Just wondering, since I have heard a lot of reference (even by coach Mark Jackson in an interview) as to Nate Robinson's pre-Warriors reputation. I never really followed him specifically (just saw him with the Celtics here and there). What was it that he was known to do that was seen as negative? So far he seems to be a team player, really, really dedicated to the Warriors and to winning in general, and seems to make up for his lack of height in effort and dedication. One point last game when he didn't realize the 24 second clock had run out, he was so angry with himself for missing that and even when he was back on the bench he kept swearing. Seemed like he was taking responsibility to blowing it and was not blaming others.

Just curious.

As a Boston kid living in NYC, I probably care more about this game than most here, but given that it's all of your solemn duties as Americans to watch, I thought I should probably throw up a diary on the subject. Plus, open threads are always fun. Feel free to toss out predictions, talk trash, and vent on anything football-related (or not). I'll have to check with the higher-ups, but we might even be able to throw some free gear the way of the poster with the closest guesstimate of the final score.

By way of a Warriors tie-in, check out NateRob's hilarious interview on the subject if you haven't (thank to disguy for the original fanpost).

Final Warriors tally: NY Giants 3 (Jenkins, Curry, Tyler), Tom Brady 2 (Dorell, Udoh), Dallas Cowboys 1 (Dorell).

Personally ... I'm worried about the Giants' pass rush, Cruz/Nicks/Manningham running roughshod, and Rob Gronkowski's ankle. If I had to bet my own money, I'd probably go with the Giants in a close one -- let's say 34-31. Here's hoping pretty fervently that I'm wrong.

Not claiming that I'm the second coming of Shakespeare here, but I have a few thoughts on the pick that seems to have been in limbo forever all due to our most hated Warrior of all time: Marcus Williams.

The background: In 2008 the Warriors were in need of a point guard and found Marcus to be an acceptable floor manager and decided that since he would make the team soooo good that they could send their first round draft pick as a conditional pick (just in case it doesn't workout so well). This means that when the Warriors finished poorly and Marcus contributed a little less than nothing, we got to keep our pick and as the years have gone by and we continued to not get much better, get worse, etc., we still got to use our pick. Then we sent our 2011 second round pick to further protect it, but that hasn't helped much. (If you want a great article about this: READ THIS ONE). Now that you are caught up, you know that we are only going to keep this pick if it is a top-7 selection in this draft and gets lesser protected as we go into more years ahead up until 2015. This means that we can't trade any 1st round picks due to NBA rules until this matter is taken care of.

Current state: 2012 is upon us and we are looking the same as ever: Not good enough for playoffs and not bad enough for a top pick. Additionally this year is supposed to be a great draft, but that's where I'm going to cut in- I DON"T THINK THIS YEARS DRAFT IS THAT GOOD!!!! It is deep, but I'm not seeing any franchise players out there. I think the best NBA player will be Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, but I also don't think that he will declare for the draft this year.

So what do we do this year?

We win. We try really hard to get some system in place with the guys we have.Get that chemistry rolling and enjoy the hell out of the season. That pick is going to the Utah Jazz (as of know), so let's get them the worst pick that we can. I'd rather them get the 14th pick than the 8th.

We let the pick go. This will open up all the options for trading future picks to get a real superstar in the Bay. Who knows, we could have had a shot at Kevin Garnett, Chris Paul and even Dwight Howard if we could have sent over a few picks. We can let that ghost of an over weight, lazy, terrible shooting point guard and the only truly detrimental mistake that Chris Mullin made as a GM leave in one night as that buzzer sounds for the last time this season.

We are in no man's land, and we all know it.

No playoffs, but too good to keep our draft pick at #7. This isn't about whether our not our roster is good enough to make the playoffs. This is about our current situation: with our current record, it would take a miracle for us to flip the switch and play winning basketball for the rest of the season and close strong enough to make the playoffs.

However, what suprises me and many others, is the fact that many fans are against throwing in the towel on this season and keeping our pick. Sure it is still a bit early to have lost all hope, but realistically thinking, it is very unlikely that we will flip a 180 on this season.

