As with pretty much everything with Monta Ellis, the thought of the Warriors trading him for an oft-injured big man and an extraordinarily flawed, past his prime wing leaves me feeling conflicted. Conflicted is so often the name of the game with Monta. Ellis was always a contradiction, simultaneously overrated and underrated. He is blessed with enormous talent, incredible "blow-by" quickness, a quick release, and excellent court vision, yet more often than not his teams did better with him on the bench. He was labeled a shoot-first gunner, yet he was near the top of the league in teammates’ shooting percentage from his passes. He was considered an attitude problem, yet always seemed to give his all on the court, was never ejected from a game, and rarely got technical fouls.

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Yesterday, I posted a fanshot linking to an article by Sebastian Pruiti in his NBA Playbook blog where he attempted to bust the myth that Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry can't play together. This of course stems from Monta Ellis himself, as he famously said at media day last year:

-Q: Were you OK with them drafting Stephen Curry? He’s pretty similar to you…

-ELLIS: I mean, I don’t have a problem. Whatever decision they make upstairs, that’s their decision. They’re doing it for a reason.

I’m going to wish Curry the best in training camp, get better as his career goes on. We’re not worrying about it. We’re teammates. We’re not out here fighting for a position, because that’s not the case.

-Q: Can you see yourself playing with Curry in the backcourt?

-ELLIS: I can’t answer that. Us together? No.

-Q: Why not?

-ELLIS: Can’t. We just can’t.

-Q: Too small? Too similar?

-ELLIS: Just can’t.

-Q: The Warriors say you can.

-ELLIS: They say we can? Yeah. If they say it. But we can’t.

-Q: You wouldn’t want to give it a shot?

-ELLIS: I just want to win. That’s… not going to win that way.

-Q: Why not?

-ELLIS: It’s different when you’re trying to compare me and Stephen, when you’re trying to go back to when me and BD were playing, it’s a different situation.

You’ve got a nine-year veteran who’s been in the game, who understands the game, knows how to play the game, and he’s a big body…

You can’t put two small guys out there and try to play the 1 and the 2 when you’ve got big 2 guards in the league. You just can’t do it.

OK, yes, we’re going to move up and down fast, but eventually the game is going to slow down.

You can’t do it

(Source) .

Pruiti made several excellent points about how Curry and Ellis played last year, and how they play together. He provides some video evidence, some excellent analysis of the X's and O's of Curry and Monta playing together, and comes to the same conclusion that many of Warriors fans who watched Curry and Monta play together at length last year would come to, that it's plausible that they will struggle defensively, but they should play well together offensively.

The Curry/Ellis backcourt is actually something that I have been looking at indepth recently. So I thought I'd add my own analysis to this. I have some issues with a couple of statements that Pruiti makes, first there's this:

The offensive end is where this duo can really excel.  Both players can shoot and be a threat on the offensive end, and that makes it tough for defense.  In fact, if you visit BasketballValue.com, you can see that just about every lineup that includes Ellis and Curry had an Offensive Rating of over 100 (the only one that didn’t featured Vladimir Radmanovic and Mikki Moore, which probably hurt on the offensive end).

To understand why this isa dubious statement, you need to have an understanding of what Offensive Rating means: points per 100 possessions. The league average offensive rating last year was 107.6. The Suns had the best offense in the league last year, with a 115.4 offensive rating. The Warriors on the season had an offensive rating of 107.8. The Nets were last in the league with an offensive rating of 100.3. So when you say that almost every lineup with Ellis and Curry had offensive rating of over 100, you are saying that almost every lineup had an offensive rating better than the Nets. Or, to put it another way, you are saying almost every lineup was no worse than 7 points worse than the average Warriors lineup. Basically, saying that they had offensive ratings higher than 100 means that they were better than one of the worst teams in NBA history.

A better way to look at how Ellis and Curry played together is to look at how the Warriors did with and without each player on the court:

The first thing to notice is that the when Ellis was on the court, the offensive was pretty much the same, with or without Curry. But when Curry played without Ellis, the offensive flourished. I haven't been able to get individual totals when for each of these on/off states, I would imagine that Ellis's usage rate hovered around 30% whether or not Curry was on the floor and that Curry's usage rate dipped slightly below 22% when Ellis was on the floor, but his, and everyone else's, went up slightly when he was off the court. Basically, I imagine that a general observation that pretty much everyone made during the season, that the Warriors move the ball better when Ellis isn't around, holds true.

