Building a Championship Team: Tasks for Nelson

by JSML on Jan 7, 2009 7:48 PM PST Comment 33 comments

Let's face it: Nelson is here to stay and the system is here to stay. Rowell, with 100% of the power, is enamoured with Nellie. After the long string of incompetant coaches and GM's he's had to deal with, I can see why.

Can Nellie take us to the promise land? It's often stated that you need 3 all stars or 2 all time greats to win a championship. I think we can safely say we have no all time greats on this roster.

Tasks for this year:

1) See if either Maggette or Crawford is in our future plans. Either can be a valuable 6th men on a Championship team, but we don't need both.

2) Play Bellinelli. He's NBA ready. Potentially he can be an all star in this system if he can improve and start dishing out 8 to 9 assists a game. He could be a real key for us.

3) Develop Randolph and showcase Wright. Unless Wright starts improving his rebouding numbers, he is going to be a role player in the NBA. He might have higher value in a trade. Randolph, on the other hand, has no problems rebounding and blocking shots. Randolph has to develop a sustainable style of play that can keep him in games for 36 to 40 minutes. Like Turiaf, his high energy style limits the amount of minutes he can play. Ranolph with better decision making can potentially be our 2nd all star, next to Biedrins. Imagine that, 2 NBA all star big men in a Nellie system.

4) Don't rush Mona back, and tank a little more, please.

5) Communicate a little more to the 6th man, the Fans! Keep us involved.

Assuming AB develops into an all star, we are still at least 1 high impact player away from making serious noise in the playoffs. Monta is too one dimensional and there is no guarantee Randolph, Wright or Belli will make the jump to star status.

Tasks for the offseasons 2009 and 2010:

1) Trade for a huge impact player. Use the players you will have developed and draft picks as chips to get that final piece.

2) Draft only NBA ready players who can impact our team immediately. We don't need more projects.

This FanPost is a submission from a member of the mighty Golden State of Mind community. While we're all here to throw up that W, these words do not necessarily reflect the views of the GSoM Crew. Still, chances are the preceding post is Unstoppable Baby!

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Marco is a perfect 6th man or a solid bench piece of like azubuike

but having him start every game is just… no

beli is a sg anyways not a pg

We Believe 2.0!
I know the Warriors are a lot better than the way they're playing right now.
They just have to get healthy and dig deep. THERE'S MORE TO THIS TEAM.

by RunNdGun on Jan 7, 2009 8:07 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

1. Assume Biedrins will turn into an All-Star
2. Assume Monta will turn into an All-Star
3. Assume Belinelli will turn into an All-Star
4. Championship

by YaHeard on Jan 7, 2009 8:37 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

#3 is not gunna happen

by DeepS on Jan 7, 2009 10:14 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

i lmao at the marco getting 8 to 9 dishes a game

good times in this economy… thanks you

by montadaboss on Jan 7, 2009 10:21 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

biedrins isnt very skilled

hes just a great rebounding, good passing big man who needs to dunk or have the ball fed to him. hes got below average post skills but he gets away with putting back 2 or 3 of his rebounds to get alot of his points

by montadaboss on Jan 7, 2009 10:27 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

And that is a skill. It’s real easy to say that his points all come on putbacks or dunks, ‘easy shots’ but most big men don’t do this. Most big men fumble or miss a much larger percentage of these ‘easy shots.’ It’s a skill. It may not be as highlight film captivating as a dribble drive, but it’s nonetheless two points when the ball goes in.

by jae on Jan 8, 2009 9:08 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

And that is a skill.

Problem is that’s not a repeatable skil, he’s at the mercy of someone missing a shot or missing a defensive assignment while a real big man can just get the ball and make his own shot. Bynum and Gasol was a good illustration. The ability to change pace is very valuable, we could get the leads with our 07 team but couldn’t hold it, we needed a closer, a big man. Dris is sorta a tweener , tall like a big but not strong and not a good shooter like a small but with good moves and hands, good enough to put up numbers but not skilled enough to dominate when it matters.

Till I get free
I live my life in the Walmart
Cholesterol chasin me

by Skeptic con Urquell on Jan 8, 2009 3:59 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

'Skilled'

Leading the league for 2 straight years in fg pct must be a skill.
Look he isnt Allstar, but he is a skilled servicable center. Our starting 5 is the ONLY thing we dont need to fix with this team.

What is the status of our petitions to fire Robert Rowell and have Chris Cohan commit Hari Kiri, or at least sell the team?

by warriorsscore110 on Jan 8, 2009 10:38 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

FG% isn't a skill

Nobody goes to the gym saying “I’m gonna work on my FG% today”

Skills= rebounding, hook shot, jump shot, free throw, setting screens, etc etc etc.

