Call me crazy, but Chavy has always been my fav A of the current era.   And its been sad to watch him go thru these injuries when he was on the cusp of becoming a super star.   He was already a star defensive player and his heading kept improving..... Alot of people second question him getting 66 mil as opposed to making a big run at giambi or tejada, but at the time i thought it was the right move.  Some bad injury luck showed maybe it wasnt but one can't deny his talent.  He enters 2009 barely being 31, from 2000-2005 (age 22-27) he averaged 30 home runs and 100 rbi's with over a .350 obp. 

Then injuries started to plague him...however just yesterday:

Status Alert: Chavez (shoulder) says he has no doubt he'll be able to play third base next season. "I'm throwing at the stadium and that's feeling really good, and hitting is no problem at all," he told the San Francisco Chronicle. "The last three weeks, everything's come together. My shoulder feels better than it has in the past 10 years." (Jan 5)

he may never reach that potential we all set out for him when he was coming up, but if he can return the chavy of old (280 hitter, 350+ obp, 30 hr, 100rbi) i'll be ecstatic  what do people think he'll do in 2009?

Now that we're seeing prices drop.  I really hope beane has enough money left to get 1 proven SP.  

-Right now we got ducherer, who is off an injury but still quality.  Gallagher and eveland dont strike me as better than #3's and very blanton esque.  Gio Gonzalez is young.  Braden I'm not sold on as a starter...Outman I don't know enough about, and Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill are just 20 and only pitched double A, they could use atleast another year. 

A starting pitcher on a 1 to 3 year deal who is a proven commodity would be enough to put us in a very competitive situation for playoffs this year, and give your young arms 1 more year to develop.  

I heard Ben Sheets was looking at 2 year 20-25 mil offers.  He does have injury concerns but he is a quality pitcher.  Randy Wolf and Paul Byrd are available too.  Anyway I'm having a hard time finding articles on pitchers available and potential suitors/prices for them. 

Our current lineup will go:

1 Sweeney

2 Suzuki

3 Giambi

4 Holiday

5 Chavez

6 Cust

7 Crosby

8 Barton/Buck/Cunningham

9 Ellis

a HUGE improvement, and possibly better than anahiems.... if we could get a solid 1 or 2 pitcher (like sheets) or rotation could be sheets, ducherer, gallagher, eveland, braden which i think would be good enough for playoffs.....

Before I write this I should say, I am no management backer or trying to justify there actions.  I am simply trying to write what I think happened, what management attempted to do and then at the end i'll give my views.  I think too many people are blowing this out of proportion and not understanding how warriors got to the point they were at.Basically give some perspective, and ultimately hope for warriors fans...

(PS i realize for some of you this is a bit redundant, but for alot of panickers this might help regain a little faith we dont have the WORST management in the nba, not saying they r the best either :D)

-Starting with last summer, baron unexpectedly opted out.  This sent panic through management and they went looking for a replacement.  The reason maggette was signed was because MULLIN firmly believes monta can be a PG.  In theory its not far fetched.  He is barely 23 and is a good ball handler.  We've seen many winning teams with worse point guards (chicago bulls with ron harper for one).  But the idea was with good ball movement we could get away without a natural pg.  The other factor to consider was the only free agent pg was beno udrith, not exactly worth overpaying for.  Maggette atleast you get a proven player/scorer who showed something big in there playoff run 2 years ago and the thought was bring him to a team thats competitive he could up his game. 

-So going into the season the starting lineup looked to be monta, jack, mags, Harrington, biedrins.  Now if you look at that on paper with the expected progession of monta and biedrins this team could fight for a playoff spot.  The way monta was growing each season, Mullin fully expected an all star effort.  Harrington we all knew had the potential (as we are seeing in nyc) and strictly on skill sit, is a natural fit for Nellie ball as he's a match up nightmare for most pfs.  His defense is ok against most power forwards; sure he can’t guard Duncan or amare but who can?  Beyond the starting 5 turiaf was brought in as a much needed post body and Bwright was expected to contribute.  If he improved even more than expected Harrington could go down to 3 with bwright at 4 sometimes.  Next Marcus Williams was brought in as a natural ball handler.  Management acknowledged monta would have growing pains.  With Williams you have a natural ball handler who could move monta to the 2 at times and give them some minutes.  Finally Belinelli was expected to contribute at swing position along with kelena.  That’s a 10 man rotation.  Randolph wasn’t thought to be a big contributing factor this year (11th man) and the 12th was suppose to be cj Watson or someone else who fought hard and had a good camp. 