Pruiti noted that the biggest weakness of this backcourt would be defense, and he was definitely right about that. Here's how the Warriors performed defensively with and without Curry and Ellis:

It's worth noting, once again, that league average for defensive rating is the same as offensive rating, 107.6. The Warriors, as a team, were second worse in the league, 111.4. The Bucks and Bobcats were the best defensive teams last season with ratings of 103.2 and 103.3, respectively. The only team worse than the Warriors was found north of the border, where the Raptors had a pathetic defensive rating of 113.2.

Looking at Curry and Ellis together, defense was definitely a problem. When they played together, opponents put up a ridiculous 113.84 offensive rating. The Warriors defense improved somewhat when only one of them were on the floor together (although, let's face facts: it was never pretty on defense last year). This confirms Pruiti's (and I'm guessing most Warriors fans') suspicions that the two are going to have trouble guarding larger guard combos.

When we put all of this together, we get the following +/- ratings for Curry and Ellis:

The first thing that jumps off the page is that with Curry and without Ellis, the Warriors had a +5.5 rating. For a team that was overall -2.13, that's a pretty amazing result. The other thing to notice is that the Warriors were by far at their worst when Curry and Ellis played together.

Based on this evidence, it's not hard to see that Monta Ellis was right. Ellis and Curry didn't play well together, and the Warriors did not play winning basketball with them playing together. Of course, this method of analyzing how they played together has it's flaws. Plus/Minus stats are noisy, and I am ignoring the other three or four players on the floor for the Warriors, and ignoring the quality of competition they played against, and the sample sizes aren't that large. However, even taking those issues into account, I think the conclusion is still valid.
One thought that I had, and I'm sure many other Warrior's fans are having, is that Curry's season really picked up in January. Certainly, the Ellis and Curry started playing better together once Curry got comfortable with the pro game and started playing better? Here are the numbers from January 1st on:

Well, they performed a little bit better from January on, but not much. So there goes that theory.

Why Hopefully None of This Matters
Last year's season was pretty much doomed from that fateful media day. This season, there already is a different vibe with this team, as evidenced by what Ellis is saying now:

When I made that comment, I wasn’t knocking him, I wasn’t bashing him. It was based off of what me and the Warriors were going through at the time. It had nothing to do with him. Like I told him this summer, we can do it. We did it last year. I see now that I have to play the two (shooting guard). I have to play the bigger guards, and I’m cool with that.

(source)

Monta has gone from "Just can't" to "We can do it." I think this is one of the biggest developments in an offseason of big developments. If Ellis is willing to change his game, and play more of a team game, it can only help the Warriors. There's still the problem of defending the other team's guards, and that is going to be very important to this team's success. With the additions of Lee and Amudson, and the return of Biedrins, the Warriors should be able to secure the rebound after pretty much every missed shot Curry and Ellis can force.

I've been a big fan of pretty much every personnel move the Warriors have made this off-season (only exception is the Udoh pick, but that's for another day), but so much of this season's success hinges on Ellis and Curry playing well together. They have the potential to be a very potent back court. Let's hope they live up to that potential.

**UPDATE**

I made some Venn Diagrams to show how Curry and Ellis played with the Warriors other wings from last season:

Curry, Ellis, and Watson:

Curry, Ellis, and Morrow:

Curry, Ellis, and Maggette:

Curry, Ellis, and Williams:

Some things to note:

• When Curry and Watson played together, good things happened. Watson is highly underrated. He was an above average shooter and passer, a passable defender, and, probably most importantly for this team, he didn't turn the ball over that often.
• Whenever Reggie Williams stepped on the floor, scoring went up. For both team.
• Monta's best pairing was with Williams, but no group with Monta had a positive rating.
• Curry was at his best when he played with Watson, and without Maggette or Ellis.

**ANOTHER UPDATE**

I wanted to get some idea of the quality of competition for the earlier Curry/Ellis splits, so I decided to take a page out of jae's playbook and look at the number of starters they faced (weighted for time):

So, going off this, we can see that the Warriors definitely faced the toughest competition when Ellis and Curry played together. This could partially explain why the Warriors do worse when they play together.

Let's get this out of the way right off the bat: if you think Monta Ellis is a superstar quality player and you want him to be the star of your team, you are going to have a lousy team. Case and point: The 2009-10 Golden State Warriors.

