SB Nation User Blog: Iggy_Zohn

The Cohn Zohn - How to Handle "The Monta Situation," and Encouraging Information Regarding his Ankle

Iggy_Zohn — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:14:23 -0000

First, Lowell Cohn explains in detail exactly how the Warriors management should handle The Monta Ellis Situation from here on out:

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080911/SPORTS/809110289/1010/SPORTS&title=Warriors_have_a_template_for_Ellis

Next, Cohn gives an encouraging tidbit on Monta's ankle, noting that the injury is the same injury (torn deltoid ligament) that Terrell Owens suffered and made a full recovery from in 2004.

http://cohn.pressdemocrat.com/default.asp?item=2261306&mode=

Monta Ellis' Career in Jeopardy

Iggy_Zohn — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:22:30 -0000

http://cohn.pressdemocrat.com/default.asp?item=2258557&mode=

Lowell Cohn interviewed a sports doctor, who requested anonymity, on Monta Ellis' injury. His analysis was a bit bleak.

Zohn: The Warriors are saying he'll be playing in three months. Is that realistic?

Doc: I don't believe so. Based on the little I've read, to play at an NBA level in three months is very unrealistic. He has a long road ahead of him.

The doctor gets more specific about the injury.

Zohn: Give an example of how someone could tear the ligament.

Doc: You're walking along and you put your foot in a grate. The grate is stable and doesn't move. You fall sideways. It would take that kind of fall to do it.

Zohn: Are you skeptical Ellis tore the deltoid ligament playing basketball?

Doc: Yes.

The Cohn Zohn's exclusive Don Nelson Interview

Iggy_Zohn — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:35:00 -0000

The Cohn Zohn's exclusive Don Nelson Interview

The Most Important Warriors Down The Stretch

Iggy_Zohn — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:19:28 -0000

since the all-star break, and since we finally knew the team we were going to have going into the playoffs (knock on wood), i've been thinking, who are the most important players to the warriors success? so i made a list. feel free to make your own.

baron
jackson
ellis
harrington
pietrus
azabuike
biedrins
wright
barnes

baron at the top because he's the most comfortable in pressure situations.

jackson next because when he plays well, which is often, we rarely lose. his play is a pretty good barometer of the warriors success.

monta next, because he's still young, and he has a lot to prove in the playoffs, but he keeps the warriors running, which is important. plus he has the potential to lead the warriors in scoring on any given night.

i put harrington next, not because i believe he's been the fourth best warriors this year, but he's the fourth most important player on the team. here's what i mean: when he rebounds and hits his shots, our team is so much better. he does it rarely, but he played two nice games against the lakers. when he plays well, nelson always opts to have him be the biggest guy on the floor, rather than biedrins. nelson wants him to be good so bad. if he plays like nelson hopes (and like he has the last couple games) he'll be integral to the warriors success.

pietrus next because nelson likes him now, starts him, he's been hitting more shots and driving. he can guard chris paul in the playoffs, or kobe. and he rebounds very well for a smaller player.

azabuike next because of what he showed against the lakers. so strong. works hard on defense. gets rebounds over biedrins consistantly. makes the difference in games often.

biedrins is similar to harrington, in that if he steps his game up he's important to our success. but i just don't see him doing it. he won't make the difference against the lakers because he's too soft to hang with any of their big men. he played awful against them these last two games. he fouls as much as he blocks shots or rebounds. he can only rebound against teams in the east, really. basically, if we say that if/when we make the playoffs we play the lakers or hornets or suns, biedrins will be outmatched by all three teams. he won't be the deciding factor in any game, although he could be helpful in limited minutes.

brandan wright next because his production is often better than biedrins', he does many of the same things, but he's young and who knows if nelson plays him in the playoffs.

barnes last for obvious reasons. but who knows, he may step it up for the playoffs and catapult himself above wright or maybe biedrins. doubtful though.

i don't think watson will have much of an impact down the stretch, nor kosta, nor croshere, unless injuries.

