For better or worse the Dubs blogosphere has covered this in painfully excrutiating detail, so I'll just pass the mic to our friends:
- Warriors PR director confirms he authored anonymous blog comment [Talking Points]
- The bigger Warriors picture: Thin skin, insecurity and impulsive excuse-making [Talking Points]
-
Please Tell Me He Didn't Do It [Inside the Warriors]
- Conference Calls, Comments and Conflagrations [Fast Break]
- Golden State PR Man Admits to Astroturfing on Warriors Fan Sites [FanHouse]
- The Art of Deception [Warriorsworld]
- Suspiciously Optimistic Guy In Warriors Forum Turns Out To Be Warriors Flack [Deadspin]
- Candid Cam: Warriors latest PR fiasco [Bay Area News Group]
- I Finally Abandon Ship [RealGM]
- Warriors PR Guy Caught Posting Fake Comments [NBC Bay Area]
- NBA PR man admits he's anonymous commenter [CNET]
Some thoughts on what I consider a major non-event for various reasons after the jump.
A few wise folks have wondered why GSoM has been so late to cover this. To be honest my biggest fear in giving this topic much ink is that it would cultivate a McCarthy-esque environment on GSoM, in which anyone (for whatever reason) that aligns with the decisions of the Chris Cohan and Robert Rowell is deemed a phony and perpetrator of The Suck regime. We already cover a dysfunctional franchise. Do really want a dysfunction online community with constant finger pointing and the Warriors equivalent of McCarthyism? Warrior fans have it hard as is; we need to stick together.
Now I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it was uncovered that the Warriors organization has littered the comments sections and what not of Golden State of Mind with their propaganda in the past (someone's looking into that as I write this). They keep very close track of this blog and the discussions on it. I must note that the organization's PR staff and sales department have been enormously generous to us over the years, so I don't want to demonize them unnecessarily. But at the end of the day would you really be that surprised if they did insert a little "Go Warriors! Stop criticizing them! The future it bright!" every now and then around here? As GSoM friends Tim Kawakami and Marcus Thompson have rightfully detailed- this organization is more worried about their image of suck, then essentially fixing the suck.
Staying with this transparancy theme, truth be told it's incredibly annoying to see so many people finally wake up, realize, and write about how terribly incompetent and unprofessional the Cohan and Rowell Warriors are. We've been saying that around these parts since 2005, with minimal support. LeBron James himself would like you to WITNESS:
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At the Press Conference: Write "Sell the Warriors" (8/29/06)- The funny thing is back then we asked plenty of folks from the local media, national media, and the blogosphere at large to help us ignite this campaign and shed some light on how terribly run this team is. Except for Deadspin, NONE of the other outlets gave us the time of day. NONE.
- Missing Signatures (4/19/06)
- Rise to the Occasion (3/17/06)
- 2005-2006 REPORT CARD: Chris Cohan and Robert Rowell (8/23/09)
- BREAKING NEWS: Ice Cube Purchases the Warriors (4/1/06)
- We Want Larry! (7/25/09)
- San Jose SuperSonics in 2k8 (7/18/06)
- NBA Draft 2006: Chris Cohan is happy the draft isn't in the Bay (6/28/07)
- The Dirty Dozen - Part 1 of 3 (9/11/06)
- IRS Stressing Warrior Owner Chris Cohan (5/19/09)
- NBA Payroll Playpen and Cohanomics (11/30/07)
- WARRIORSist (6/6/06)
- Monte Poole Must Lose the Ignorance (11/1/05)
- RUMOR: Chris Cohan and Robert Rowell said no to Kevin Garnett because of additional salary and the luxury tax (5/16/09)
Why are people just now making a big fuss about how poorly run this big market franchise is? Is it because people are upset the team finally (rightfully) ended the publicity stunt that was Chris Mullin leading the Warriors front office? Is it the result of Don Nelson backlash? Who knows and to tell you the truth- who really cares?
At the end of the day, I'm really not sure why Raymond Ridder's inane PR strategy and handful of silly comments on a message board deserve so much attention. Why is their so much outrage over this? Why is anyone really that surprised? Did you all expect anything less from the Cohan and Rowell-led Warriors? This isn't exactly the dumbest thing that organization has done in the past 15 years in terms of fan and media relations.
The entire Golden State Warriors operation is a joke and it's been a joke starting from the top for 15 long years. Nothing has changed, including mindset of this naive fanbase who still continues to support The Suck monetarily and in every other way possible. I mean let's face it, two weeks from now when everyone is in NBA Draft mode, this will be a complete non-topic.
I'm sorry ya'll but this one's on us. Us meaning the fans, the local media, and the national media. Come next season when there's a little 5 game win streak, the vast majority of fans will forget their current outrage. When the Warriors finally make the playoffs or assemble a winning team (they can't keep defying the odds in a league where half the teams make the playoffs annually- I don't think), the incompetence and unprofessionalism of this organization will get ZERO ink in the local press. The national media? Those guys didn't care about how poorly run this franchise was/is and how it's wasting away a huge sports market till they could continue their vendetta against Nellie and paint Mullin as a martyr.
At the end of the day I can't really say any of this really surprises me. Are you surprised?
In the words of former Warrior Gilbert Arenas who Cohan just couldn't look in the eye- "But you're not a fool- are you?"