-On paper this looks like a good squad with some good young players who could grow.  But then the problems happened.

1) Monta goes down.  The warriors budding star, best player and future of franchise gets hurt in a bonehead moped accident.  This cannot be stated enough for why the warriors are doing so badly.  Monta at the rate of his progression was coming into a big year.

2) Harrington.  On paper this guy is an ideal fit for Nellie ball, and a match up nightmare.  If Bwright grew into a competent power forward Al could even rotate between the 3 and the 4. Causing match up problems at both.  But since beginning of camp he sulked and wanted out.  It became so evident and his performance sunk that his trade value fell.  Ultimately we got a player Crawford who is VERY good but exactly NOT what we need. It left the warriors w/ Biedrins turiaf and 2 young forwards (wright, Randolph) and an undrafted forward (kurz)

3) More injuries.  Like maggette and jack or hate them, they is better than everyone on warriors roster today, sans monta.  Even though they are both flawed, having them in lineup would probably get atleast a couple more wins. 

All this added up has lead to warriors being 8-21 and not looking like its going to get better before it gets worse.

Now I’ll give my opinion;

I think management made a poor decision and overpaid maggette but I get why they did.  And if we didn’t have the moped or Harrington sulking this team would be at about .500 through the toughest stretch of the season.  

I have every reason to believe monta would have been an all star.  Look at Biedrins improvement, it even surprised me.  Now look back to monta improving year after year.  I’m not saying he’s as good as Dwayne Wade or Brandon Roy (and he’s a different player) but looking at him at 22 compared to them, he was at a more advanced place.  That doesn’t mean he’ll ever reach Dwayne Wade’s level but he its also foolish to think he wouldn’t be a HUGE difference maker.  And thinking if he continues improving in 2-3 years he could have been a franchise player in nba, something HARD to find, and something that all of a sudden makes golden state an attractive place to come for other stars. 

Second Al really ruined out season.  If he just played his game and opted out we’d have 10 mil cap space and he’d get his money.  And in the meantime he would have made us a good team.  Instead we got Crawford who plays same position as EVERY other good player on this team, not to mention 2 more years of big contract (as most people don’t expect him to opt out).

Finally, marcus williams was a huge mistake.  The idea of him was good, a natural ball hander pg to bring in when monta is struggling, and move him to the 2.  He is young, and I believe Mullin though he could be better than he is.  He isn’t, he will be gone at end of year.  I’d suggest next off season we sign some1 like Anthony Johnson or another vet pg who can give minutes and knows his role

Where to go from here:

I think its obvious to all maggette or Crawford has to go.  I’d argue mags first but I think Crawford is more attractive trade bait.  We cannot have 4 guards taking over 40 mil and over 2/3 our cap space….even 3 is excessive. 

Ideally we can move Crawford for expiring contracts.  If we win lottery we take Blake griffin, otherwise We look for of solutions. 

There is still a lot of positives to look forward to from this team; Monta is only 23, I think he will come back hungry and ready to prove.  He may be rusty and not look 100% this year (similar to dwade off injury) but I fully expect after some criticism and a hard summer of work he’ll be back at top of his game (something we aren’t even sure how good it is) beginning of next season.  Belinelli is proving to be a VERY good swing player.  Creator, shooter, improving defense and only 22.  There’ no reason to think he won’t continue improving and be a very solid pro perhaps more.  With Biedrins we got a young, very talented player at the rarest position, center.  He may not be Dwight Hward or Yao Ming, but I’d rank him in top 10 centers in nba today and will only improve.  He shoots 60%, and is averaging 15 and 12, and following the adonal, damp, fuller years, that is amazing.  We have Anthony Randolph who is years away, but at 19 has shown a lot of hunger and desire and theres no reason to think he wont be a player for the future.  We found good roll players like turiaf and steals from the D-league like kelena and morrow.  

