SB Nation User Blog: ffgolden

Complement vs. Compliment

ffgolden — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:59:17 -0000

Complement vs. Compliment

Complement: something that completes or makes perfect. A big, defense-oriented guard would be a good complement to Monta in the backcourt.

Compliment: an expression of praise, commendation, or admiration. Nellie complimented Randolph on his first 30 pt, 20 reb game.

Warriors PR Boondoggle

ffgolden — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:35:44 -0000

Warriors PR Boondoggle

Can't believe I'm actually linking to Kawakami, but this story deserves some discussion at GSOM, and frankly it's surprising that it isn't front page news...

Another draft fanpost: BPA vs. Need

ffgolden — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:11:16 -0000

There seems to be a Holiday Movement growing in the last few days. Let me get this out of the way: I didn't watch much of his play at UCLA, and don't have a strong opinion about how good of a pro he'll turn out to be.

My problem isn't with Holiday, but with the primary point of reasoning behind drafting him: that he has the size and PG abilities to play alongside Monta in the backcourt. Should this be our main focus going into the draft?

Here's what we know:

Nelson isn't known for playing young, green players, unless they do one or two things really well.
Nelson thinks Monta's future is at the point, and plans to play him there this season. Remember, he said this long before Baron left the team — it's not something the team is saying just because they don't have any other options at PG.
Nelson wants to play Jackson at the 2 because of his lack of rebounding at the 3, his good perimeter defense, and his ability to post up smaller players.

Nellie could certainly change his mind, as he is wont to do, but I'm not gonna assume so until I hear some suggestion of it.

So, knowing what we know, why pick somebody like Holiday based on the assumption that he'll suddenly be playing alongside Monta for the majority of the game? Is he such a polished point guard that Nellie will scrap the plan, move Monta back to the 2, and Jack back to the 3? It's much more likely that he'll be playing off the bench for a short amount of minutes, if at all.

I don't mean to pick on Holiday. If he's the best player available at #7, then by all means, Riles should select him. But if Thabeet's available, and he's deemed the best player on the board? Pick him — he can help bolster the frontcourt. If Jennings is determined to have the better value? Pick him, I don't care if he's not as good a fit alongside Monta in the backcourt. If Harden falls? Pick him, find a place for him in the backcourt or use his value in a trade.

We need more talent, period — we shouldn't pigeonhole ourselves because we think a certain guy will solve such a specific perceived need, especially when our knowledge of Nellie's plans is contrary to that solution coming to immediate fruition.

Monta Ellis: Point Guard of the Future? The debate rages on!

ffgolden — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:54:00 -0000

There seems to be a near consensus amongst the GSOM faithful that the Warriors’ biggest position of need is at point guard. Almost everyone this side of Don Nelson thinks that Monta Ellis should be, and always will be, a shooting guard, and that the Monta@point experiment should be abandoned. With the draft fast approaching, this topic needs further discussion. And if GSOM is good at one thing, it’s discussing the crap out of something.

I, for one, contend that we should not be so hasty in calling for the abandonment of the Monta experiment.

1) At least give him a damn training camp at the position!

Monta is still a very young player, and does not have much experience playing the 1. He’s got a lot to learn. But do we know for certain that he can’t pick up some of the requisite knowledge to play the position? Our natural inclination is to look at him solely as a great scorer, because that’s all we’ve seen him do. And with Baron getting the reps at point in previous training camps, and the moped ordeal last training camp, he hasn’t been able to properly prepare to do anything else.

I think we should give him a chance to learn the position a little more: passing angles, reading defenses, reading his teammates’ movements, the art of the bounce pass, etc. But we also need to give Nelson a chance to teach him some plays. Monta doesn’t have natural point guard tendencies because he hasn’t played the position, so getting reps in training camp with actual plays is a critical step in him preparing for the position.

2) He’s a defensive liability at Shooting Guard.

You don’t see many people arguing against this one, and yet the only solution presented seems to be, “pair him with a big point guard capable of defending the 2”. Who and where are these magical big point guards? Is there a Magic Johnson Tree hidden in the depths of the Amazon rain forest? Or is it as simple as landing the #2 pick in the draft and selecting Ricky Rubio, who will instantly cure all that ails us? But we’ll get back to that in a moment.