Kevin Love

Iggy_Zohn — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 06:38:31 -0000

not to rehash an old debate or anything, but tim kawakami wrote a really interesting article on love in his blog.

http://www.mercextra.com/blogs/kawakami/2008/03/21/how-does-uclas-kevin-love-project-to-the-nba-very -well-id-say/#more-927

i found this paragraph particularly interesting:

He'd be of major interest to teams that play fast (hello Don Nelson!), because he can rebound, trail, then hit the open 3 in secondary transition. And if transition isn't there, the offense can re-set with Love. That's the role Nelson imagined Chris Webber could fill this season, except for the Love-can-shoot-and-has-young-legs part.

for anyone who didn't read my first argument on why the warriors should draft kevin love, here's a link:

http://goldenstateofmind.com/story/2008/3/3/201911/8612

god, this really helps my arguement. i love being right.

kawakami also says in the article that most executives he's talked to projects love to go in the twenties.

so if we accept that we have a low chance of drafting a potential all-star in the low twenties, why not draft a kid who has a great chance to be a very good nba player for every reason tim and i have expressed. it would instantly be mullin's best pick as the warriors gm.

i really can't get over the fact that kawakami's on my side. it's like i'm obama, and he's bill richardson, or ted kennedy, backing me instead of you guys, the hillary clinton warriors fans. i bring hope and and change to gsom!

just kidding, i love you guys.

Jermaine O'Neal

Iggy_Zohn — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:30:45 -0000

what do you guys think of this guy?

we know that mullin talked to bird about a trade for the 6'11" 260 f/c this trade deadline, but nothing happened.

would he fit in on the warriors?

reasons i think he might be

another pacer that comes over here. reunites with harrington and jackson in the front court. pacers were great when they had them. add them to monta and baron. that team scores 120 a game.

nelson signed for one more year, he's going to want to win now. o'neal is has been a perennial all-star, scores 20 a game.

cons

he's been injured the last couple years. he's about 30. he's more of a risk than biedrins.

does he give the warriors a better chance to win next year? i say yes. is it worth the risk? could we get him?

(this is not a biedrins bashing thread. i'm want to write a long manifesto for my blog about the warriors summer plans, and i'm tossing around ideas to make the warriors better next year,which i'm stating should be the goal, as long as nelson is the coach.)

Andris Biedrins is overrated

Iggy_Zohn — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:15:41 -0000

who overrates him? you guys.

i was reading this just now:

http://goldenstateofmind.com/story/2006/8/12/162517/557

thought it was really interesting. its GSoM's report card of ab after 05-06. DJ Fuzzy Logic gave him an f, saying

Am I the only one who thinks Biedrins is Jeff Foster at best--a rebounding machine @ best? Is that all we expect and what we consider to be "star potential" now for skinny 6'10 and taller dudes in the league? His great hands and agility in the post are a great asset to this team, yet he is still incredibly unpolished and has absolutely no finesse 3 feet beyond the basket.

granted, that was a report from two years ago. biedrins has improved by leaps and bounds since then, right? Here's his career stats.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/biedran01.html

he improved a little from 06 to 07, but has shown little improvement from last year to this year. so far he has leveled off to 27 min player, 9 rebs a game, 10 points a game. respectable, nothing great.

the only thing he has improved upon consistently is his ft shooting, which is imperative for him if he wanted to stay in the league.

but going back to this site's analyis of beans. is that all we consider to be star potential now? i say no. i say we should demand more from a center that we're on the verge of giving a 6 year deal to.

beans has never shown that he will develop to be more than what dj fuzzy logic says. you guys had beans down two years ago. the winning of our franchise has blinded people on this board of the necessity to remain critical and and unbiased. it's just more interesting that way. anyone can be a homer and say "you're not a real fan if you're not behind this team and it's product 100 percent of the time." when the warriors top out at 55 wins and never go anywhere in the playoffs the next few years, and we're committed to the smallest team in the league that can only play good defense once every few games and gets outrebounded pretty much every game, then you'll question things. i'm just being proactive.