This is a hard pill to swallow for Warriors fans. Monta seems like he should be an All-Star. He's scored a lot of points, he has played a ton of minutes. He is all the way back from his injury problems last year, and has regained the blazing quickness that he showed off his first 3 years in the league. Also, he has almost no support. Most nights he has to carry this offense by himself. Right?

I could write a thousand words about why Monta is not the star player your hoping for, but a picture is worth a thousand words

via hoopdata.com

This graph is pretty simple, it's plotting Monta's Offensive Rating (ORtg) on the Y-axis against the percentage of team possessions he is using (USG%) on the X-axis for each of his 5 seasons. What is shows us is that the more of the offensive load Monta has to carry, the less efficient he becomes. This is actually the norm for NBA players, and is pretty intuitive to understand. Economists would call this the law of diminishing returns. If you've read Dean Oliver's seminal Basketball On Paper, there is an entire chapter dedicated to this idea of "Skill Curves" (In the paperback version, it's chapter 19).

However, although this basically happens to everyone, what's important to realize about Monta is that his drop happens at a relatively low USG%.

One common claim is that the reason that Monta's efficiency has dropped off is because he is playing with such bad teammates. The same thing happened to Kobe with the post-Shaq, pre-Kobe Lakers. Right?

via hoopdata.com

Not quite.

Monta is actually a below average offensive player right now, despite his high counting stats, because his efficiency has dropped so far. The prescription for Warriors remains clear: Make Monta do less to help his team. He is taking too many shots, turning the ball over too often, playing too many minutes. He is a very good player, but he is not in the superstar stratosphere. He's not on the level of .

One of the main arguments against lessening Monta's usage is that the Warriors don't have anyone else who can score. This is a pretty argument.

The Warriors actually have several players who can find ways to score, whether it be Biedrins mopping up with high percentage shots, Morrow firing 3's at a high clip, or Maggette making a living at the free throw line. Spreading the ball around can only help the Warriors.

The point of all of this is not to say that Monta Ellis isn't any good. He is quite good. The point is that he should not be relied on like he's a superstar. He isn't, and if the Warriors continue to treat him that way, it would be borderline delusional. Here are the top 10 players in USG% and there ORating:

Probably all of these players are too far down their Skill Curve, and using too many possessions (except Lebron, but he barely qualifies as human). However, the league average ORtg is about 107, so all of these players are above average except Granger, who is pretty close to average, and Ellis, who is far below it.

So, let's all stop lying to ourselves. Monta is a very good player, but he's not a superstar in this league.

Note: The images above were done using Hoopdata.com's AWESOME NBA: Where Motion Happens tool. Read all about it and prepare to waste hours of your life here and here

Now that it's settled that the Warriors are going to challenge the '72-'73 76ers for the worst record in history, we should start assigning blame. Naturally, there's a lot to go around. I think (hope) everyone can agree that Stephen Curry and Kelenna Azubuike have played exceptionally well this season. Anthony Morrow has seemed to struggle at times, but that seems to be more that the secret is out that he can shoot, and he has to adjust to his new found attention. Turiaf has played like we expect him to play, with energy and enthusiasm, but not much skill. Biedrins has struggled to find his place on offense this season; he is still an efficient finisher but he's turning the ball over more and not getting as many offensive boards prior seasons. Randolph has had inconsistent play during inconsistent minutes, and seems to be showing some lingering affects from his injured lower back injury.

Continue reading this post »

I thought I'd share something I stumbled upon a little while ago: 2008-9 Adjusted Plus Minus ratings. For those of you who aren't familiar, Adjusted +/- (or just APM) is a metric for separating an individuals contribution to the team based on how the team does with him on the floor. APM has gotten some street cred as a stat recently, since it was referenced in a Micheal Lewis article. More info can be found here and here. These numbers were compiled by Steve Ilardi, and a little more about his method for these can be found here. To reduce noise, he used 6 seasons of data, weighting earlier seasons much less than the 2008-9 season. Here are the numbers for the Warriors:

			                        Off	    Def	        Std	Total
Team		Player		          Min	APM	    APM	        Err	APM
GSW, NYK	Harrington, Al		2,479	1.56	    0.04	0.90	1.60
GSW		Jackson, Stephen	2,184	1.59	    -0.39	0.96	1.20
GSW		Morrow, Anthony		1,433	4.09	    -2.93	1.34	1.16
GSW		Turiaf, Ronny		1,624	1.51	    -0.49	1.09	1.02
GSW		Biedrins, Andris	1,756	-1.05	     1.93	1.07	0.88
GSW		Wright, Brandan		  649	-0.10	     0.02	1.61	-0.08
GSW		Maggette, Corey		1,494	1.26	    -1.59	0.97	-0.33
GSW		Belinelli, Marco	  851	-2.33	     1.81	1.49	-0.52
GSW, NYK	Crawford, Jamal		2,379	2.57	    -3.96	0.89	-1.39
GSW		Ellis, Monta		  834	-0.16	    -1.51	1.14	-1.66
GSW		Randolph, Anthony	1,106	-0.80	    -0.89	1.43	-1.69
GSW		Azubuike, Kelenna	2,262	-2.21	     0.37       1.05	-1.83
GSW		Watson, C.J.		1,776	0.04	    -2.13	1.24	-2.10
GSW		Kurz, Rob		   427	-10.91       0.35	2.08	-10.57

Gut reactions:
- The Harrington-Crawford trade didn't work out in our favor.

-  At first glance, it seems we are underrating Biedrins defense. While this might be true, he's still by no means an elite defender. The metric seems give an advantage to big men on defense (which seems logical). Here are the top 10 by Defensive APM:

Team	Player		Minutes	Def APM
BOS	Garnett, Kevin	1,642	8.74
MIL	Bogut, Andrew	1,136	8.21
DET	Johnson, Amir	  906	8.05
HOU	Hayes, Chuck	  786	7.31
POR	Przybilla, Joel	1,935	7.04
PHI	Iguodala, Andre	3,269	6.64
DEN	Hilario, Nene	2,490	6.56
HOU	Ming, Yao	2,454	5.70
PHI	Young, Thaddeu  2,580	5.70
LAC	Camby, Marcus	1,925	5.66

- It also seems Belinelli might have a slightly underrated defender. CJ Watson and Jamal Crawford, though, seem to be right where we expect them.

- Anthony Morrow is a good offensive player. That pretty much goes without saying.

- Our best player (Stephen Jackson) was the 100th best player in the league.

- I think we're all going to miss Rob Kurz.

- The Warriors off-season additions speak for themselves:

DAL	George, Devean	673	-6.66	-2.13	1.29	-8.78
ATL	Law, Acie	553	-3.03	2.51	1.63	-0.53
ATL     Claxton, Speedy NO DATA

-  One big blowout listing of players everyone wants the Warriors to trade for, former Warriors, and the top-20:

PLAYERS IN EVERY FAR-FETCHED TRADE PROPOSAL
PHX			Stoudemire, Amare	1,948	-2.38	  2.13	1.05	-0.25
UTA			Boozer, Carlos		1,155	-0.01	  -1.98	1.07	-1.99
TOR			Bosh, Chris		2,884	5.65	  0.54	1.10	6.19
UTA			Kirilenko, Andrei	1,805	1.39	  3.29	1.00	4.68
NOTABLE FORMER WARRIORS
LAC			Davis, Baron		2,248	1.63	  0.49	0.96	2.12
CHA, PHX	        Richardson, Jason	2,411	0.05	  -3.12	0.90	-3.07
ORL			Pietrus, Mickael	1,329	0.55	  0.20	0.93	0.76
IND			Murphy, Troy		2,482	3.02	  -2.15	1.04	0.87
IND			Dunleavy, Mike		  495	-2.46	  0.38	1.18	-2.08
MIN			Cardinal, Brian		  909	3.72	  1.67	1.40	5.39
NBA 2008-9 APM TOP 20
MIA			Wade, Dwyane		3,048	10.66     2.96	1.16	13.61
BOS			Garnett, Kevin		1,642	4.47	  8.74	1.07	13.21
CLE			James, LeBron		3,054	10.16     3.03	1.09	13.19
NOH			Paul, Chris	        2,888	9.36	  3.35	1.42	12.71
PHX			Nash, Steve	        2,484	11.28     -2.45	1.11	8.83
LAL			Odom, Lamar		2,203	3.28	  5.52	0.95	8.81
PHI			Iguodala, Andre		3,269	1.96	  6.64	1.19	8.61
ORL			Lewis, Rashard		2,859	5.17	  2.94	0.96	8.11
HOU			Ming, Yao		2,454	1.59	  5.70	1.03	7.29
DAL			Kidd, Jason		2,814	3.31	  3.35	0.98	6.66
LAL			Gasol, Pau		2,857	4.53	  2.11	0.92	6.64
DAL			Nowitzki, Dirk		2,977	4.83	  1.67	1.16	6.50
PHI			Young, Thaddeus	        2,580	0.67	  5.70	1.08	6.37
TOR			Bosh, Chris		2,884	5.65	  0.54	1.10	6.19
DET			Johnson, Amir	  	   906	-1.86	  8.05	1.47	6.18
HOU			Artest, Ron		2,343	0.83	  5.01	0.93	5.83
SAS			Parker, Tony		2,386	4.48	  1.29	1.18	5.77
LAL			Bryant, Kobe		2,824	7.57	  -1.95	1.10	5.63
WAS			Jamison, Antawn		3,025	4.26	  1.31	1.11	5.58
SAS			Duncan, Tim		2,454	1.81	  3.60	1.22	5.40