Why not just take him at face value: a center who does a lot of things really well, but a lot of things not so well.

by antihero on Jan 9, 2009 2:53 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

The definition of skill is up for debate. If it’s not a skill, it’s certainly an attribute, and an attribute that is VERY important in terms of wins and losses. Hitting a high percentage of your shots correlates much, much more closely to winning than just about any factor. This is not opinion. This is a demonstrated fact. That many undervalue this in favor of more conspicuous ‘skills’ doesn’t change the reality.

by jae on Jan 9, 2009 8:58 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

an attribute that is VERY important in terms of wins and losses. Hitting a high percentage of your shots correlates much, much more closely to winning than just about any factor

Trouble is it’s a passive attribute. He can’t do anything with it unless others are screwing up their shots or their defense. If he could create shots on his own initiative like Gasol or Yao then we’d have a much better team. We have to rely too much on pace of game to win, we need the ability to play at slow pace as well as fast pace.
The old lakers were a perfect example. Kobe would get points till the defense started to focus on him then they switched to shaq backing them down in the paint. Looks like the new lakers are getting back to it with bynum and gasol while we’re dicking around with smallball.

Till I get free
I live my life in the Walmart
Cholesterol chasin me

by Skeptic con Urquell on Jan 9, 2009 11:47 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

first off, NO!

jax, crawford and maggette need to be shipped out of here PRONTO. throw in kurz and mwilliams, for some spice. And there you go! you can prolly get a half assed bigg for this.
If anything TRY TO GET AMARE!!!!!
Hes perfect, he can shoot, rebound, score, and occasionally play defense.
OR DWIGHT H. Iono i heard he’s ok for a center and he shud be an allstar one day.

Next BELLI, hahahahahahahahaha!

no…if anything, he can put solid numbers on occassion, but he needs to mature first and learn how to read the court and defense. Im talking on offensively ofcourse.
DEFENSIVELY, he needs to know that its not okay to help double team someone else’s player if URS is a three point shooter! ANYWAYS

Next Randolf has no problem rebounding and blocking?
well…he just needs to be more carefull when he’s in the air. I love his youthfullness but it’s kinda getting old real fast. Learn to use ur size and quickness for your advantage. Wright, same laugh at bellinelli except more sarcastic if you study him, he really has no problem, its just that hes TOO DAMN FRAGILE. he dislocated his shoulder guarding pau. He needs to use his stretch armstrong arms to slam the ball, instead of a weak ass baby hook. he needs to also keep his man out side the paint cuz hes dead in the paint.

I agree, dont rush monta back. he has proven in his years as the ONLY superstar on the team now. Since no one else can take control of the team like BARON, by default he has too step up. who else would? JAX?JAMAL?MAGGS? SAME LAUGH ASWRIGHT AND BELLI ONLY WITH REAL TEARS

and as for the last one…
YES! we should voice our opinions directly to the powers that be, instead of sitting at our computers, watching wildboyz and updating our face books.
yea

well…
wildboyz aint gonna watch themselveS…

by GsWBush on Jan 7, 2009 11:18 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

I'm gonna write a letter to Rowell.

Dear Mr. Rowell,

FU. Please quit your job.

A life long Warriors fan,

Brian L. Baker

by MullyHaircutDay! on Jan 7, 2009 11:23 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Tasks for Nelson....

1.) Retire
2.) Go to Hawaii
3.) Drink Bud Lite

by MullyHaircutDay! on Jan 7, 2009 11:19 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Tasks for Holdemup

1) Retire
2) Go to Hawaii
3) Drink Bud Light

by HoLdEmUP on Jan 8, 2009 12:15 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Dont know if you can say...

AR’s youthfulness is getting old. He hasn’t played so how can it really be getting old. All I am saying is that when AR was in last night he made a difference on D. He played Bynum pretty well and just provided a sorely needed energy boost. Plus I really feel that the ONLY reason he got in was b/c of B.Wright going down. I am just saying that I want to see a lot more AR b/c i can deal with the rookie mistakes that come with NEVER getting playing time and having to play looking over your shoulder if the tiniest thing you do can get you taken out. It is a learning process that only game time experience will help to prepare him to know what to do in situations and thus not committ those TO’s.
Other than that Nellie won’t follow any of our guidlines b/c he is to stubborn and set in his ways…Look at the last 4 min of last night. put in AR and deal wit the consequences instead of seeing us getting killed inside. But i do like the last two takes on Hawaii, Retiring, but instead change the last to Natty Ice..

