Brandan Wright and Marco Belinelli: To Renew or Not to Renew

Trades as expiring contracts require us to take someone back who is not an expiring contract. If we had a collection to take up a major salary dump for a team looking to rebuild, that could be something, but if not, they don’t have all that much value.

Wright still have more value as a prospect. Things change rapidly. Before he got injured, Brandan was playing more and was ahead of Randolph. His efficiency and effectiveness on offense was ahead of Randolph’s. I suspect strongly that AR is a better prospect still, but both are still young enough that things could change rapidly in terms of who does what. I don’t believe it’s fair to say that he has been horrible (nor was it accurate to say that Andris was horrible his first two years when in fact the only real limit vs what he’s produced since was his propensity to foul) and almost all young players are not good defenders.

Belinelli? Harder to say. He showed he can shoot. He looks good handling the ball and the passes that he makes do look impressive, but they don’t come often enough. He looks like he could be playing aggressive defense as well, but the ball doesn’t seem to find his hands all that often either. I’m not sure what his real position is. He’s not a point guard and he’s a terrible rebounder. He’s also cheap for year 4, so I’d pick up his option on the basis that the “savings” is unlikely to open up a spot for a better prospect. Keep. If he’s trade filler, he still isn’t expensive or long term enough to break a deal apart.

Law? I don’t see how he factors in at all. He’s more expensive than Belinelli and has been completely useless in the pros so far. He’s older, suggesting he’s closer to his ‘peak’ but still terrible. None of these are sure things, but the best bet is that he’s not better than the NBDL player we could replace him with.

…that I failed to mention Barbosa in that equation, but he doesn’t particularly alter my overall feelings on the matter.

His game is perfect for our team, that 15 game stretch he had where he was starting was impressive. I went to the bucks game with a couple of friends who are down with the dubs, they watch games here and there, no GSoMers that’s for sure. Anyway, they both thought Marco was our best player, I believe that was a game that also featured Jack and Jamal. They obviously went nuts for the behind the backboard shot, but they were most impressed with his vision, ball handling, passing ability and D. They’d only seen him in one game previously, and they were raving about how a Marco/Monta backcourt would be the bomb. My boy was talking about Marco the whole way home. They perceived him as the guy who doesn’t do 1 thing excellent, but does everything extremely well. I think that’s a fair assessment, rebounding could be better though.

I think Nellie also sees what Belinelli has, that’s why he was ahead of Morrow in the rotation until he got injured. The thing that doesn’t work for Marco on this team is the fact that he is competing for PT with Ellis, Curry, Morrow, and at times Jack/Buike/Maggs. We’re just too crowded in spots 1-3. He could still earn a spot, even a starting spot, if he comes to camp significantly improved from last year in all areas. Marco, Morrow, Buike, and Steph will be fighting for that final starting spot, should be a good camp this year.

I just liked Rocky movies…

That 15 game stretch before his injury when he was finally getting significant playing time was pretty impressive to me. He shot well, played tough defense, and made some nice passes. When he came back, he looked off, and could never get the kind of consistent minutes that he was getting midway through the season.

I’m not sure the team is in a position to do this, but I would like to see Marco get consistent minutes every-night this upcoming season (15-20), at least for the first couple weeks, in order to see whether he could return to his pre-injury form. Lets not forget this is a first-round pick.

The reason I feel strongly about Marco getting consistent minutes, at least for a little while, has a lot to do with the development of Randolph. Early on in the season, when it became clear that we weren’t going to the playoffs, I lobbied for Randolph to get consistent minutes everynight, regardless of how many mistakes he made. However, it wasn’t until the end of the season, when injuries significantly shortened the bench, that Nelson had to play Randolph around 35-40 minutes a night. And he blossomed.

I just feel that some players (e.g. Randolph) need to be able to make a mistake, or two, and not be taken out in order for their nerves to settle down and for them to develop some confidence in their basketball abilities. I see Marco as this type of player.

You fit quite well with the “Thing” posse here. Anyway, I agree with your assessment on Wright’s offense. I remember during the season when talking about Wright vs Randolph, it usually came down to “Wright on offense, Randolph on defense”.