So, what do you think? Are we wrong about Biedrins D? Are you excited about Morrow's offense? Do we want Amare? Boozer? Should we still try to get Baron back? Is Adjusted Plus Minus even a good metric for judging a players value?

I've been thinking way too much about the NBA Draft recently, I figured I should share my thoughts with all of you.

First, there's this article: http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draft2009/insider/news/story?id=4266076. I was just going to post a fan shot about this article, but I figured most of you didn't have ESPN Insider. It is one of the most painful, heart-wrenching stories you will ever read, because it is about the Warriors over the past 20 years. It's a short article, but I had to stop reading and leave the room on several occasions. It was too much pain and bad memories for me to take. It starts like this:

The NBA teams that have drafted well over the past 20 years and won because of it have several common traits: a definitive style of play, a stable front office and patient ownership.

The Golden State Warriors offer evidence of what you get when only a definitive style of play prevails. First of all, there isn't that much winning, no matter how exciting the style. The draft becomes a particularly painful device, because it evolves into a Groundhog Day horror show. An unheralded player is taken and almost immediately achieves sleeper status for a surprisingly robust rookie campaign. Said player is gone after a couple of years, by free agency or trade. Another gem is unearthed. He, too, slips away, spending his most successful years elsewhere. And so on. The result is almost cruel for its fan base: Five former Warriors played in the 1997 All-Star game. Four of them -- Mitch Richmond, Latrell Sprewell, Tim Hardaway and Chris Webber -- had been drafted by Golden State. Actual Warriors All-Stars gained from dealing the five?

None.

Ouch... Richmond for Owens. Webber for Guggliotta. Hardaway and Gatling for Kevin Willis and Bimbo Coles. The Choke, followed by Spree for Starks, Mills, and Cummings. Thanks, ESPN, for making relive all that pain.

The article then breaks down the history you already know. Nelson creates Run TMC. Nelson breaks up Run TMC for Billy Owens. Nelson makes up for this by getting Sprewell and Webber. Managment gets sick of Nelson's teams for flaming out in the first round of the playoffs. Team tries to bring in a defensive mindset. Rozier. Carlesimo. Adelman. Fuller. Foyle. Management decides that defense is boring, tries to bring back Nellie ball, only with completely unexperienced NBA coaches. Cowens. Mussleman. Montgomery. But it wasn't all bad:

That historical synopsis helps explain how a team could find such diamonds in the second-round rough as Gilbert Arenas and Monta Ellis, select six future All-Stars and only have five playoff appearances in 20 years to show for it. In short, they've rolled the dice on a number of explosive players with red-flagged backgrounds and without a defined position and struck gold on a couple. Good or bad, they don't stick around.

I think this is a really important thing to note. When the Warriors play it safe in the draft, we end up with Rozier, Fuller, Foyle, Diogu, P.O.B. When we take calculated risks, we get Sprewell, Richardson, Arenas, Ellis, and Randolph. More on this. Now, more pain:

The Timberwolves, for comparison's sake, have a much worse draft record in the D.R.A.F.T. Initiative analysis (-0.13 EWA per pick, good for a C-minus grade), have selected only four future All-Stars and yet have eight playoff appearances over the same stretch. The biggest difference? Minnesota landed Kevin Garnett with the fifth pick in 1995 and stubbornly built around him for 12 seasons. The Warriors traded Webber away after one season, let Arenas escape after two and have not had a player drafted in the last 20 years stay beyond Hardaway's seven seasons, which includes a full year missed with a knee injury.