Lets take a look at what draft picks did for the OKC Thunder (Seattle Sonics contributed):

2007: Draft Kevin Durant

2008: Draft Russel Westbrook

2009: Draft James Harden

2010: First round playoff exit

2011: Best record in the NBA.

That is cherry picking the best example, but the point is clear: draft picks are gold.

Other recent draft day turnarounds:

Minnesota - Rubio, Love, Williams
Blazers - Roy and Aldridge (draft day trades)
Clippers - Gordon, Griffin (rare), Aminu
Your Name Here

Why wouldn't you want to keep our #7 pick, especially since the playoffs are looking like a reach this season? You can criticize the Warriors' drafting as a reason to be skeptical, but as you can see from last year's draft this is no longer Riley-says-all. Lacob, West, Riley, Myers, and Jackson were all in the room making the decision together. Hopefully that will mean no more horrendous draft day decisions.

People throw around a lot of different stats, but obviously the ones that matter most are those that correlate to winning. Some of you guys are way into this stuff, so someone must know.

What are the things that have high correlation coefficients to winning? Yeah, I know, scoring more points. But seriously, its not an easy thing to do in a team sport, especially basketball where no one loses 100-12. Somebody on the crappy team is going to average 20/10 and still stink (no david lee jokes, please).

It may be immeasurable for an individual (or rather, the data doesn't correlate well) and only team stats are useful.

Is it turnover ratio? lowest opponent field goal percentage? FG% allowed times offensive rebounds divided by ????

thx

Dubs Fan Fam!

Bay area boy born and bred, but I've been living in san diego since '04. You can imagine how annoying it has been for me living in Laker land, listening to all the gloating and "oh man, Warrior fans actually exists?" Comments. Still, I've managed to run into a few Bay area transplants over the years who root for the Warriors and that's alwasy a good feeling of solidarity, but yesterday at the local Von's (Safeway of So Cal) I spotted a Mr. Tom Abdenour meandering his grocery cart in the same Hispanic Foods isle I happened to be in. Keep in mind, I've been watching Warrior games faithfully, for a greater part of a decade. League pass is a beautiful thing; So I automatically recognized his face as that of the former Warriors athletic trainer who would sit on the sidelines.

Without hesitation or thought, I said to him "Excuse me, aren't you the ex Warrior Sports medicine guy?" and he happily responded and said "Sure am, Tom Abedenour, glad to meet you". Super nice guy. He said he was the lead trainer for San Diego State's Mens basketball team now. We ended up having a pretty good 10 minute talk, I had my 14 month old daughter in the shopping cart with me and she started getting ansty, but this convo could have easily been longer.

Some interesting things he mentioned:

I asked him if he was still a Warriors fan and if he still followed, he said he was still a fan, after working withiin the organization for 25 years he said it's hard to root for any other team. However he doesnt have much time to catch games with his current gig.

He said he misses working with the guys, he said and i quote "I feel really bad for Steph, and Andris" he said both were really good kids. He mentioned he doesn't know what is going on with Dorell, said he really liked Dorell alot.

He say's he still has friends in the organization but that it's also very different, obvously.

On to ownership, I asked him about Lacob. He said that everybody was exited about Joe and Peter at first but he thinks Joe is going to have a big learnin curve before he comes into stride.

He basically said You can be really sucsessful at running a corporation but basketball is an entire different animal, I think as long as he humbles his stance a bit he will do fine.

Finally, the Mark Jackson question. Asked him what he thought about the hiring, what he said I thought was interesting. He said, although he doesn't know him personally, he personally feels that Lacob missed on the new hire. He stated that he thinks Mark is a good coaching prospect, he felt that he should have been brought on as a top end assistant, and be groomed for a head coaching gig , along the likes of what Nellie did with Kieth Smart. He says he sees that Mark understimated the roster and the over all speed of the modern league.

Keep in mind, I am paraphrasing as close as possible to what our conversation was, but it was still pretty cool to actually talk to a Warriors insider who has been in the business for so long. It was cool that he took the time to chop it up with me and he overall seemed like a good happy go lucky guy. Final words to me, hang in there, Warriors will figure it out one day, and laughed..