by UCdubsFan on Jan 8, 2009 8:25 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

for the most part

the mistakes randolph makes are the ones that should be worked on in practice. things like learning defensive sets, learning offensive sets, understanding what a good pass is, making jump shots, etc. are all things you learn in practice. if you are confused by the plays your own team runs, you should practice that until you figure it out, and then play in games. those aren’t mistakes that come from never getting playing time, those are mistakes that come from not listening in practice or just needing more time to learn. if he just needs more time to figure it out, you give him that time, but not in games. if he’s not listening in practice, you sit him for that.

either way, if he plays well enough where those mistakes are worth dealing with, then you have to play him, but up until last night (and i didn’t catch last night’s game, so i can’t make a call on how well he played then) he was playing really, really poorly, so you keep him on the bench until he learns the things that practice is for.

heart of a champion, will of the warrior.

by cap'n hack on Jan 8, 2009 8:55 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

i think his mistakes are worse than that

he makes horrid, horrid turnovers. dribbling into traffic with nowhere to go and falling on the ground. this is why nellie pulls him, to save the kid some embarrassment.

by HoLdEmUP on Jan 8, 2009 11:47 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

he really hasn’t played well to this point in the season, but could certainly improve with more time in practice. if he learns the offense well, he’d make a lot less incredibly stupid decisions with the ball, because he’d know what to do when he got it. after learning the sets, if he still makes those same stupid mistakes as often as he does now, we might have a lost cause on our hands. i’m not ready to say that just yet, but i certainly don’t think that “bust” is out of the realm of possibility. despite all his physical tools.

heart of a champion, will of the warrior.

by cap'n hack on Jan 8, 2009 12:10 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

unfortunately for brandan, but fortunately for AR

we will get to see a lot more AR in the upcoming games. i think kurz is awful, so lets hope nellie starts AR!

by HoLdEmUP on Jan 8, 2009 10:25 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Wow... I was at the game last night and...

AR defense wasn’t great. In fact he was was terrible on Gasol. (Wright was equally as bad). He didn’t hardly guard Bynum at all. In fact, if you paid close attention AR was in when either Gasol and/or Bynum was on the bench. He was matched up with Ariza, Powell and a couple times with Radmanovic. He also made a key mistake in 4th quarter to kick started huge Lakers run. Running back on defense he just left Vujacic at left corner of the 3prt arc so that he could just wait for a big come back to guard. The ball went right to Vujacic who it a 3 pt to put the Lakers up 4. I’m not saying the entire run that follow AR mistake was his fault, but Nellie benched him right after. This is main problem with AR, he just doesn’t get how to play the NBA type game yet. Who doesn’t know that Vujacic is sharper shooter that will end up at the top of key on a break?

That criticism said, I thought AR look solid to night. As did Wright until he got hurt. I really think that AR should spend some time in D-League. I’m not sure why we haven’t sent him there yet. Especially if he’s going to get these jeckel and hyde like minutes from Nellie.

Sidenote: Any see Monta shoot before the game. My buddy and I some how ended up at the game 40 minutes before tip off and we got to see Monta doing his thing. However, the disturbing put for us was that he was noticeably not jumping on his jump shots. We wondered whether he was just taking it easy or if still didn’t have enough strength in his ankle to do a full on jumper the way he used to. He looked like Chuck Person jumping about 2 or 3 inches off the ground.

Also, did anyone see that Larry Allen was down near courtside for the game. He had a purple Bryant jersey on and man he’s one huge guy.

A Sonics fan without a team.. Though I'm auditioning GS Warriors this season.

by mcwalter44 on Jan 8, 2009 10:29 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I can think of very, very, very few players who came into the league and played even average defense reliably. I can think of very, very few who were good enough from day one such that they’d look good going up against a front line starter like Gasol. And those cases were guys who had multiple years of college and tended to have the advantage of being huge. Mutombo was effective from day one as was Alonzo Mourning. For forwards on the wing, I can only think of Augmon and Grant Hill (an excellent defender before his injuries), both of whom played out their college careers in defense-oriented college programs where they were named the top defenders in the NCAAs.

Defense at the NBA level takes several years to adjust to. It does seem to be the sort of thing that players can pick up with experience if they’re committed to working on it. I’m not someone who is wowed by Randolph’s ‘potential’ but critiquing his defense at this point isn’t something that I think has much bearing on his future success and I doubt that the D-league will really help him out in that regard.

by jae on Jan 8, 2009 12:32 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Jae...