but hey, great game from biedrins last night. 4 and 2. (but he put a body on dwight howard! he disrupted him!) howard went for 26 and 12. i've never heard of a center getting as much unmerited praise as beans gets on this board. he's supposed to put a body on howard. he's supposed to play defense. he's a professional center. is that the standard we hold him to? (but he's coming off surgery!) so? have we seen beans play any better on defense than he did last night? not really. he dug deep, gave his best. and the warriors won. but the magic are not as good as the warriors. if the warriors were in the east, and they committed to this team, they'd have a legit shot at making the finals EVERY YEAR. but we're not. we're in the west. we're never going to make it to the top as is. we'll always just be pretty good.

final point. i see that i can't sway the people here about the limitation of this man. fine, we have different opinions. but the fact of the matter is nelson only plays him half the game. he would prefer to go small as much as possible. for a team built to run, with a coach who doesn't play centers a lot, why spend 60 million over 6 years for andris? it's a bad financial move. mullin has worked so hard to get rid of bad contracts, why create a situation where we more than likely will have another one on our hands. why can't we spend the money on bench, roll players who can defend, and get a cheaper center that can play 20 mintues along with o bryant and croshere. biedrins production will never warrant the kind of money he's gonna get this offseason, and it doesn't make sense for the warriors to overpay for a center they won't play more than 30 minutes a game.

gm for a day - assemble best team from current nba players

Iggy_Zohn — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:54:31 -0000

it's sunday and i should be studying for finals, but the bulls pistons game is on tv and i'd rather think about basketball.

the other day my friends and i were tying to play gm for an imaginary nba team, where we could pick any player we wanted and assemble the perfect team. here's some rules we set down before we started.

1. you can't just put the best player at each position, like an all-star game. we need players that will work well together.

we decided that we all wanted to build our team around lebron, for obvious reasons. so with that in mind, we set out to field a team to maximize his skills.

here's what we came up with....

POINT GUARD: we don't really need someone who creates/gets a lot of assisst,s since lebron basically initiates his own offense and gets his teamates involved. so we wanted a lock down defedner, a veteran leader who has won in the play offs, and a good shooter.

reason: chauncey billups.
reason: not a true point guard anyway, one of the best players in the league, leader, hits pig shots, consistantly has run championship calibur team.

SHOOTING GUARD: We didn't go with the obvious choice, kobe, because we all agree that kobe could never accept a scottie pippen role to lebron's jordan. you don't need two people on a team than need to dominate the ball in order to be effective. so here we wanted another good defender, a spot up shooter who hits three pointers fairly consistently.

best fit: this is the one i'm not sure about. rip hamilton is a good defender and he shoots 45% from three (55 for 116). we thought of ray allen, but he's a bit old. michael redd could work too. what do you guys think?

SMALL FORWARD: lebron. he's the first option on offense, to both create and to get his teammates involved. he lacks on defense, so we need to hide his defficiencies (at least until he gets better on the defensive side in a few years).

POWER FORWARD: Need a low post scorer who rebounds, is athletic, knocks down a midranger (three point range would be nice too), leadership a plus, doesn't need to slow the offense down to be effective in post, can get teammates involved.

best fit: garnett (over duncan, we felt duncan is so good we'd need to cater some of the offense to him, and we'd rather not take away from lebron. we feel kg could adapt better to lebron's style. duncan sort of commands his own style.)

CENTER: dominant dunker, rebounder. doesn't need the ball a lot. Good defender, strong.

BEST FIT: Dwight Howard. This one was pretty easy. lebron and howard on the same court would be pretty cool. lebron, kg, and howard would be an amazingly athletic group.