 

"It shows that all of us can become impatient," says one GM of the Warriors' penchant for identifying great talent and then losing it. "We want success overnight. Sometimes it takes a whole career to measure a player's worth. Not every team is willing to wait that long to find out."

This breaks it down for you. I love Nelson. I think he is possibly one of the 5 greatest coaches in NBA history. But, man, he seems to have cursed this entire franchise with the great sin of impatience. I know that there are extenuating circumstances- Webber and Nellie, the choke, Arenas and the C.B.A. rules- but that doesn't excuse what can only be described as immaturity and stupidity from our management. And, by the way, we are seeing this all over again with the current Monta Ellis "Moped-gate" situation.

 

The blame ultimately lands on owner Cohan, who bought controlling interest in the team in 1994 and has presided over nine coaching changes in 15 seasons.

Yeah, no sh!t.

But it also points to the danger of having one man, Nelson, as GM and coach, roles he jointly held from 1988 to 1995. He's not the first coach eager to get rid of a player he doesn't like -- Larry Brown has an equally quick trigger -- but Brown has been saved from his impulses by a string of strong GMs. Nelson has worked for only one with the Warriors, Mullin, whose authority was effectively negated when the team signed Nelson to a two-year extension last fall and made Mullin a lame duck this past season.

Despite the bashing that Mullin gets from this site, this is one reason why I fear what might happen without him. You have a couple of clueless, penny pinching suits in Rowell and Cohen, and you have Nelson and a Nelson puppet in Riley. There's no one to second guess Nelson's gut, except a couple of dopes who don't know what shape a basketball is.

Now, let's talk about what Nelson does well: find players who fit his system and inflate their value. Or, as I like to call it, "Say hi to Anthony Morrow!!"

Sometimes All-Star berths and statistics can inflate a draft record, too, and the Warriors probably have some of that working for them. Another GM offered Anthony Morrow as an extreme example of how Nelson's system can create false value. Morrow, the GM said, could not play for most teams in the league because he is a poor wing defender and a subpar ball handler who would not get the necessary shots to compensate for the points he gives up on another team. Yet Morrow averaged eight shots, 10 points and 22 minutes a night for the Warriors, staggering numbers for an undrafted rookie, the third undrafted player included in the team's rotation in the past three years.

 

"They gave him confidence and made something out of him," the GM says. "But put him out on the open market and most teams would still be afraid to touch him. They're convinced he's the product of a system that made him look good. And it's a system that produces great individual numbers, not necessarily team success."

I'll reserve my opinion of Morrow, Azubuike, and Watson for another post, but I will say this: props to Nelson for being able to identify players who fit his system, and get them for cheap.

There's normally a but... in there, but this article depressed me and I'm trying to stay positive.

 

Which is just it. Despite Morrow's production, or No. 14 pick Anthony Randolph's eight double-doubles, his 7.9 ppg and 5.8 rpg in only 17.9 mpg and an EWA of 3.31 (already 0.91 ahead of the expected career average for his draft slot), the Warriors were 29-53. Meanwhile, sources say Nelson is more than willing to deal Ellis and has told Randolph he, too, might be better off somewhere else.

 

All of which means there's a good chance the Warriors are going to take a highly talented player with this year's seventh pick. After a year or two of surprisingly impressive play, he'll go elsewhere. On this prediction, Punxsutawney Phil's services aren't necessary.

Oh, here... You left this knife in my spine... Also, you only turned it 180 degrees, are you sure you don't want to complete the circle?

Can I just say, unless your getting one of the top 20 players in the league, moving Randolph or Ellis is a really, really bad idea. REALLY BAD. Hardaway and Gatling for Willis and Coles bad. Richmond for Owens bad. Richardson for Wright bad. Webber for Guggliota bad. BAD.

Okay, enough with the pain. ESPN's D.R.A.F.T. Intiative is actually a really nice series. I tried to replicate all the numbers they were talking about (EWA for each player vs expected EWA) only to find that they gave all those numbers if I just went a little deeper into some links. Anyhow, here's my findings, based on numbers from basketball-reference.com, and ESPN's numbers: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rY1y2ASlKsrxkw-c2b71Znw. They're a little different, but I probably screwed up somewhere.