I agree that Randolph shouldn’t be expect to play much D. For that matter neither should Wright. Which helps explain why Nellie burries them on the bench. For example, the Lakers present a terrible match problem for the Warriors. And when we don’t have Jackson to hawk Kobe on Defense, then that commits us to focusing on him. By focusing on Kobe, we can’t give help to AR or Wright on the low block. Therefore, guys like Gasol and Bynum (though with the triangle offensive it seemed like Bynum got the ball more when he was in the high post) are in the low post they can just go to town on our weaker defenders. The best chance we have is to play Turiaf and Biedriens at the same time, but with a ton foul being called in the 2nd and3rd quarter (as well as the Warriors being in the bonus 5 mins into the fourth) that we had to get Wright into the game.. When Wright when down it fell to AR. And no doubt LA exploited AR’s terrible core strengh in the post. Therefore AR ended up on guys like Powell and Ariza. The later of which can burn him off the dribble or focus him to play pick and roll game with the Laker guards. It was just a bad situation for our young big men.

You can argue that they’ll never learn how to play the type of defense we need them to learn to play if we do not play them. However, I think sending a guy like AR to the D-League could help. Sure the guys are not NBA players, but getting minutes guarding bigger guys in the D-League could help excellerate both AR’s and Wright’s development. That said, it didn’t work for O’Bryant, so you probably right that a D-League stint wouldn’t help AR and Wright that much.

A Sonics fan without a team.. Though I'm auditioning GS Warriors this season.

by mcwalter44 on Jan 8, 2009 8:42 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I never said that the D league wouldn’t help Randolph. I don’t think it will help his defense, but that’s actually the part of his game I’m least worried about presently. Defense will come with time (both in games and in practice against NBA calibre player). The thing I’d worry about him in the D league would be that he’d revert to raw athleticism for scoring success and probably have some of it. It would be real easy to reinforce his bad habits on offense, shooting when ill advised, turning the ball over by pushing it into bad situations. I don’t know if he’ll ever fix these things, but I don’t think the D league would be the place to get that.

Wright, who when healthy is much further along at this point despite fewer “skills” might actually benefit more as it would be an opportunity for him to try out things on offense that right now are outside his comfort zone. I still think he belongs with the big club, but I can see the D league being useful to him in ways it wouldn’t likely benefit Randolph. Pure speculation, but that’s at least the reasoning I see.

by jae on Jan 8, 2009 10:26 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I can think of very, very, very few players who came into the league and played even average defense reliably.

according to coach Thorpe, there’s a ton of them. to my recollection, he has cited courtney lee, mayo, mbah a moute, chalmers, gordon, oden, gasol, the lopez’s, westbrook and george hill. call me what you will, but i think he knows more about basketball than you.

here’s the featured article, though you’d probably have to be an insider and read through all his scouting reports to get the total #.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=thorpe_david&page=Rookies-090106

by the evil monkey on Jan 9, 2009 12:35 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Monta can dunk

Matt Steimentz (or however you spell his damn name) wrote earlier this week that he saw Monta dunk the ball. So, I think it’s ok to assume he can jump. He was probably just taking it easy. Plus, I don’t think he’d be very close to returning if he couldn’t jump more than a couple inches.

by jnormous on Jan 9, 2009 12:29 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

understanding what a good pass is, making jump shots

That seems to be one of those things that is real difficult for someone to learn. You can practice your shooting, but the problem comes more on the level of decision making. It’s the decision making at full speed that is the issue and I think some players are always going to push the envelope of what they can do. Extending one’s range tends to make people take the same dumb (e.g. guarded and off balance with no one there to rebouond) shots further away from the rim. I am not saying he cannot learn, but based on how other players with similar problems have fared, I suspect that these are things that are easily learned.

by jae on Jan 8, 2009 9:15 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

I don't see

Why everyone is laughing at this guy thinking Belinelli can be an all-star. I mean the guy’s really only played 30-40 games. Did monta look like an all-star at that time??

by bradyk2 on Jan 8, 2009 7:59 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Did monta look like an all-star at that time??

No but Montay had unique speed and pretty good mechanics, Marco looks squirrely, maybe he can work out of it but co-ordination is kinda hard to learn, he may always be an ElContusion type.

Till I get free
I live my life in the Walmart
Cholesterol chasin me

by Skeptic con Urquell on Jan 8, 2009 9:25 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

He may

But this guy said potentially. Could marco potentially be an all-star in this system? I think so. He’s got the best shot on our team, and Nellie openly is in love with the 3 ball more than he’s in love with scotch. He’s a great passer when he remembers not to be sloppy, and plays good D when he sets his mind to it.

I’m not predicting anything, but potentially? Yeah, he’s got all-star talent, with with a Dubs’ jersey, at least.

by bradyk2 on Jan 8, 2009 9:46 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs