Stephen Curry is having a decent rookie season when you look at his numbers. But if you have actually been watching the games you might see a player who can't stay in front of his man and makes mistakes that are not being corrected. Stephen is at a point where he would benefit from coming off of the bench as opposed to playing through his mistakes. The Warriors envision Curry as their point guard of the future but right now the job has proven too much for him to handle. Over the past few gams his confidence has clearly taken some hits and his play has been noticeably less aggressive since the start of the season. Especially at the defensive end.


Typically I am not in favor of benching rookies but Curry is in danger of entering the same place that Mike Dunleavy Jr. was in when he was with the Warriors. A place where night in and night out he is overmatched with the best athletes in the world and his lack of physical ability starts to play on his mind. Stephen is a shooter, no one is denying that. The dubs need to use him as such.

If he came off the bench as a scorer he would greatly benefit. Right now the task of running a team and guarding the other teams 1st or second best player is proving to be too much for him. One encouraging thing about Curry's performances is that his shooting hasn't really declined. His performance against Milwaukee was forgotten because of Jennings' 55 points, but he came off the bench and scored 14 points on 6 of 9 shooting in the same game. His numbers are actually down when the W's win. In 9 victories Curry is averaging 25 minutes per. In 23 losses he's averaging 34 minutes.

Tonight the W's play the Denver Nuggets who are without Chauncey Billups and Carmelo Anthony. Curry will most likely be matched up with fellow rookie Ty Lawson, Curry should at least come out even in this matchup. Lawson is far more athletic, but they both played in college for the same amount of time and tonight is an opportunity for Steph to prove that he belongs in the starting lineup, especially against a fellow rookie. Afterall, Lawson was the one picked 18th overall not 7th.


Everyone hopes Curry becomes the next Steve Nash but lets not forget that Nash learned from the bench as well as the starting lineup for the early part of his career. He also had the luxury of Jason Kidd and Kevin Johnson's brains to pick from, whereas Curry has no such luxury. The dubs have not put him in a position to succeed very often this season, as evidenced by his constantly shooting off the dribble and never coming around or off of screens. In college he proved that he was very adept at performing the latter. Perhaps he would benefit from watching the flow of the game at the start and then he would be better prepared to pick his spots while out on the floor. He would also be able to see what is working for the opposing team's PG and what is not. We new Curry would not be able to defend NBA athletes early on, and that he would have trouble adjusting to playing the point full time. So lets allow him to focus on one thing at a time for right now, shooting. He's good at it.

 

Cap room provides flexibility, where you can trade from a position of power, something that the W’s are never able to do. By the way, if we draft John Wall this year, and keep Curry, wouldn’t that retard Curry’s development even further? Has anyone stopped to think that if we do get the number one pick and draft John Wall we will have 3 pg's? Just putting that out there. If Steve Nash-err-I mean Stephen Curry is still on the team, and Monta Ellis as well, than who will have to sacrifice minutes?

 Cap room also would allow the Warriors to take on players for next to nothing, like how the Thunder got Eric Maynor this past week and how the Grizzlies got Zach Randolph, the Clippers and Camby, etc. These trades will never happen to us because of Vladimir and Maggette contracts.

 Let's say the W's headed into the offseason with $30 million in cap room. The draft comes first so hopefully we'll get a shot at Derrick Favors. If not, Evan Turner or Xavier Henry would be nice options. I like the kid from Syracuse as well. If John Wall is there, I would take him, because he has shown he has the ability to defend and he's athletic enough to guard bigger players. But I think Turner would fit perfectly with Monta. Either way we're in a win-win situation unless we fall out of the top 6.

 So this is where we left off with those terrible trades. We would have two 1st round picks plus two 2nd round picks in a draft with plenty of big men and potential stars. Heading into the off-season we would have a payroll of just $22,736,660. Our roster heading into the draft would look like this:

5	Brandon Bass	PF	24	6-8	250	LSU	$4,000,000
7	Kelenna Azubuike	SF	26	6-5	220	Kentucky	$3,100,000
8	Monta Ellis	SG	24	6-3	180		$11,000,000
22	Anthony Morrow	SG	24	6-5	210	Georgia Tech	$736,420
21	Ronny Turiaf	C	26	6-10	250	Gonzaga	$4,140,000

 

Morrow is a restricted free agent at the end of the year and I would be willing to match most offers he would receive that are within reason. That would also depend on who we get in the draft though.

 The W’s probably won’t have a shot at D-Wade & Lebron but is that the only way to build a team? We will have realistic shots at:

 Amar’e Stoudemire

Rudy Gay-Who would be an upgrade over Randolph

Sean Williams-The Randolph of the Nets, check this youtube clip if you don’t believe me. And he’ll come cheap.

With all of our cap room we would have the ability to sign all three of these players at the same time. Williams would provide the defense and rebounding, Rudy would be a perfect third option and we know what Amar’e can do.