The Warriors should draft Kevin Love with their first pick

Iggy_Zohn — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:19:11 -0000

Here's my argument -

our 1-3 is solidified for years. baron monta jax.

power forward is an interesting spot. harrington is good, great off the bench. brandan wright could be great. not great yet.

center. most teams would like to upgrade at center. the dubs are in a weird situation. we have a good young center. great right? well, he's a free agent after this year. if we can sign him for relatively cheap, let's sign him up! but if other teams regard him as highly as you guys on this blog do (doubt that, look at how he did in free agency last year. he hasn't proven anything this year that he didn't prove last year).

second, i say wright makes his abilities redundant in the long term. biedrins, for his position, is undersized, has a very limited offensive game, and low ceiling. he's about as good as he'll be. if anyone disagrees, explain where he'll improve. be substantive.

so here's why we should draft kevin love.

first of all, i go to ucla. i watch him play all the time. i've met the guy.

i'm aware he would be an undersized center in the nba. he's 6'10 260, and he's 18. he would have trouble elevating, slow footspeed. i get all that.

here's what he can do. he can score inside. he has post moves. he can dunk. he can set screens, he executes both the pick and roll and the pick and pop, he can shoot threes, he's the best passing big man to come out in a long time. high basketball iq.

while he may have a low ceiling as well, his game fits the dubs perefectly. he basically does what nelson wanted webber to do, but very well, as opposed to not so well.

with a front court of b wright and love, you have on the one had a super athletic, fast, long, slender, power forward that can create his own shot around the hoop. then, you have a bigger guy in love at the 5 that can block out, push people around, score A LOT, stretch defenses with his shot. he's webber current roll on the team, but younger and good. you don't need him to run the floor. are you guys familiar with his outlet passes? they're uncanny. he'd hit b wright and ellis all day. he's be the second best passer on the team behind davis.

i know what you're gonna say. too short, not athletic enough. But wright is. they compliment each other perfectly. then you factor in harrington off the bench, maybe even biedrins if we keep him.

then we could go harrington/biedrins or wright/love in the front court.

not only do i think this is a great idea, i think it's a much more likely scenario than you guys think in terms of this year's draft.

Biedrins' future with the dubs

Iggy_Zohn — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:37:48 -0000

something to think about -

i think we all are excited about brandan wright. many of us here think he's our power forward of the future, if not next year then the year after. great.

well, bearing that in mind, does that recast our plans for the offseason? everyone assumes that this summer baron will return, and mullin will sign ellis and biedrins. let's rethink this, for the sake of argument.

doesn't wright make biedrins a bit redudant? let's think about our starting lineup for next year

pg-baron davis
sg - monta ellis
sf - stephen jackson
pf - brandan wright
c - andris beidrins

it seems to me that a front court of wright and biedrins is just, uh, weak. how do they guard guys like dwight howard, andrew bynum, carlos boozer? they're just not strong. one of them is good, but i think you need to balance one with a stronger counterpart that can pass.

biedrins is two inches taller than wright, he's two years older, has less offensive moves. imagine wright in two years. wright brings everything beidrins brings, plus jump hooks from both hands, a mid range j, and who knows what else. look at how much ellis, biedrins improved from 20 to 22. no reason to believe wright won't do the same.

so couldn't we let biedrins go in the offseason, save some money, and draft/sign a better center?
nelson said last night after the game, he likes pairing brandan wright (athletic) with webber (non athletic). webber's gone after this year, how about KEVIN LOVE. he's strong, he can pass, he can shoot, she's just slow. he compliments brandan wright nicely. how about this in the future:

davis
ellis
jax
wright
love

imagine love throwing those outlet passes to wright and ellis. we would be a force for years, perenially competing with portland and la.

in summary - the emergence of wright makes biedrins expendable because he brings the same skills, only at the 4, plus hooks and mid range j. let's let ab go, get someone that better compliments wright, since i'd rather build around wright than ab. plus it saves us money, unless ab comes back to us for cheap.

and kevin love is a BOSS.