Baron Davis - Props to My Favorite Warrior of the Decade.

He looks like he’s trying a bit more with the Cavs though

i’m saying that other than jason kidd or rajon rondo, there’s really no one else out there that’d i’d prefer to be mentoring curry into the caliber of player we need him to be. baron three years ago is what we want from curry now. baron transformed monta’s game into an off the ball, high volume, floor-spreading scorer who was impossible to defend. He made biedrins an offensive threat with a wicked pick and roll move practiced to perfection. He made stack jack relevant again with on court chemistry and offensive prowess (the second BD was gone, stack jack was pretty useless). harrington became less of a chucker and more of a strategic shooter (once again, went right back to his chuckin ways in 08-09), and guys like barnes, peitrus, and buike had more space to play with, and lets face it, neither of those three (especially barnes) has had a year like the 06 through 08 squads.

we saw the same thing happening with tonights cleveland team. ryan hollins, some nobody kid who averages 4.5 ppgs and probably way less per 36/TS and all that fancy stuff, had the game of his career pulling the same moves with Baron that biedrins did three years ago (except hollins has waaaay more hops for those alley oops). Baron, in the 30 minutes he played, opened up more shots than mo williams ever has for the cavs – lebron basically took every shot, mo took the rest. The one problem for the cavs tonight was that fact that they bricked almost every shot they took. look at the box score, three cavs (samuels, hickson, and davis) took more than ten shots. three more (parker, eyenga, and hollins) took 9,9,8. if cleveland had been a better shooting team and didnt shoot 36 percent tonight (none of which was barons fault, he shot an okay 50), they would have beaten us fair and square.

Now look at the Warriors box score. 39 of our 86 total shots, nearly half, are split between curry and ellis.

the point is this. when baron is healthy, and when he gives a damn, which for some reason he inexplicably does in cleveland, he is a master at providing shot opportunities for everyone on the court as well as spreading the ‘offensive wealth’ we’ll call it. curry hasn’t learned how to do this and the time is now to teach him. What makes point guards like Nash, Paul, Rondo, and Baron special (especially in tonights case and when he’s healthy), is their ability to run the court and be in complete control of their offenses. they make it easier for every player to play at their highest level, but as with all three of the previous examples, if the offense doesn’t click, they can turn on the scoring themselves and carry most of the load.

curry has no problem scoring. but his lack of leadership, combined with his seemingly one track shoot first mentality, equates to losing ways such as way to many shots being taken by monta, who on the we believe squad and his comeback player of the year season, took considerably less shots and still managed to score 18-20 a game. dorrell usually takes 9-12 shots total a night maybe hitting a couple 3’s and a mid range, but missing the rest, nothing too flashy. david lee must consistantly miss his own shots becuase the lack of ball movement allows opposite big man to croud the post, so the only method of scoring for him is having to fight for the offensive board and putback or the mid range jumper. this is different from when he was in new york and could go 20-10 a game, where lee consistantly played with guys like chandler and robinson, who in no way are offensive superstars, but are still recognized as guys who utilize space more and be able to quickly move the ball around to create much more scoring oppurtunities for the guys like harrington and lee (honestly, the reason that denver is so much better without carmelo and with chandler at the sf is for that reason exactly. anthony was an offensive horse, but had no eye for how to work in a unit with all four guys on the court. he strives with billups, but thats because chauncey is a pro at exactly what i’m pointing out baron is. without anthony, the nuggets now start three young guys in lawson, afflalo, and chandler and a big man in nene who know how to move a basketball fluidly and efficiently around the court in order to maximize scoring opportunities for everyone. but thats a whole different team, so whole different story). non confident scorers like udoh will not get the space they need down low to gain any semblance of confidence under the hoop if curry continues to mature into a shoot first point guard with a strictly offensive mindset with little else to offer. yes, curry’s advanced stats prove that he is best player on the team because he is player that statistically helps us win the most. but if he doesnt expand his game to the type of play baron had three years ago, or the snapshot of last night, he will do nothing to help anybody else statistically become better at helping us win

this is why baron would be an ideal backup and mentor to curry. this is why baron was always so revered by GM’s and coaches as having so much explosive potential and worth such a risk contractually. this is why we should bring him back when his contract is up. trust me, he wont even ask for a quarter of what LA gave him unless he turns into the second coming of lebron in cleveland.

he’s classy, and if you read everything i wrote, the dude knows how to run a basketball team. injury slowed him in LA, but that was unlucky. We played cleveland game….CLEVELAND!! everytime he was on the court, the cavs outplayed us and went on scoring runs. he completely transforms they’re offensive game when he’s on the court

He’s getting old, he’s unmotivated, he doesn’t care about defense, he doesn’t care about his weight, his shooting is declining, and quite frankly at times it seems he doesn’t care about basketball.