If we do end up getting Favors than we don't need to offer Amar'e a contract. If we get Turner than we can offer Amar'e a max contract or maybe low ball him a bit and offer him $13-15 million a year. We then still have $15 million left to build with. I wouldn’t mind overpaying for Gay at this point if it made our lineup look like this:

PG-Monta Ellis-$11 million

SG-Evan Turner-$3 million

SF-Rudy Gay-$13 million

PF-Brandon Bass-$4 million

C-Amar’e Stoudemire-$16 million/Derrick Favors-$3 million

Bench: 

Ronny Turiaf/Sean Williams-$4 million/$1.5 million    

Anthony Morrow-$3-3.5 million

Kelenna Azubuike-$3.3 million

Javaris Crittenton-$1-2 million

2 second round picks for the final roster spots, plus that late 1st round pick that could be used as another trade chip or we take a flyer on him. You know, kinda like Monta or Gilbert.

Still have around $16 million left to sign Amar’e if we don’t get Derrick Favors. If the Grizz don’t match Rudy than I’m bringing back Morrow and calling it a day. The only difficulty is that we would have to play a little bit of a waiting game because Gay is a Restricted Free Agent. If we get Favors than that means no Evan Turner, but we’ll definitely get Gay as a result.

So let me do you guys a favor now and look at the worst case scenario lineup for next season.

Monta Ellis-$11 mill

Anthony Morrow-$3 mill

Evan Turner-$3 mill

Brandon Bass-$4 mill

Ronny Turiaf/Sean Williams-$4 mill, and $2 mill

1st round pick that we take a flyer on.

Azubuike-$3 mill

About $30 mill left in cap space.  

At this point in time this is what your team will look like next year anyway. You’ll be hoping that Turner is the next Brandon Roy and that Curry goes from 12 & 5 to 15 & 7. This doesn’t sound to promising either. And finally for the grand finale, I’m hiring Brian Shaw. He spent the last 4 years learning from Phil Jackson, he’s young and he’s from Oakland so he’ll come cheap. Now that I have spelled out what the W’s should do, please, offer your criticisms. It’s what you guys are best at. I call myself Solutions because instead of complaining on blogs all day I actually try to come up with alternatives. Maybe I should change my name to "Hope" as in: I "hope" that Curry becomes Steve Nash! I "hope" that Randolph develops a post-game, puts on weight, and gets a jumper. I hope that they all stay with the Warriors forever and ever like all of our other stars from the past 20 years!"

Wow! Hoping is so much fun! I feel a lot better now about our 8-21 record. 

 

 

The purpose of the trades from the previous post was to clear cap room so we can build around Monta. Corey Maggette’s contract will not be taken off of our hands unless we give up someone young and good to go with it. Brandan Wright does not qualify because he can’t stay healthy and Randolph doesn’t get to play. Yes he started against New Orleans but that was only his second start of the season. It took 27 games for the coaches to realize he should play.

 Randolph can’t be the future if he doesn’t get to play or want to stay with this team. Why would he? He hadn’t been starting because of Vladimir Radmanovic.

 Vladimir Radmanovic.

If Randolph is finally starting when we’re 7-21 then he is expendable. By the way, what is with this obsession we have of thinking all our young players are "untouchable" when their own coaches won’t even play them? Yes they have potential but does anyone truly believe that they will realize it with the Warriors? Monta Ellis has realized his potential and continues to build on it even as we speak, yet nobody wants to give him cap room? Because you don’t want to give up Stephen Curry and Anthony Randolph!

Still want to keep Curry over Amar’e Stoudemire?

Curry is putting up 12 points and 5 assists a game. Really? Untouchable? "He’s the future, he’s going to be a star, and he’s the next Steve Nash!" I get it, yeah I really do. Keep in mind though that this is the same franchise that traded Tim Hardaway.

20 & 10 Tim Hardaway! Do you really think Curry will ever get to that level? While playing next to Monta? Let’s be realistic. By the way, when Nellie finally retires (because he’s not going to this year and he might not next year) what coach in his right mind would play Curry and Ellis together?

 We need to build around Monta right now. Not later, not soon, now. Have you even seen the games this year? When is the last time you saw a 6’3" guard with a post game? Monta is playing out of his mind this year and it shouldn’t be put to waste. If you can think of some better trades, by all means, be my guest.

 But if we made those trades our lineup would look like this the rest of the year.

 PG-Monta Ellis

SG-J.J. Redick

SF-Anthony Morrow

PF-Brandon Bass

C-Whoever else Nelson wants to insert so that we don’t resemble an actual team.

 You can’t tell me this team would do worse than 7-21. We’d have tons of cap room for the biggest summer in free agent history, plus were going to end up with a high draft pick this year as well.

 Because Curry isn’t Steve Nash and Randolph doesn’t get to play if you haven’t noticed. 

 

The W’s payroll is $63,455,598 as of 12/16/2009. They’re $5,755,598 over the cap, here’s the first trade.

