RECAP #28: Golden State Warriors 117, Sacramento Kings 109- Why Rivalries Are Fun + All I Want for Christmas

thanks

for the couple of Warriors fans at Arco that I saw leaving early..

True, Its just hard to see that perspective.

Biedrins is a big loss too considering we are are playing with less possessions.

I don’t think there’s a single player on the roster who has had a better-than-reasonably-expected season.

Can we all be so wrong? So far off about the potential of our players?

Maybe there is some silver lining here because I do feel like it’s not too unreasonable to expect our guys to improve

I don’t dispute any of the points you made, but it’s still pretty early in the season. A nice little win streak or two would change our answers to all of these questions by the end of the season, I hope

If Monta were 6-6 and Lee were 6-11

(and both had proportional Rondo arms…)

Vs. Sac +11 15pts, 8reb, 2ast, 3stl in 27 min
Vs. Houston +3 5pts, 5reb, 3ast, 1stl in 16 min
Vs. Portland +11 9pts, 2reb, 4ast, 2bs in 23 min

Now are those great numbers? No. Are they worth $7mil/yr? No. But are they good for Vlad? Yes. Are they needed when DWright is struggling, and Beans, Gadz and BWright are all out with injuries? Yes. Has he been playing well and helping bear the burdern? Yes.

In fairness, a lot of teams look “poorly constructed” when playing without their starting point guard and center. I doubt we lose the battle of the boards 56-48 if Biedrins plays his usual 30 minutes. (Seeing Carl Landry, an awful rebounder, feast on the boards was particularly galling). And though Monta is a spectacular scorer, his court vision and floor management leave a ton to be desired. Curry spreads the floor and manages the offense far more capably.

This team ain’t perfect, but it’s amply capable of regularly beating the bejeezus out of the Kings if all the starters are healthy. It’s true that one of the big problems with having a crappy bench is the falloff when starters get hurt; but then the crappy bench was the price we had to pay for upgrading our starting five. Decent bench players aren’t that hard to come by (we may have just found one in Udoh). And the starting five looks much more poorly constructed with Maggs and Randolph as the starting forwards, imho.

As for Vlad … I agree that if Smart’s take-home point from this game is that Vlad is a highly effective player, we could be in trouble. I think Keith’s a bit smarter than that … but only a bit. Still, I’d guess the incalculably huge morale boost this game gives the team going forward is worth a lot more than any possible distortion of our “true colors.”

I have three small children and some of the pouting done on the court and the stubborn tantrum-like post moves by Cousins were eerily similar.

I think three years from now Cousins is going to be what he is now = Big & Dumb. With all the squealing by Cousins I’d be surprised if he’s still in the league in three years. I guess if the coach wants to be his mommy then it might work out? Who knows?

Honestly, I haven’t seen him all year, but from this sample I’d say he’s a 7 year old in a 19 year old huge body.

I’ll take a more mature Udoh. Cousins has too much baggage. He’s go too much to prove. Chips on the shoulder could be a great motivator, but also they can lead to utter disaster. With Cousins I expect disaster before greatness.

It is my honest opinion that Udoh is a better fit for this team than Cousins. I am saying that he is the player we should rather have not only because he is better now, but because Cousins seems to be the type of head case maniac that has plagued our teams in the past.

In 3 years, I think Cousins will still be a crazy dude.

Is it just me, or does it look like Monta is starting to intentionally draw contact to get foul calls?

Seems like a lot of his shots, he is so quick that no one can even touch him. If he wants to get the call, he’s got to take it into the body of the defender more….Over the last two games, it looks to me like he is starting to do this

but think Udoh has the bigger wing span.

Nope….DMC wingspan is 7’-5.75" and standing reach is 9’-5".
             Udoh wingspan is 7’-4.5" and standing reach is 8’-4.5"

Udoh looks like he can play C in the NBA, but he needs to get bigger in order to take the pounding. Even Dwight took a while to develop. If we’re going to trade with Orlando, then we should keep AB until we can make an offer for Dwight in 2012. The Magic do not look good with that trade. Sorry to say that Gilbert Arenas trade made them worse imho. I liked Gilbert when he was here, but he’s a different cat now.

…but it’s to Trade Machine

here ya go:
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine

Blake Griffin for Vlad!

it totally works for both teams
we get Blake Griffin
they get the veteran leadership and deadeye game-winning shooting of Vlad “strong in the biceps” Radmanovic

sigh…I’ll miss you Vlad Rad