Telling the truth, and all, but god damn. Where's the line crossed when the team just shuts itself off due to NO self esteem.

The thing that stood out the most for me was when he said the fans weren't wrong about Dunleavy.  That was pretty funny, partly because it's true and partly because you never hear a coach say anything like that.

Overall the interview was pretty harsh. Maybe Nellie just says some things for effect, but I don't know if calling your guys dumb is one of those things.  You can say like Diogu needs to pass out of the double team or Foyle needs to hustle on every play, because those are legit criticisms that those players can (theoretically) respond to right away if they just put forth some effort.  But, if you're dumb then you're just kind of dumb for life.  It's not something you can fix overnight.  If, in Nellie's eyes, you don't have a good basketball IQ by now, you probably aren't ever going to have one.

is that nellie said he came back because he "liked the team" at least that is what he said before the year started. my opinion at the time was that he liked Dun as a 'point forward' and he liked murph as an outside shooting center. Well, we all know how those two things turned out. Would it be safe to assume that he does not "like" the team after all and might he want to leave after the season? He is already pumping up Smart as his successor not even 1 full season into a 3 yr contract. Very interesting...and a bit scary.

Yes this is so true.
And yes we are the dumbest playing team in the NBA. I've been saying that for a while. How else can you explain the constant 3 point attempts brick after brick after brick...Go to the RIM! It is your friend!!

i'm so glad he mentioned that. this team is so idiotic. i want to know what goes through baron's head when he decides to jack up a contested 3, when he can get to the rim anytime he wants and is a below average shooter. so dumb.

thanks for some credit Atma Brother One. I think it's good that somebody in the Warriors organization made some criticizes about the Warriors players, and its the Head Coach who made the remarks. We as Warrior fans get so frustrated of all the excuses like o there a young team. O yea we been a young team for a while now and i thought your suppose to grow as a team so get use to it. They said cause of the injuries. Well you got to live with it cause everybody gets injured in the NBA. It's not the fans fault we come out there to the arena ever night to cheer for them so the Warriors owe us in something in return.

I think that the most crucial point of criticism Don Nelson made of his team was the fact that the young guys can't carry the team by themselves.  I think from this statement, you can draw out some of the other things he said.  

One of the few bright spots for the Warriors this year has been the play of Monta Ellis and Andris Biedrins.  Last year, both of them showed some flashes of what they could do.  We saw that Andris had a tremendous amount of length who could block some shots, and catch anything thrown his way.  We saw Monta's speed which he used to stay with guys on defense, and to get by guys on offense.  This year both of those guys stepped it up big time, and showed us more of what they could do.  

We have seen Andris use more of his length to block more shots, grab rebounds, and give some scoring inside.  We have seen Monta's explosiveness in getting to the rim and finishing.  However, with all of these positive signs, these two guys are still only 20 and 21 years of age.  They are still very raw and inconsistent, and to count on them along with the likes of Matt Barnes, Ike Diogu, Mickael Pietrus, and even Kelenna Azubuke will not bode well for the team.

The fact of the matter is the Warriors had a core group of Jason Richardson, Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, and Baron Davis, all of whom had a great amount of faith put in them as evident from Chris Mullin locking them up for the future.  Up to this point, the only player of this core group who has performed well is Baron Davis.  This group was expected to live up to their contracts and lead this team to a winnable record that would ultimately propel them into the playoffs.  You can almost give Jason Richardson a free pass for being injured, but even then, he decided to get knee surgery in August instead of June.  Had he elected to get the surgery earlier, he would have had more time to heal, get himself stronger, and work on his game going into the season.  It was poor judgment on his part to have the surgery so late.

But in my mind, Baron and Jason can get a pass because Baron has been playing out of his mind while Jason has been injured.  So that leaves Dunleavy and Murphy.  Both of these guys have zero quickness, zero jumping ability, zero athleticism, and zero toughness; thereby, making them both terrible defenders.  It's because of guys like them, that the Warriors have to play zone 60% of the time.  You expect your bigs to play defense and rebound the ball.  It is their JOB.  If they don't do these things, then they better have stellar offensive production.  As it stands right now, these are the numbers of Troy and Mike:

Troy Murphy: PPG 8.8 RPG 5.90 APG 2.4
Mike Dunleavy:  PPG 11.3 RPG 4.60 APG 3.0

Clearly, these numbers are far from stellar, and you need them to be productive on the offensive end to compenstate for their lack of defense and rebounding; yet they are not.  Do these numbers warrant Murphy getting about $8.3 million and Dunleavy getting about $7.3 million?  The answer is HELL NO!  By Mullin signing these guys to huge contracts, he made a huge statement by saying that he believed these were the guys to carry the team.  All of us know that this is the furthest thing from the truth.  Ellis and Biedrins have done more for the team than Murphy and Dunleavy.  

By saying that the young guys can't carry the team, Coach Nelson was speaking the truth.  But he was also pleading with Murphy and Dunleavy to step their games up.  Until they do, this team is going to continue to hover around mediocrity.