scorer and not a great defender… he’s basically a B-plus guy at the least-important position in basketball. I loved We Believe as much as anyone, but it didn’t magically make me forget the terrible Warriors teams that had J-Rich putting up big numbers… didn’t make me ignore last year’s Bobcats. Yes, J-Rich scored a lot of points last year. Those points didn’t often translate to wins.

J-Rich isn’t the reason that bad teams are bad. He’s a pretty good player, and a dandy chap, to boot. But other than one two-month span, he has shown no ability to really positively affect a team’s record. For that reason, acting like he would’ve been this magical cure-all strikes me as odd.

Finally, Atma, your attacks on Pree are pretty embarrassing. For the past couple months, Pree has been providing this blog with inside scoops on the team, thoughtful analysis of their moves, and constant content—he’s been one of the main engines keeping this blog moving. You, one of the head honchos of this blog, and (presumably) one of the benefactors of the ad revenue generated by content from Pree and other posters, have dropped in once every couple weeks with links to the few articles that mirror your negative sentiments and childishly bitter posts about the team and about those fans that don’t hate this team.

Pree is currently one of the best things about this blog; you are currently one of the worst things about this blog. Open your eyes, dude.

You make a good argument. I disagree with alot of it, mostly because it was obvious that J-Rich simply was not Nelsons type of player. Nellie has always liked non conventional players that are one on one mismatch nightmares. I think we can all agree J-Rich is not that. Good player. Not a one on one guy. He choose Monta over J-Rich. Should we have gotten more for J-Rich? Maybe, but it was decided to dump him for salary relief to keep Monta and Andris. Yes, technically we could have signed them and kept J-Rich, but we all know Cohan is not going to pay luxury tax. If Baron opts out, we keep Monta and Andris anyway. But would you trade J-Rich for Maggette and Wright? If Baron stays, we lose one of Monta or Andris. Or unload J-Rich anyway.

I have to say the dissing of pree is WAY out of line. He posts his stuff here because he knows there is an audience here that would like it. And we do. He has access that all of us appreciate. He offers thoughtful insight from a non-biased perspective. He answers our questions. I love pree. He is one of the only reasons to come here anymore. I found nothing disrespectful about Prees thoughts on Steinmetz’s article.

You have turned into a mod who comes out of his hole every couple weeks to tell readers the Warriors suck. There are ways to get your opinions across intelligently. You want to be at least somewhat credible right? You were actually doing that for the first 80% of that comment. Put THAT COMMENT on the front page. Not “We got suck” fanshot. Quite frankly, I expect alot more out of a SBN blog than a bitter man telling everyone the team sucks on the front page. Bush league.

i’m not cussing. you can’t hide behind the shield of “THIS IS A FAMILY SHOW” and ignore me for cussing now.

and i’ll be very simple and clear. last time you called me incomprehensible, etc. that’s fine. let’s keep this simple.

you are a diehard fan, longer than i have been. but ive been a fan since 99. I was hella excited to get Bobby SUra. And Paul Mcphereson. ANd of course, Larry Huges calling out Kobe was awesome.

and yes, you guys have been taking a somewhat lighthearted, sometimes angry approach to our losing ways. I liken it to the high tilt of Tim Roye’s voice whenever the Warriors give up a big scoring streak. Years and years of losing will do that to you.

and you do a great job. you really do. no one hates you for the work you do.

what you’re getting hated on is this insistence on keeping a loser mentatlity when many of us are ready to shed it. every article you’ve posted this summer has reinforced the warriors’ losing ways in a slightly funny, but overall bitter way. And they’ve been short. And you’ve been so overwhelmingly biased in your presentation of the Warriors’ moves that it’s pathetic, to be honest. Youve only posted mistakes the Warriors, have made, whether present or past. You haven’t posted anything on the potentially good moves the Warriors have made this summer. And every post keeps reinforcing the idea that we have bad management and that our organization is poorly run.

Look, you. This is not the Gary St. Jean days anymore. Our big moves aren’t signing Fortson for five or giving Jamison a max contract. This isn’t even the days of Mullie the rookie GM. Mully’s grown up. He’s got Nellie. They’re making pro moves and we want to be proud of them… but you won’t let us!

But the thing is, we don’t want different things. We don’t want a different site. If anything, we want to go back to good ol times when everyone was happy about the WARRIORS. but you keep making this a thing about the players, whether it be JRich or Davis. But the thing is, players come and go! But it’s the TEAM that the fans root for… that’s what a true fan of a team is.

GOod luck at work and I hope you don’t just reject my comment as some stupid poster’s incomprehensible logic. And one more thing I’d like to add: I don’t know you. But I know your writing style.. you write with energy, passion, almost like a bubbly kid… but that’s in presentation only. Just cuz you use exclamation points and use nice colloquialisms doesn’t mean you’re not being an asshole in what you say. On one hand, I admire this kind of unstoppable enthusiasm and positive writing style. On the other, it’s almost scary that you can be such a jerk in such a nice way.

My favorite capologist JAE can correct me if I’m wrong, but with the current CBA there is absolutely nothing rules-wise that would have prevented the Warriors from retaining Monta or Biedrins regardless of whether JRich was on the roster. This trade was not made to retain Monta (pretty good numbers on that deal by the way) or Biedrins (a few million overpaid when there was no serious bids around the association).

No rule would have forbid it, though it would have almost certainly put the team well into the lux tax. We disagree about whether or not this is wise. I do not think it’s unreasonable for a signficant contender to pay this. I think it’s foolish, and long term unfavorable from a basketball standpoint to pay it if you’re not there yet. I think it’s ridiculous to put yourself in a position where you’re banking on being a contender in the future but guaranteeing that you’ll pay the tax in the future.

What the trade was made for is a point of contention and I don’t think any of us really know. The after the fact explanations are multiple: to save cap room, to get a young talent, because it was necessary to try for KG. It’s not so simple though as “to save Cohan money.” The timeline of what was going on doesn’t support that as the solitary simple explanation. See below.

It was made to save Cohan some green after the KG blockbuster didn’t go down.

Actually, from my understanding, that’s a misreading of the timeline. He was traded while the Garnett pursuit was still on because he was one of the chips that we had to work with to get Garnett. Minn had no interest in him because, though he’s a good player, he’s not producing consistent with his salary. A team looking to cut salary like Minn wouldn’t want him, so we swapped him for a pick in a place where we could shed salary. That salary shed was to turn an asset that couldnt’ be moved to Minn into one that they though they could move to Minn. The trade went down while Garnett was still, apparently, available. (Garnett was traded one year ago today, FWIW, well after the draft.) I do not believe there was a way to try to get Garnett and still keep Richardson. If you believe that it was still worth pursuing the Garnett angle, then the “we should have kept Richardson” talk takes you to fantasy land where you’re wishing for two mutually exclusive outcomes.

Now it’s possible that the Garnett chase was ill-conceived and executed from the beginning. I think that’s the case because I don’t think we could have ever matched the expiring contract part of the deal. But if we wanted a piece of the action, Richardson had to go. There’s just no other way around it. Perhaps they should have seen it coming and thought differently (not my opinion—I thought that Richardson was replaceable enough that the gamble on a big and the salary flexibility was a good idea), but let’s dump the “it was all about saving Cohan money” because it doesn’t line up well with the rest of the facts.

Yes, it was about money. Yes, it was about trying to make the team better. Two things can be equally true.