Monta may be a defensive liability regardless of which backcourt position he plays—if he only put more effort into fighting through screens, it might be a different story, but I digress—and so pairing him with a good on-ball defender is of great importance. Someone with length, height, and toughness, who’s willing to work hard on the defensive end and relishes playing against great offensive players. Maybe one who can also pass a little bit. Hmm, that description reminds me of someone... Captain somethingorother?

3) Do we really have any great alternatives?

I’d be as happy as the next guy if we somehow attained a franchise point guard. Why not? If Chris Paul were in a Warriors uni, who really cares if we have one of the smaller backcourts in the league? Maybe Chicago doesn’t like the pressure of playoffs and expectations of a bright future, and decide to trade Derrick Rose?

No, the reality is that we’re much more likely to end up with Raymond Felton, or Jarret Jack, or Kirk Hinrich. In the draft, maybe we end up with Jennings, or Lawson. Is a pairing of any of those guys with Monta better than one of Monta + Jackson? Monta will never be a 10+ APG player, but will any of those other guys, either?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for drafting a point guard—if he’s the BPA. We certainly need a better passing game, and a pass-first point guard off the bench would be great. Watson has made strides, but mostly as a scorer, and Ty Lawson would probably be an instant improvement over CJ in most aspects of the game.

But we do have other needs, primary rebounding and defense. And I think it’ll be a lot easier for us to find a versatile 3 that can give us a bit of both, rather than find a point guard that’s good enough to make up for the weaknesses of Monta at the 2 and Jackson at the 3. Monta’s not an ideal point guard, but there are very few that are, and barring some miracle where we DO get our ideal point guard, let’s give Monta a training camp to see if he can do the job.

Report: Harrington as sixth man?

ffgolden — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 06:11:54 -0000

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/15/SPCJSQ8QA.DTL&type=sports

We've heard Nellie talk about Harrington as a sixth man before, and it really does make a lot of sense: he's a tweener that can play three positions (at least for Nellie), he can be a big time scorer, and Nellie can choose who to match him up against, rather than him going against the opposing PF by default. All well and good.

But who starts at PF? According to Janny:

If that happens, Nelson said that Matt Barnes, Mickael Pietrus and Austin Croshere were all candidates to start at power forward.

Do any of these guys make more sense as starters than Harrington? I always thought the move would be great if we had a solid role-playing PF that could rebound, play defense, and finish inside when asked to. Barnes and Pietrus rebound well for their position, but their position is not starting PF. Croshere... well, we'll let Sleepy speak on him.

Obviously both Barnes and Pietrus did an admirable job down the stretch and in the playoffs last year. Does that work in the regular season, when teams have all of that game tape to scout and find advantages? Does this suddenly put even more of an onus on Baron in the first quarter, without one of their top scorers on the court?

Poll

Should Harrington be the sixth man?

Yes

23 votes

No

78 votes

Allison Stokke

22 votes

123 votes | Poll has closed

Biedrins: To extend, or not to extend? (Update: SFGate art.)

ffgolden — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:36:32 -0000

For much of the offseason I've been in the "re-sign everybody" camp: Baron, Barnes, Biedrins, Nellie, hell even Pietrus for a little while. Obviously, I liked last season's team, and my gut reaction is to keep them together.

But as we all know, Mullin's played a great game of hardball throughout the offseason. Nellie backed off of his demands, Barnes returned at a reasonable price, Sarunas was bought out for a little more than the price of his first-class plane ticket to Greece, and now Mullie is refusing to overpay for Baron's return. So far, so good. Mullin's converted me to a hardballer.

So what about Biedrins? It seems like a given that he's going to be re-signed, because lord knows we need him on this team. But at this point, after all of the other hard bargaining Mullin has done, why offer a lucrative extension to Biedrins now? If you're not going to offer an extension to your superstar and team leader, why offer one to Andris? He's going to be a restricted free agent next summer, so the Warriors can always match whatever offer sheets are put on the table, and surely Andris' free agent value is not going to surpass the $10mil/year we're all assuming Mullin's going to re-sign him for, even if he does improve by another leap/bound.

