I am awed by the obvious amount of work and analysis FLAxwless put into his An In-Depth Study: Don Nelson Doesn't Play Rookies post. In the same vein of myth-busting, a category of posts started earlier this summer IIRC, I’m challenging you to provide some evidence for a this Myth: the JRich trade was made to re-sign Monta and Andris.

Once and for all, I’m trying to put the JRich trade & consequences into context so as not to allow revisionism to change our perception of what happened, and more to the point not allow revisionism to impact our assessment of the FO currently. Convince me I’m wrong, and I’ll gladly get off it. But please hear me out first (in other words, at least read the post through!). Then bring the heat, with some links or evidence!

Several commentators here have ballyhooed the JRich trade as the "answer" to the "problem" of extending Monta and Andris once they became restricted free agents (RFAs), while some of us have simply called that a bunch of hooey. Why is this still important? Because several of us are skeptical that the FO will actually make use of the "flexibility" from the newly harvested crop of expiring contracts based upon the lack of the FO taking advantage of the "flexibility" of the TPE gained in the JRich trade. And several of us believe the FO only makes decisions based upon the bottom line rather than about winning. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I am part of the first but not the second group necessarily.)

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I contend that the trade must be evaluated not only in its context but also what the consequences were both in the short and long term. We did not trade JRich for room to extend other players later, & I’ve seen no proof we were doing so. There is ample and ready proof that Mullin meant to make a trade, either that summer or before the trading deadline, to improve the club using the TPE we gained as a result of trading JRich. Several sources (a sample of which are provided below) illustrate this point; however I have yet to see a single source that tied the trade to re-signing the RFAs down the line (the long term) at a point in time even remotely close to the actual trade. In short, where is the evidence that the JRich trade was made with an eye toward re-signing Monta & Andris later on?

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The Trade in context: we had just completed the celebrated We Believe season, made the playoffs and shocked the world by upsetting the #1 seed from the 8th seed spot. We lost some close games to UT and though disappointed, fans were pumped that we’d turned the corner and become relevant again in the NBA. Then we became players in the trade talks for KG.

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Amid the draft, we sent JRich away for BWright and that netted us a $10m TPE, both of which were assets to use in a move to get KG. We couldn’t "trade" the TPE but in making a series of related deals with Minn we might have been able to land KG and Minn might have ended up with a TPE of their own in the end. Admittedly there are "mights" and "coulds" and it’s unfulfilled history because Boston was able to acquire KG.

Perhaps you’re asking yourself: So what? A: Because we still could have used the TPE the next year, and we could have done so without losing the ability to re-sign our RFAs. What the the question should be is: Why didn’t we? A: GSW FO didn’t want to spend the money. Players like Kurt Thomas and Chris Wilcox were on the market, yet we chose to try to slap new tread on an old tire (CWebb) and it didn't work. Signing a one-year player and making use of the TPE to get over the hump and make the playoffs would have cost us millions of dollars for a player we wouldn’t have necessarily been able to retain, or may not even have wanted to retain, when we subsequently had to choose to extend Monta and Andris. In short, we would have been spending money purely to make the playoffs that year, but it could have been done with no impact on extending our RFAs, we would not have been in the luxury tax, and furthermore, there were other moves that might have been made to jettison contracts in order to free cap space should we have chosen to do so.

Here’s two examples articulating that the FO made this deal to clear cap room to make trades with an eye toward the playoffs (for brevity's sake, several other examples are not included).

(1) Mullin repeatedly said he wouldn't trade Richardson, who has four years and about $50 million left on his contract. But the chance to land a big-name prospect at power forward - all while clearing salary-cap room and increasing prospects for future trades - proved irresistible. "It definitely frees us up and gives us flexibility," said Mullin, who acknowledged recent conversations with the Minnesota Timberwolves while they shopped forward Kevin Garnett. "I've always felt like (if we) have to go 16-4 or 9-1 (to finish the season) just to get into the playoffs, we need to improve - not just today, but going forward. This will allow us to do that." Mullin's stance should keep Golden State fans attuned to trade rumors throughout the summer, with Garnett clearly the top prize available.

(2) "It was a long, busy day," Warriors vice president Chris Mullin said. "But we made some big moves and it's really going to help improve the team." Another big move, however, could still be coming. Because the Warriors also netted a $10 million trade exception from the Bobcats, they now become a major player in this summer's trade market. The Warriors now have the ability to absorb contracts up to $10 million while offering a team instant financial relief. ... Not to be overlooked is the huge financial relief the Warriors receive by trading Richardson, who was owed $50 million over the next four years. Because Charlotte is under the salary cap, Golden State was able to make the deal without taking back the equivalent of Richardson's $10 million salary for this season. Instead, the Warriors netted a trade exception worth that amount they can now use in future trades for the next year without sending back any players. (Under league rules, salaries in any deal must come within 25 percent of each other unless a team has cap space.) They also dropped significantly below the luxury tax level, giving the Warriors added flexibility in the trade market.

Several articles mention trading for talent to augment our roster, while none of them link the JRich trade to extending RFAs in the future nor even discussing the possibility. In the following season, we failed to make use of the TPE. We could have landed a one year rental player such as Thomas to get us over the hump and make the playoffs, or we could have landed a longer-term big man and had to make other roster adjustments in the following year to eventually be able to re-sign our RFAs later, or choose not to.

Here’s my challenge: Prove that the dubs were even considering using the cap space from the JRich trade for the RFAs at the time it was made (or shortly thereafter), or prove that using the TPE on a one-year player would have hurt our chances at re-signing them. Otherwise, we should all stop contending the point and agree that the dubs let the TPE expire in spite of the opportunity we could have improved our chances to make the playoffs again by utilizing it and that doing so would not necessarily have precluded us from re-signing Monta and Andris.


(source: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/2007-06-29-3529350227_x.htm)

(source: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/marty_burns/08/31/pacific.reportcard/)

(source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/29/SPG6HQO9QI1.DTL)

Past is Prologue, except when it isn’t; hopefully this is such an exception.