History lesson done, let's talk about the current draft! This is turning into a reallly long post. Note the extra L in really.

The way I see it, the top 4 players in the draft (Griffin, Rubio, Thabeet, and Harden) will be gone by the time the Warriors are choosing. They could use any of those guys (especially Griffin) but oh well. After them is a lot of guys with big upsides and big downside. Let me just tell you my Big Board after those four, then tell you why:

1. Tyreke Evans

2. Brandon Jennings

3. Jordan Hill

4. DeMar DeRozan

First, Evans. The more I look at him, the more I pinch myself. He is a too perfect fit for this Warriors team. A 6'5" shooting guard, who is able to play point if need be (i.e. the perfect teammate for Monta), a good perimeter defender, can score at will, plays best in an uptempo system, court vision, athleticism, hits three... He's too good to be true. If he's available, we better take him. Also, check this analysis of shooting guards to see how Evans compares to Harden: http://www.hoopsanalyst.com/0809ew9.htm, and this scouting report from Minneosota to see how Evans compares to other point guards: http://www.nba.com/timberwolves/fans/draft_central_2009.html.

Second, Jennings. I'm a sucker for guys like Jennings. His stats were slightly above mediocre in Europe, but his youtube clips were amazing. The only analysis I need to see on him is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NpVH_ckBb8. Also, his calling out Rubio...  Awesome.

Third, Jordan Hill. I'm not completely sold on him yet. He has a more "NBA ready" body than Brandan Wright, and fills a need. I like the potential of an Ellis, Jax, Randolph, Hill, Beans starting 5. I also see a high chance of him being a bust. I mostly blame history (Rozier, Fuller, Foyle, Smith, Diogu, POB, Wright) for my skepticism, but Hollinger's draft rater system is low on him too: http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draft2009/insider/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=DraftRater-090618 (Insider)

Fourth DeMar DeRozan. Another guy with a potential to be a bust. See above to see that Hollinger's sytem hates him. BUT... Hollinger's system normally doesn't like one and done freshman. It didn't like Derrick Rose last year. I think ReRozan has the potential to be an elite wing player in the NBA, and elite wing players are what get you far in this league. Kobe, Wade, Manu, Pierce... They're all top wing players, and they all have a ring (to be fair, so dp Duncan, Shaq, Garnett, and Gasol, who are elite big men...) For more on DeRozan being a bust, see the Hollinger article above, for more a DeRozan being good, see here:

http://www.hoopsanalyst.com/0809ew10.htm. Also, remember what I said earlier, about the Warriors being most successful when they don't play it safe and take risks? That's what you have here. Lets just say that, if everything goes to plan, the Warriors will have a chance to draft at least one of the three guys above, but if they took DeRozan, I wouldn't be disappointed.

Now let's talk about who I don't necessarily like:
Jrue Holliday: I can't put my finger on it, I just don't think he fits well with this team. However, I'm willing to change my mind. He is a 6'4" point guard, and that would work well with Monta.

Stephen Curry: Am I the only one who looks at Curry and thinks J.J. Reddick? That's not the worst thing in the world, but it's not worth the 7th pick.
After looking into it more, this is a completely unfair comparison. I've changed my mind on Curry, I now think that he will be a decent pro in the NBA. I still don't think he's of the same caliber as Evans, but I would be happy if the Warriors drafted him. I'd probably, as of now, rate him barely behind Jennings, ahead of Hill and in some crazy opposite side of the spectrum, parallel universe relationship with DeRozan.

Johnny Flynn: I think he's overrated. As far as pure point guards go in this draft,  I rate them Rubio, Jennings (drop), Lawson, Teague, Flynn (drop), Collison, Mills. (Full disclosure: I probably rate Mills higher, but I am a heavily biased Saint Mary's alum. Go Gaels!!). I know there are people who disagree, but I don't think Flynn is that worth it here.

Terrence Williams: His name is getting thrown around a lot, and he intrigues me. But, getting him puts in between a rock and a hard place. I think he's a big reach at 7, but there are enough teams that overrate him that trading down is no gurantee. Maybe the best solution is to draft Hill, who has a lot of interest around him from teams lower in the draft, and try and trade from there. If we can move Wright to get Williams, and keep Hill, that's even better.

This ended up way longer than I would have liked, but this is my examination of Warriors drafts- past, present, and future.