 

1. Andris Biedrins                                                                  Zydrunas Ilgauskas

    5-years $9,000,000                        To Cleveland                 1-year $11,541,074

                                                              For                           2010 1st Round Draft Pick

 

Cleveland would make this trade because they need a big man that can actually move. Biedrins would be a huge upgrade over Big Z and Shaq. He and Lebron on the pick and roll is a significant upgrade over Andersen Varejao. We’ll send out Mikki Moore as well to make the money work.

 

2. Anthony Randolph                                                                   Dorell Wright

    2-years $1,837,560                          To Miami                                1-year $2,887,165        

    Corey Maggette                                     For                         Udonis Haslem                 

    4-years $8,937,931                                                                   1-$7,100,000

                                                                                            

Miami gets a replacement PF for Haslem with real potential. Pat Riley loves hybrid types like Randolph and he usually has success with developing them. Corey’s contract does hinder the deal a bit but Miami isn’t giving up much as it is and they would still have plenty of cap room for the future even with this deal. If Maggette’s contract is still too hard to swallow then I’ll throw Brandan Wright in as well. Otherwise, rumors state that Miami would love to have Andris so that may be an option as well. In which case, I would have to take back Mario Chalmers and his expiring deal.

 

3.   Vladimir Radmanovic                                                Brandon Bass  

       2-years $6,466,600                                                   4-years $4,000,000

       Stephen Curry                            To Orlando              J.J. Redick

       2-years $2,710,560                          For                    2-years $2,839,408

                                                                                        2010 2nd Round Draft Pick

        

Instead of taking back a 1st round pick the Magic would just take Vladimir back instead. They have a trade exception that would make it work.  

 

4.  Vladimir Radmanovic                                               Brian Cardinal                          

     2-years $6,466,600                                                   1-year $6,750,000

     Anthony Randolph                                                    Nathan Jawai

     2-years $1,837,560               To Minnesota                1-year $736,420

     Brandan Wright                           For                          Oleksiy Pecherov

     2-years $2,671,440                                                   1-year $1,547,640

                                                                                      2010 1st Round Draft Pick

Shaun Livingston is currently unemployed after being cut by the Thunder. The Warriors are in need of a point guard that stands taller than 6'3'' and can play defense. He would come cheap and would at the very least challenge Stephen Curry to play better. Again, Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis will not be able to play together for the long term future. The experiment hasn't been very successful at the present time either.
Shaun Livingston has regained his mobility and proven that his knee is stable enough to play 20-30 minutes a game. The Warriors are 7-21 and their starting point guards' numbers look like this:

009-10 Statistics			FG		3PT		FT		Rebounds			Misc
	G	MIN	FGM-A	FG%	3PM-A	3P%	FTM-A	FT%	OFF	DEF	TOT	STL	BLK	TO	PF	AST	PTS
Season	28	33.2	129-290	.445	37-95	.389	43-51	.843	0.4	3.4	3.8	1.89	.36	2.64	3.36	4.8	12.1

Not bad but not great. We need Steph to be more aggressive and to take care of the ball a lot better. His defense leaves much to be desired. It would be improved if he would simply give his man some space and surrender the jumper from time to time. He guards everyone as if they're just as good a shooter as he is. His decision making is good but he would benefit from seeing Livingston run a team. Shaun has been a point guard his entire life, as opposed to just two years.
In one of the two games that Curry hasn't started this season, he played very well as a scorer off the bench. He was aggressive and didn't play like he wasn't trying to make mistakes. As a starter, he begins the game in a quasi passing/shooting mode. He seems to be unsure of what he wants to do from one play to the next, and of what his exact role is. These are common problems for a rookie but hasn't Anthony Randolph been banished to the bench for these very same reasons?
I know that Livingston isn't a superstar that would turn the season around, but we need to do something. Monta needs more help on defense, and now that Randolph has proven he can protect the rim, Livingston would be a great addition. Defense is what he does best next to his passing. He also doesn't need to shoot so he would be a welcome addition to an offense that has far too many possessions where the ball is passed one time before someone launches a 17 footer.
The W's like to run but often their fast breaks are unbalanced yet scattered at the same time. Imagine Shaun pulling down the rebound and leading the break with his vision and passing ability. Certainly Maggette would benefit from a true point guard that could get him easy baskets off of back door cuts and fast-breaks. Wouldn't that be more pleasing than watching Maggette hold the ball for 8 seconds before launching an ill-advised jumper from the wing?
Signing Livingston would not hurt the Warriors, it could only help them. Especially since we started three guards last night with none being taller than 6'3''. He would provide passing and stability to the most important position on the court. We aren't going to the playoffs but we still need to build around Monta for the present and future, having Livingston would help with both.
Livingston might steal some minutes from Curry, but wouldn't that be more reasonable than Radmanovic stealing minutes from Randolph? Wouldn't Shaun starting at small forward be more reasonable than C.J. Watson doing so?