The Golden State Warriors players have already given up on Don Nelson

Yeah, I don’t particularly enjoy reading the type of in depth analysis I’d expect to find on a youtube video’s comments or ESPN. Unfortunately, that’s about the level of conversation your posts tend to give us/bring out in others…

I mean, let’s be honest here, you’re saying the Warriors have given up on an 82 game season 5 games into it. They might not be good, they might even realize they aren’t good…but really? They’ve given up on the season?

Did you watch the game? I don’t mean that in a confrontational way… I’m just curious. Because while there are some legitimate excuses for our struggling, our offense is dysfunctional in a way that has nothing to do with a lack of bigs. In fact, smallball should lead to more motion and passing and flow… that improved flow quite often doesn’t balance out the rebounding and defensive troubles that smallball provides, but still, the flow should at least be there.

Put simply, this team is not playing like a team, and watching an even younger and less experienced team wipe the floor with us made that crystal clear. “Not that talented and injured down low” doesn’t begin to cover how badly we’re playing.

Really? Players giving up on their teammates doesn’t reflect on their coach? You wanna stand by that one?

its for a good cause! It really is!

Our team would still be lost defensively. Shoot at this rate they both could foul out at record paces this year. Bleak outlook on a bleak season thus far.

I don’t know anything about coaching in the NBA.

None of us know what it’s like to coach in the NBA. But as fans, we’ve all seen hundreds of iterations of basketball teams, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and issues and controversies. That’s enough to make some crude evaluations.

I don’t know anything about wine, either. You could hand me a glass of the fanciest, highest-praised wine in the world, and I’m not convinced I’d favor it over a glass from a five-dollar bottle. But if you hand me a glass of wine from a bottle that a rat died in, I’m pretty confident I could tell you there was something wrong with that bottle.

This team is playing without any semblance of strategy, teamwork or effort. A rat died in here.

That said, I’d sooner blame Jackson for the team’s problems. What’s a coach to do? He can’t sit Jackson

Here’s a question: why not?

Seriously. I have some sympathy for the idea that, all things being equal, it’s good to showcase Jack and keep his versatility fresh in teams’ minds. But at this point, all things are not equal… we need to do everything we can do to suck some poison out of this team. If Nellie wants to tell Jack to go back to Port Arthur and catch up on “Dexter” for the next couple weeks, who’s going to stop him? Riley? Rowell? Cohan? Nah. It’s Nellie’s show… he can dump the guy if he likes.

Jackson doesn’t care at all for this organization, so he doesn’t listen to anything Nellie says on offense or defense.

Defense is one thing. Jack’s defensive effort is noticeably absent, and while nobody else is being pushed to play defense either, I think that’s on Jack… he’s been a good self-starter on defense the past couple years. But offensively, Jack is just doing what he’s always done. He’s not playing one bit differently than he did all of last year. Does he make mistakes? Sure, tons of them. But Nellie has always allowed him to do that. Jack’s not undermining Nellie on offense… there is no plan that Jack’s deviating from.

This is throwing off the kids because, unlike Sac’s kids, they’ve got a cancer playing next to them for 30-35 minutes a game.

It probably doesn’t help, I’d agree. But again: Nellie can just send the guy home. And while we’ve been worse with Jack on the court than off, we’ve been quite bad and clueless offensively even when he’s on the bench. You could argue that that’s all residual bad play thanks to Jack’s selfishness, but that seems like a real stretch to me. It just seems like there’s no coherent plan for the kids to follow.

Poor Curry has to man the point, the hardest position for a rookie, for an offense that Jack is sabotaging.

Curry’s definitely not in an enviable position, but it goes beyond Jack. Monta is competing with Curry for the role of the playmaker when they’re on the floor together. Maggette is camping out behind the three-point line for no apparent reason. And I’m not implying bad faith on either of their parts… I think Monta and Maggette want to be here and want to win. But nobody’s playing to their strengths, and nobody’s working well with anybody else. It goes well beyond just Jack.

Morrow is pissed because he never gets touches anymore, so he jacks up shots whenever he does.

To each their own, but that’s not actually the sense I get from Morrow… I just get the sense that he’s gunning because he’s been told to. And if Nellie told Morrow to do that, then that’s a rare good thing that Nellie’s done… that’s an excellent use of Anthony Morrow.

I’m more troubled by ’Buike’s recent play, to be honest. ‘Buike looked stellar in the first couple games, driving and rebound aggressively. Early in the Clippers game, though, it seemed like he said to himself, “Screw it, if everybody else is gunning, I will, too.” Since then, he’s been taking more shots out of his comfort zone and looking to start the break at the expense of his defense. It’s depressing, watching a smart young player like that shrug and start playing selfishly.

Again: if you want to blame Jack for that, fine. But half of ’Buike’s minutes have come when Jack wasn’t on the floor. I just don’t see the case for all of our offensive woes being attributable to Jack.

Randolph and Ellis are talented but need veteran guidance, and this is what they get in the most crucial juncture of their development.

Randolph’s one thing. If there’s one move of Nellie’s that still makes sense to me, it’s the short leash on Randolph.

But Monta has been in the league for five years now. Monta has been on as many good Warriors teams as Stephen Jackson has. Monta has hit game-winning shots; Monta has dragged his team to wins with huge nights; Monta has seen the highs and lows of the NBA.

Monta Ellis does not need veteran guidance. Monta Ellis needs a game plan. He is a good player, a willing player. He just needs, like 99% of NBA players, to be told how he can best help his team. And he is clearly being told nothing. There is no motion for him on offense when he’s handling the ball. There is no systematic switching to bail him out when he gets in trouble on defense. There isn’t any even clear indication of who’s supposed to be the playmaker when both he and Curry are in. That stuff ain’t Jack’s fault… that’s Nellie’s fault.

You tell me Paul Westphal could make something good of this.

I’d sure gamble on him over Nellie at this point, and not just because the Kings ran circles around us strategically. When Donte’ Greene muffed that dunk by putting too much mustard on it, Westphal chewed him out. It didn’t matter that the Kings were up huge, or that Greene had been playing well… he did the wrong thing, and he got grief for it. There has not been a single moment like that from Nellie so far this year. Even when he pulls Randolph, he just shrugs and ignores the guy.

Have we discussed the fact that Keith Smart is now the guy addressing the team during timeouts? Nellie even takes timeouts during timeouts, at this point.

If anything I feel bad for Nellie, he has to deal with this garbage as an established basketball figure.

I do feel bad for Nellie on some level. It’s sad to see an amazing coaching career end in such pitiful fashion. But a lot of the garbage Nellie’s dealing with is garbage he dragged into the arena himself. I love the guy, and he’s my favorite coach of all time, but this stinks. There are no excuses for basketball like this.