When I got home today, I opened up a package from FedEx and was happy to see a package from the Warriors. Inside was a present for the 8 year old version of me - a lunchbox. Yep, a Warriors lunchbox. How lame. At least it's better than the broken locker we got 2 years ago, but doesn't quite top the backpack from last year. To make it even worse, inside the lunchbox, was a juicebox, crackers, a fruit roll-up, some candy and what the...? No sandwich?

What are we to make of this lunchbox? Is there some deeper underlying meaning? What are the Warriors trying to tell us?! I must know! Hit the jump for some theories.

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Yesterday morning, in the wee hours (by Vegas standards) of 8:45am, well before duty called at the 2010 NBA Summer League first tipoff of 1:00pm, a group of eager ballers met outside Chuck Minker Sports Complex. The heat was debilitating as we waited for the staff to unlock the front entrance.

Once inside, the rumble was afoot. I asked BrightSideOfTheSun's Seth Pollack for a brief rundown of who was from SB Nation and who was from TrueHoop Network. If Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress had come through on his email saying he would pass by, I might've considered having a quickie draft, but in his absence of what I'm sure was hob-knobbing amongst NBA socialites at some swank hotel (he probably made the right choice), decided against such a method of roster determination.

I added some guys from TheNoLookPass and had to split them up to keep the SB Nation vs TrueHoop theme going. And finally, there was my fellow poor man's commish, Pepsi Porciuncula, who runs the 180-team Asian League in Vegas.

Here were the rosters...

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(Adonal Foyle, Greatest Warrior of the Contemporary Era?)

As the 2010 Boston Celtics versus Los Angeles Lakers finals match-up gives us more reason to wax nostalgic about the historical NBA empires that are the Celtics and Lakers, it also raises interesting questions about whether anyone on the current Celtics or Lakers squads can hold a torch to anyone from their star-studded pasts.

Based on recent discussions here and here about whether Kobe is the greatest Laker ever, it made me wonder whether the criteria critics used could possibly be used to identify a Warrior in the more contemporary-era (90s and 2000s) that could even be considered for "The Greatest Warrior-ever" Debate.

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(Will this be the fate of the Warriors' #6 pick this year?)

Is it sad to say that the greatest "big man" in Warriors history might be Tyrone Hill?

Tyrone Hill, the final lottery pick of the 1990 draft, only played three seasons with the Warriors and went on to have a productive career epitomized by his one all-star appearance in 1995.

Aside from Tyrone Hill, the Warriors have been relatively bad at picking and developing big men. Victor Alexander, Carlos Rogers, Erick Dampier, Todd Fuller, Ike Diogu, Patrick O'Bryant, Andris Biedrins, Brandan Wright, and Anthony Randolph...there are probably plenty more that I've left out.

The development and production of the latter three -- Biedrins, Wright, and Randolph -- have had an polarizing effect on Warriors fans, who either think that they should be ready made by now or are All-Stars-to-be if they could just get more playing time or stay healthy. Given the volatile landscape that is the Warriors front office and coaching staff -- what I would call the basketball equivalent of the movie "2012" -- what is the fate of the Warriors #6 pick if they were to grab a big man? What do we make about the kryptonite-ish effect the Warriors have on big men?

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Originally posted at 7:15 AM PDT

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UPDATE 4/2 8:15am: Happy April Fool's!

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As we all know change is in store for the Golden State Warriors... and I'm not talking about dollars and cents.

After 16 years of complete ineptitude (see 16 Years of Chris Cohan Owning the Golden State Warriors: 10 of the Dumbest Moves) Chris Cohan has (finally) put the beloved Bay Area hoops squad on the market with the most likely suitor being a very, very, very rich man who has a basketball court on his yatch (see Polling GSoM: Who do you want to be the next owner of the Golden State Warriors?- Larry Ellison, Mark Mastrov, Group from China, Ice Cube).

Also after 8 years of sporting the thunderbolt version 2.0 uniforms :: home + away (much, much better than the hideous 1.0 :: home + away I'll add), the team will be unveiling new jerseys soon. Longtime GSoM community member BritWarriorsGSW heard about the forthcoming uniform change way back in September in a small season ticket holder meeting and spread the good word in The San Quentin Jailbreak with Robert and Larry!, which went on to be one of the most popular and cited FanPosts of all-time in this community.  