It sucks waiting for the future, but in the nba, unless you are the lakers or knicks you basically have to build something from within before you can attract the big free agents who want to come to win.  Look at the mavericks.  Laughing stock for 20 years, all of a sudden they start being a playoff fixture and free agents now want to go there. It takes some good drafting, some luck and some time.   We got the young players we drafted, we need them to improve and who knows, thinks turn around fast, perhaps a playoff run in 2010, a little more cap space and we could attract a player who will take us to the next level

I think most of us will agree, we are in a major rebuild mode.  This team will be good when monta come back, but still not playoff caliber, perhaps next year they can FIGHT for 8 seed but still, the make up of this team isnt 1 to go far.  So this got me thinking, who if anyone could we get in the fames summer of 2010 class.  Right now we dont have the cap room at all, but alot can happen in 2 summers.  Using hoopshype, we can see how much room we can create.... http://hoopshype.com/salaries/golden_state.htm

1st maggette will have to go.  At this point i'm in favor of mags for anyone whose contract comes off fast.  Preferably a pf or center who can contribute something like say joe smith.  Clearl oe smith + whoever is not equal to maggette, but it might make us a better team, and definitely put us in much better situation for free agents

2nd I think most people agree crawford wont opt out so we got him till 2011.  If he does GREAT, but if he doesnt i think we'll trade deadline time next year we could probably easily move him for expiring contracts to a team in need of a boost.  

those 2 alone would clear 19.86 mil putting us at 36.54.  We could also move 'buke w/ crawford as most teams would love an energy guy like him.  No 'buke would put us down at $33.2mil.  At th minimum i see us wanting to pick up bellinelli and randolphs options which is another $4.2 mil (i left wright out because i assume wed have to trade him as an attractive young player w/ a bad contract player like crawford or buke).  All and all this would put us at 37.2mil.  

 currently the salary cap is set at $58.6 mil, its safe to assume itll move to over 60 mil in 2010 (but we can use 60 as measuring point.)

-37.2mil to monta, biedrins, jack, turiaf, bellinelli, randolph

http://www.nba.com/news/cba_summary_050804.html

"

• 0-6 years of service: 25% of Salary Cap ($12 million this year).


• 7-9 years of service: 30% of Salary Cap ($14.4 million this year).


• 10 or more years of service: 35% of Salary Cap ($16.8 million this year).

The maximum player salaries will continue to be based on a 48.04% of BRI Salary Cap (not on the new, higher Salary Cap)."

Now the 2 players i'd want to go for more than anyone: CHris Bosh or amare stoudlemire.  Both would fit the system perfectly.  I think Amare might be a harder sell, but going into 2010 we'll have monta at age 24, biedrins 24, bellinelli 24, randolph 21, jack 31.  This could be a very attractive player for ap layer like bosh who will be 26.  Bosh would have finished his 7th year...meaning bosh would demand a salary of 18 mil.  

the 18 + 37.2 would put us at 55.2 + this years first round pick who i project to be a pg (hopefully pg for future) at 2.5 mil of so a season.  leaving us a couple mil to fill out the roster.  I realize that seems small, but boston filled out there roster on mostly minimum contracts after peirce, allen garnett.

i realize im deep in fantasy bball land but i pose question to you, 1) if anyone has insight to whether we could attract said players... 2) would u be willing to deal w/ what is basically going to be a 1.5 season fire sale.  

I personally would because this core wont win anything, but if we build around monta, biedrins... perhaps bellinelli randolph show to be real players.... adding a real all star could make this team an upper teir team.  Remember in 2010, kobe will be 32, and although i fully expect lakers to still be dominant, they could slide.  Spurs should be very declined.  Houston again is built on over 30 players, and an injury prone yao ming... they dont have forever.....Dallas and pheonix are already sliding.  Portland, utah (if they keep boozeR) and new orleans will be rising.... but the idea of warriors + bosh as i proposed could elevate to top tier.

PG: rookie (perhaps stephen curry or brandon jennings) + league minimum vet who will be easy to attract when the blue print for a winning team is here

SG: Monta, bellinelli

SF: Jack, bellinelli, randolph

PF: Bosh, randolph

C: Biedrins, turiaf

clearly we'd need to fill out the roster but if there's something we've learned.... there r players like buke, morrow to be had in d-league who r more than sufficient for ur 10th man on a team