This is what I keep telling myself. Apologies for any grammer mispellings, I banged this out at the office and have to run to a meeting. Go Dubs!

Everything right now for the Warriors is looking rather gloomy, so I just wanted to open a thread for a little joy. Nothing more, just talk about whatever is happening since the Bay Area sports lately has been depressing. I'll start off with a few things

What are your current top 10 songs/ artists you listen to? What type of music do you like ?

My list:

1. Soundtrack 2 my life / Kid Cudi

2. Mojo so Dope / Kid Cudi

3. Radicals / Tyler the Creator

4. Transylvania / Tyler the creator

5. Teleport 2 me / Kid Cudi

6. Runaway / Kanye West

7. Dark Fantasy / Kanye West

8. Trapped in my mind / Kid Cudi

9. EARL / Earl sweatshirt

10. Perfect is the Word / Kid Cudi

Also I am really looking forward to WZRD and Wolf, Kid Cudi and Tyler the Creator's new albums

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2k12 Associations anyone? What trades have you guys done?

I just did a set of deals at the deadline:

- Curry, Klay, Udoh, Kwame for Bynum, Kapono, Murphy, Harris

- Biedrins, Murphy, 2nd rounder for Hollins, Gee

- Lee, Kapono for Jrich, QRich, Duhon

My current lineup

PG: Monta, Nate, Jenkins, Duhon

SG: JRich, Rush, Harris

SF: Wright, QRich, Gee, McGuire

PF: Tyler, Barron

C: Bynum, Hollins

Small ball FTW

I plan on going for Wallace though and dealing Wright and something for a PF

Now I have 30 mil in cap space in free agency and have Bynum. If we did this in real life, I'd cry in joy

What are your gamertags / PSN account names? I play CoD , Battlefield, Madden, 2k12, Assassins Creed (!) and Batman mainly.

At its core, sports is about winning. No matter how much is made of sportsmanship and respect, at the end of the day, each team's goal is to do whatever it takes to defeat the other team. Winning defines players, organizations, and owners. Win consistently and you are lauded as the jewel of your sport. Lose consistently and you are the laughingstock of your sport.

This is why it was so easy for fans to criticize the Warriors for the past few years. There was nothing redeemable about them - the players did not play defense correctly, Monta isolated too much, and most importantly, they kept losing. The Warriors remained locked in the Bay Area sports cellar and did not appear to be ready to leave anytime soon. It was not fun to be a Warriors fan.

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Dear web/css dude,

You're color experimentation on GSOM is a little funkay right now. Might I offer some suggestions.

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Atlanta is sporting basically the same roster from the past few years to get into the finals. While they are holding their own in the East, I don't think Atlanta can make it past Miami, Chicago, or Boston. Indiana and Philadelphia have become even better since their post-season berths. Is it time for them to restructure their team?

Their best asset would be Josh Smith whose contract expires after next season. We can give them Monta, Udoh, Wright, and Thompson for Smith and Hinrich's expiring. This gives Atlanta fluid, offensive players that can drive, dish, and shoot. Joe Johnson is also a play maker that can set Monta up for scoring oppurtunities, and Monta can do the same by keeping his defender honest. Wright and Klay can be used to run fast breaks or provide spot-up shooting. Udoh can replace Josh Smith on defense or Atlanta can have Marvin Williams slide over and play PF. Atlanta would have a better second unit, with Teague joining the reserves.

For us, Smith can play SF or even slide over to PF and give us something defensively. I would trade Biedrins for peanuts at this point, but a draft pick and/or expiring contracts would be best. In the offseason, I think a capable center we should go for is Omer Asik. He's 7'0, wide, mobile, not afraid to be physical or make an mpact in the game. Hopefully, Dwight Howard stays in Orlando and lets us have a better look at the free agent market. If we can get the trade and Biedrins off the books, we would have a a good, solid and competitive team to go for Deron Williams. Where Deron lands will be a mystery, but he would have a team like this if he chooses GS:

PG: Deron Williams?
SG: Stephen Curry
SF: Josh Smith
PF: David Lee
C: Omer Asik