Simply put a new era of Golden State Warriors basketball is upon us.

Current Golden State Warriors Alternate Jerseys

"Golden Gate Orange"

But back to the jerseys. The final home and away jersey colors and design schemes won't be finalized and ready  to go (though you can get a good idea of how they'll look by the blue and yellow side stripes and season ticket renewal lettering on Warriors.com)  till the Warriors draft party in late June (if you're a season ticket holder you should have received the invite as part of your renewal mailing; here's the flyer in case you missed it), but the design for the Warriors 2010-2011 alternative jerseys has already been set in place. Tony.psd and I got a sneak peak at the alternative jersey design at a small season ticket holder event yesterday late afternoon at the team's headquarters on 1011 Broadway in Oakland.

I know you're all dying to know what the new alternate jerseys look like. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures at the event, but with our collective photographic memory and Tony's Adobe Photoshop/ Illustrator mastery we were able to recreate the design for you.

JUMP for an exclusive first look at the 2010-2011 Golden State Warriors Alternate Jerseys!

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Originally posted Mar 5, 2010 12:00 AM PST

(Before former #1 pick Joe Smith was fellow #1 pick King James mentor and missing piece...)

(He was supposed to be Kevin Garnett's sidekick to take them to the promised land)

After watching Bay Area born and raised NBA basketball player Drew Gooden get traded two times within the span of 4 days, I wondered if this former lottery pick was destined to be this generation's Chris Gatling.  I came to this conclusion not because they're both tall, power forwards that happened to be 1) bald and 2) light(er) skinned, though, that coincidence is pretty eerie in and of itself.  But I was curious why neither of them was able to stick around with a team long enough given that they were both relatively productive and efficient players who put up decent stats wherever they went.  Although I was never a big fan of Drew Gooden's game (I find him to be somewhat erratic on the court), how is it that someone like him gets bounced around the league so often versus say someone like Adonal Foyle, who's PER has consistently hovered below the average and is several points below someone like Gooden.  But can we judge a player's career by the number of teams they have played on?  Is Drew Gooden's fate sealed to be ...dare I say... a journeyman?  As a former lottery pick, #4 to be exact in the 2002 draft, is being a journeyman akin to be a branded or marked with the scarlet letter?  Or is "the journeyman" an embraceable position to be in?  Is it being a a player in the "twilight" of their career (post-second max or big contract) that ends up being a good supporting player  to a perennial playoff team (Raja Bell) or is it a player that bounces around a few times brought onto a bad team (Golden State Warriors) for "veteran presence" and mentoing purposes?  So my questions is less who is a journeyman as opposed to when is one a journeyman and when is being a journeyman something cool ("veteran presence") as opposed to being something of a laughable figure (Chris Gatling-type).  Where does Drew Gooden fall between these two poles?  What makes a good a "Journeyman" and is that something people would want to identify with?

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My esteemed colleague Fantasy Junkie started The Andris Biedrins Made Free Throw Watch, tracking whether Biedrins could go the entire season without a made free throw. I was looking over the numbers this morning and it seems like a good time to complement that with The Andris Biedrins Starting Center Matchup Watch.
Jump for watchage!

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Andris Biedrins has not a made a free throw this season: 12 games, 227 minutes. After last night's 0-2 showing from the free throw line, he's now 0-7 on the season. I know it's not a lot of shots and I'm sure there have been far worse free throw droughts but he hasn't made a free throw since last April! It's a small bit of entertainment in this not so entertaining season.

He's 0-5 since coming back from injury. I didn't know a groin injury prevents you from practicing free throws. Here's the breakdown of his free throws this season:

10/31 vs Houston: 0-2
1/5 vs Denver: 0-2
1/6 vs Minnesota: 0-1
1/13 vs Miami: 0-2

When will he make a free throw? Will he make a free throw this week? This month? This season?

Barnett and Fitz made a suggestion last night. Shoot it underhanded. He's got nothing to lose. The honeys already love him, they'll think it's cute or something. Only real men wear pink and shoot free throws underhand, ask HOF Rick Barry. Beans, I got you covered after the jump with a couple of entertaining and instructional videos.

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