W’s at a Crossroad: Team Building / Understanding Nelson & Riley

With regards to Nellie and Riley I am in this camp as much for simple common sense transition time as anything. Good post ! Sensible words. I have hads many of these same thoughts as well. I am sure that the die hard Nellie haters will weigh in soon though. Rec’d

And get a young coach

Lets see how he does with a healthy team that can finally rebound for once. Last time he coached a healthy team, the Warriors got 48 wins.

We already had offense, now we have guys down low who can rebound the ball to add to that. Even Dorrell Wright at 6’9" will probably make an impact on rebounding. And now that Nellie has a big man in David Lee who can actually score in the post, it will make our offense even more deadly; we can finally play an inside-out game whereas back then we just kept chucking outside shots.

David Lee will take pressure off of Biedrins inside the paint, and it could help Biedrins get even better. There won’t be a load of pressure on Biedrins and he can start playing efficiently again with passing from Curry and Lee. This makes our frontline deadly, something that even the We Believe team didn’t have.

We can run teams out of the building, we can score inside when our outside shots aren’t going in, and we can finally rebound. Down low we’ll have David Lee hustling hard for rebounds alongside the lengthy Biedrins who can average 10 rebounds as well.

This could be the first time in a long time that Nellie has had a rebounding frontline like this, while also being able to score from anywhere on the court. Nellie now has the pieces he needs to really take this team somewhere. He’s no longer restricted by Tom Tolbert or Al Harrington type of big men getting outrebounded all of the time.

This team has a great chance of improving if they stay healthy. Nellie got 42 wins in 06-07 and 48 wins in 07-08, but then all of the injuries in the following years along with the inexperienced players he’s had to deal with caused him to have losing seasons. Remember that Nellie doesn’t like to play rookies and young players (that’s why he didn’t do well with Randolph), but now he has a veteran big man in David Lee who is also an all-star to utilize. We are now a capable rebounding team while maintaining our ability to score. As a matter of fact, our offense got even better now that we have a 20ppg post scorer.

Let’s see how this plays out through December 2010. I don’t see why we should get rid of Nellie without seeing what he can do now that he has the right pieces in place on the team.

put Riley in as coach and see what he can do with the team he assembled.

If it’s true that Spoelstra is avaialble (Which he personally denied), then I do believe we should pursue him as he’s young and Nelson is getting old, which will give us a solid outlook from the coaching position.

If we can find a better GM, take it, otherwise keep Riley, same goes with Nelson, if we can find a better coach, take him. I’m sick and tired of Run and Gun though, we ain’t going nowhere without rebounding and defense. ’Nuff said.

Great post.

1.0 Patience..the new organisation/credibility begins from the top down.
2.0 The new coach is step 3 ,not step 1……hopefully not too young/inexperienced is brought in after the new president and management team.
3.0 No need to blow this team up this season. Any rebuilding will be incremental within realistic perameters rather than reactionary/show moves.
4.0 Evaluate what we have after a normal healthy year.
5.0 Every future move is part of a well thought out realistic strategy/gameplan.

but watching highlights of the We Believe team is depressing! I still can not believe we managed to blow that up so quickly. Thats why Baron Jax and Al wanted to leave. They saw something special and watched our FO destroy it.

First of all, Nelson is not going to be the coach of this team after 2010-11, no matter what … and that raises issues. There’s a reason why coaches very rarely are asked to coach out their “lame duck” year, why contract extensions are negotiated before the final year of a contract … simply put: it is very hard for a short-timer to impose meaningful discipline, since the players KNOW he’s gone. They can ride him out.

And once players lose discipline, the whole team can fall apart in a hurry. For what it’s worth, Nellie has been HORRIBLE with player discipline since Baron’s last year here.

Without getting into the various reasons why I think Nellie has lost it, I want to point out something else:

There is very little practice time available during the season. Therefore, the majority of the team’s offensive and defense scheme are put in place in training camp.

So when you bring a coach in midseason, you’re basically limping along the rest of the year, since the new coach can’t fully implement his own ideas.

The Warriors are likely to be vastly improved this season simply because they’re healthy and have better players. (An improving Curry, a legit player at the 4). Most coaches don’t affect winning that much one way or the other.

But why even consider spending a year with a lame-duck coach? What advantage is there to it? Even if you think Nellie has been a great coach, shouldn’t we start the process of moving forward, of building a core focused on game-play principles which will be emphasized for years to come?

In other words, even without it being a commentary on Nellie’s current coaching abilities, there are good reasons for him not to be our coach this year.

Let’s move forward. Time for someone new.

It’s sort of funny to see this post in the “recommended” section of this site. Don’t get me wrong. I completely agree with every argument made above, but there has been such an unceasing barrage of anti-Nelson sentiment around here I’m wondering who is left to “rec” it.

There is one more argument I would like to add, however, in favor waiting on a coaching change: What is the alternative? Let’s take a look:

Jeff Van Gundy: Do I need to say anything here? This guy is all about D and the Warriors roster is all about running.

Patrick Ewing: Do I need to say anything here? He’s a defensive minded, post-player specialist that has never been a head coach at any level, and was really only hired to mentor Dwight Howard.

Mark Jackson: Do I need to say anything here? We’ve all heard him talk enough as a color commentator to know he’s a little slow. Also, he’s never coached. Mama, there goes that horrible coaching candidate…

Mike Fratello: I will abstain from repeating my opening line, but come on! He’s old, and he’s been making good money working way less as a TV guy.

Eric Mussleman: Hahahahahahaha! Just kidding!

In summation: Qualified coaches predisposed to coach an up-tempo NBA team are not out there.

 He’s actually a pretty good coach, we just din’t give him a fair chance.