Brandan has always been an under the radar type of player. He may/probably won’t be the KG/Bosh type of superstar. I think one of the reasons for this is that he isn’t a volume type shooter. He rarely takes bad shots, can do all the things on offense that AB can do, and still has potential to be better on both offense and defense.

I’m just hoping that Brandan Wright is an issue that Larry Riley and Don Nelson don’t agree upon.

with what you have to say. It’s the fact that he gets lost on the defensive boards, on a poor defensive rebounding team, that puts him in the doghouse every game!!! His skinny frame makes it tough to block players out, but it makes even worse when he doesn’t block out at all. I’d still renew 100%.

We have very little to gain by ending their contracts. That $5.8mil is not going to put us under the salary cap far enough to sign a premium free agent. The savings would probably go straight to Chris Cohan’s wallet.

Furthermore, the two contracts are good trading pieces. They’re not great trading pieces, but they’re good. Two young lottery talents, on cheap contracts that come with their Bird Rights and restricted free agency in 2011/12. If we ever hope to trade for that one big salaried superstar we’ve always needed, we absolutely need to hold on to these two contracts to use as trading chips.

And from a basketball standpoint, they’re not terrible players. This is not Patrick O’Bryant we’re talking about here. When they were playing at their best, nobody really doubted that they deserve their spot in the NBA or in our rotation. In this past season, it was injuries that kept them from getting playing time, not Nellie’s doghouse.

his option would free up 2.9 million. Add that to Marco and Wright and you get 8.7 million. What could we get with 8.7 million?

If not extended, both lose value as players as any team that gets them has a guy on a short deal without any rights to re-sign independent of the cap. However, if not extended, they become the elusive “expiring contracts” that are valued by teams trying to hand off past mistakes to someone else.

If you are new, then perhaps you haven’t been following any of the thread about it, so let me make some strong suggestions. This is not a three dot lounge. Disconnected ideas separated by ellipses tend to get your posts wiped away and don’t tend to get ideas across. Stick to real sentences and separate out ideas into shorter blocks that are affectionately known as “paragraphs”. Proof read what you write before you post it. It takes time, but it takes less time than rewriting it when it gets wiped off the face of the earth.

(And Nelly is a recording artist. Nellie is the Warriors coach.)

Your so right, the way the warriors try to use him is as a set shooter. he needs to have freedom to create, this is where he excells. Marco does have good court vision but he needs to have the ball in his hands, i think letting him run point when he gets in is the best fit for him, yes he might make some mistakes, make a few too flashy plays, but he definitelly brings energy when he gets in. When he gets his confidence man he scores at will, the dude is just a straight play maker.

Homerism at its best.

you guys should YouTube: Belinelli Italy vs Czech, some recent play. he made some nice and1 shots.

“A way to win in this league is to sign a superstar or an all star player.”

This is true, the best 3 best players on your team are much more important than the other 9.

“Guys wake up and realize that if you are 21 yrs old and still need help in many areas there is no time for teams to wait for you until you develop. NBA is win now league therefore lets allow these guys to walk for free”

This is how you end up in the Warriors situation, this is simply bad management. First of all, 21 is not old at all. Many players develop significantly after their 21st birthday. Second, short term decisions almost always make the team worse off. If you operate a team on a collection of short term decisions over long term decisions you will almost assuredly do less “winning now”.

Most importantly, however, is that Wright and Belinelli are cheap. Anyone that does not wish to resign both of them would make a very bad GM. There is no reason not to. Even if they’re our 11-12 men, they’re cheap enough that it’s worth it, with no downside. Their collective salary would NOT allow us to sign anyone better than them if we let them walk. It’s very simple, and the discussion should have ended when this was brought up earlier.

Guys wake up and realize that if you are 21 yrs old and still need help in many areas there is no time for teams to wait for you until you develop.

