If any of you have read my responses to other posts from tonight, you know where I'm heading with this. Without actually knowing what sort of weight the opinions of GSoM have on the actual franchise, I'm going to assume the best/worst and pretend that Mullin, Rowell, Nellie, the Players and even Cohan read this blog as religiously as I do. With that notion inserted into my own head, I feel it urgent and necessary to express this growing feeling of uneasiness, and also why it has arisen within me,  

Last season was horrible, there is no denying that. We were heading into this season expecting to be in a dogfight for playoff positioning. Obviously that didn't happen. So of course, we look for reasons why. As we usually do here on GSoM we blame the management, coaching, and players. Management isn't going to change much (later Mully), coaching is certainly debatable, the roster however seems to be where all the focus is, and it usually is. Most off season posts have something to do with constructing ridiculous trades to land Amare or Bosh, or KG. So it comes as no surprise that people have suggested trades or off season acquisitions. Lets face it, under 30 wins, this team clearly sucks. That is certainly true, any team that ends up with less than 30 wins has problems. There were a good number of coaching errors. Someone like Nellie, who had been coaching a fairly veteran oriented, and very successful lineup for the last 2 years is going to have some trouble transitioning back to coaching a team full of second and third year players. Not to mention the rookies, Jackson having to learn a few new roles while battling injuries, Maggette learning to fit into the system while battling injuries, and Monta being unexpectedly out for most of the year, it was hard. The last statement best illustrates our one consistent theme from this year, injuries.

That is the point of this post. We were playing unhealthy all season. Literally, we didn't play a single game where all of our best players were suited up together. We don't even know what this team will play like. When you come off of a season where you were the youngest team in the league and you didn't get to see the roster play together once, you don't get an accurate assessment on the value a team has as a cohesive unit. I don't much see the logic in trying to fix something when you're not sure if its broken.

The one roster change we can all agree on is that Jamal needs to opt out, and if he doesn't, trade him, even if it requires our lottery pick. We have a log jam at the guard postiton, and Jamal will only subsequently affect the growth of Belinelli, Monta, and Morrow. I think it would be wise to put Monta and Beli through pg training, they could turn into Parker and Ginobili 2, except they would be playing together since they were 23. Monta is our PG, he is too small to play defense as a 2, and we already have good compliments for him with Jackson, Beli, Morrow, and Buike. The lineup is set, once Jamal leaves.

Also, while discussing coaching, DEFENSE. That’s it, we just need to show our youngsters how to play defense, every one of them can learn, they are all young. The only “lost cause” is Maggette, but his only role is to come off the bench, draw fouls, and score. We just need to learn defense.

I know its hard to keep your eyes focused on the future when the present is so disappointing. But we have actually set ourselves up with a legitimate team. My prediction is that if we play 20-30 games with a fully healthy lineup, and no one misses more than 10-20 games, we will be in the playoffs next year, And if we keep this team together for another 2-3 years, we will have one of the best teams in the league. We're still young, don't fix what ain’t broke!

Warriors in 09-10!!!!!!!!!!