He could, of course, pull a Varejao/Pavlovic and just refuse to report to camp, if nobody offers him a decent contract and the qualifying offer of $3.6mil is all that's on the table. But unlike Cleveland, we should have decent cap room next summer, which would allow us to increase the offer if Andris refuses the qualifying.

So aside from "good will"--which nobody else has received from Mullin this offseason, without any negative consequences quite yet--what other reasons are there to offer Biedrins big money this offseason?

============================================

[Moderator's Note, by OptionZero:]

According to Janny Hu, the Warriors are indeed looking to get a deal done this month:

Both Warriors vice president Chris Mullin and Bill Duffy, Biedrins' agent, anticipate talks to pick up as preseason moves along, and although neither is publicly offering any numbers, all signs point toward a deal getting done.

GSoF: Manny Lawson tears ACL, done for season

ffgolden — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:49:28 -0000

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3029152

Crap. He was really starting to come along, too. I don't really know too much about Navies; he hasn't made any notable plays thus far in his limited minutes. Might open up the opportunity for Brandon Moore to take back some of the minutes Willis took from him (for good reason).

Sarunas speaks to ESPN

ffgolden — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:01:00 -0000

Runi spoke with Chris Sheridan of ESPN.com. Not really all that much new here, but worth posting nonetheless. Here are some relevant quotes:

"I'm really waiting for [Golden State] to trade me. It's been going on since February, and nothing's happening. I really don't understand this franchise, to be honest with you. I know what kind of offers they got for me, and they're not taking them. I know they're not planning on using me, so I really don't understand what they're trying to do with me. In that league, absolutely nothing depends on me, so I'm sitting by the phone and waiting."

Well maybe you shouldn't have picked up your option.

"It's a decision I'm going to have to make after the Eurobasket, but I think I'm going to go back to training camp and just wait and see what happens."

Buyout thus doubtful.

"As far as I know, there's really not much going on now," Jasikevicius said. "But from what I hear from my agent, Golden State had a lot of interesting offers. Whether they want to add another piece or add another expiring contract like mine with another piece, I've had my hopes up 10-12 times of getting out of there, and nothing happened."

Again, if you wanted out, you shouldn't have picked up your option. Greed is a bitch.

Report: Adonal to Orlando Now Official

ffgolden — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:44:31 -0000

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/orl-bk-foyle082207,0,2019944.story

Obviously Howard's the man there, but Otis Smith really blew it when he gave away the franchise's future for Rashard Lewis while ignoring Milicic's existence. Foyle actually has a good chance of getting PT there, as they are desperately thin in the front court. Congrats and good luck, Adonal.

====================================

[Moderator's Note, by OptionZero:]

The signing is now official.

According to user djchuckdeez:

The Orlando Magic signed free agent center Adonal Foyle on Friday, bringing in a shot blocker to join star Dwight Howard in the front court. Source: Yahoo Sports

I am happy for him, I think he'll probably see some more pt too.

Report: Francis signs with Houston

ffgolden — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 18:50:10 -0000

This may be a non-factor, but I found it interesting. Steve Francis is going to sign with the Houston Rockets.

Years after Houston traded him for McGrady, they end up getting him back for close to nothing (probably--haven't seen the contract details, of course).

Does anybody think Francis has anything left in the tank? If he does, and they stay healthier this season, Houston is going to leapfrog a number of teams in the West, right into that top echelon that includes the other two Texan teams along with Phoenix. They've already acquired Euro-star Luis Scola, as well as getting Mike James for Howard. If Francis gets in shape, they'll suddenly be a lot more athletic in the front AND backcourt.

This doesn't really affect the Dubs too much, as Houston was already ahead of them on the conference depth chart.

SB Nation User Blog: ffgolden

Complement vs. Compliment

Complement vs. Compliment

Warriors PR Boondoggle

Warriors PR Boondoggle

Another draft fanpost: BPA vs. Need

Monta Ellis: Point Guard of the Future? The debate rages on!

Report: Harrington as sixth man?

Should Harrington be the sixth man?

Yes

No

Allison Stokke

Biedrins: To extend, or not to extend? (Update: SFGate art.)

GSoF: Manny Lawson tears ACL, done for season

Sarunas speaks to ESPN

Report: Adonal to Orlando *Now Official*

Report: Francis signs with Houston

Report: Adonal to Orlando Now Official