Actual data suggests otherwise. Actual data suggests that most players are still improving many aspects of their games at age 21 and tend to be in a steep part of the learning curve up until 23 or so, followed by a plateau through their mid 20s. Actual data also suggests that Wright has done reasonably well when he’s played, but don’t get minor details like facts get in the way of a totally subjective, irrational opinion you might have.

NBA is win now league therefore lets allow these guys to walk for free, save the extra millions to sign a players who will be free agents next year.

There’s not a dollar for dollar replacement on salaries. Getting rid of them doesn’t give us space under the cap to turn around and dollar for dollar get that ‘all star’. Saving money on them is unlikely to net us better players now. Purchasing talent on the free agent market is also among one of the worst investments for team improvement.

“What you guys think of the Warriors free agency so far?”

There is no free agency for the Warriors, we’re over the cap. All we have to offer is our MLE, and I assure you free agents with MLE offers will choose winning teams over the Warriors first – in other words, we have one of the last picks of players willing to sign for the MLE. We aren’t bringing in an impact player, the best we can do is a Turiaf.

our owner doesn’t know how to spend the money on the right players and overpay the wrong players. (e.g. dampier, foyle, dunleavy, magette, fisher, etc)

Last season Anthony Randolph averaged 11.6 rebounds per 36 minutes. Do you know what David Lee’s career rebound rate is? 11.6 rebounds per 36 minutes. When I saw that coincidence it made me laugh. :)

And there’s no way he’s a better defender. Lee can’t protect the rim at all. 0.3 blocks / 36 compared to 2.4 for AR. No comparison at all.

You’re getting salary cap and luxury tax mixed up. The salary cap, which is something like $57M I believe (someone correct me if I’m wrong), determines what free agents you can pursue. If you’re over the salary cap (which we are), you can only offer your mid level exception, which is around $5M or so. That MLE can be given fully to one player, or broken up to multiple, and does not need to be used completely, but it’s the maximum a team like us can offer in free agency. The luxury tax is a second line, higher than the salary cap, which we are not over. Every dollar over the luxury tax a team has to pay taxes on.

So we do not have to pay the luxury tax because we are below it, but we’re above the cap, so we only have our mid level exception for free agency.

Saying Ellis can’t be compared to superstars is a very ignorant and un-informed comment. He wasn’t even 100% last season and still put up points. He needs to work on his defense and outside shooting a bit……but keep in mind his points per minutes and fg% have been at the top of the league since he’s been here basically and he wasn’t even close to full development while doing that. The only thing that can keep him from being a 30 point a game guy for years to come is his brain/ego/money/desire.

You have to be really un-intelligent to think he can’t even be compared to a Redd or Johnson.

The only problem with Ellis is that he played something like what Dampier did, one good year with Baron Davis around and we gave him the keys to the city.

Dampier had several rather lousy seasons. Much of it may have been that he was never, ever healthy. Some of it may be that he wasn’t terribly motivated, but he had one good season after several not at all good, injury plagued seasons where even when “healthy” he wasn’t healthy enough to get major minutes. Ellis played reasonably in his second year, improving on what he did as a rookie enough to convince voters to give him “most improved”, and then continued to improve (considerably so) in his 3rd season. That’s not at all the Dampier formula, but don’t let reality get in the way of your opinions.

Like I say, there are many ppl who speak but don’t admit the truth.

And there are people (it’s really not hard to type out those vowels; Vanna and Pat won’t charge you for them) who make up some strange reality where Monta somehow parallels Erick Dampier. It’s a lonely reality though, divorced from the one the rest of us inhabit.

Correct. This is exactly analogous to the situation with Marcus Williams last year. We acquired him and then declined the option.

My opinion is the contract is reasonable for a player like Ellis, he’s good but not a superstar or anything (and being paid accordingly). Of course, I have no actual facts to back this up as I haven’t done any research into NBA free agent valuations. Just going by RFA offers to Ellis isn’t a great evaluation of his market value, though, as teams are hesitant to offer a player they know the team will match any offer to (like us with Ellis). This is because either they make an offer in the ballpark of what the players worth and the team will match and they’ll lose a lot of time they could have offered someone else with, or they’ll grossly overpay and be stuck with that contract.