SB Nation User Blog: philthiest

Let's get Baron destroying Kirilenko voted best playoff dunk of the decade

philthiest — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 23:32:30 -0000

Let's get Baron destroying Kirilenko voted best playoff dunk of the decade

Because, well, it is!!

Lebron changing his number; Asks rest of league to do the same

philthiest — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:34:30 -0000

Lebron changing his number; Asks rest of league to do the same

"I just think what Michael Jordan has done for the game has to be recognized some way soon," James said. "There would be no LeBron James, no Kobe Bryant, no Dwyane Wade if there wasn't Michael Jordan first.

"He can't get the logo, and if he can't, something has to be done. I feel like no NBA player should wear 23. I'm starting a petition, and I've got to get everyone in the NBA to sign it. Now, if I'm not going to wear No. 23, then nobody else should be able to wear it"

Will C.J. change his number too?

*****UPDATE*****
CJ will change is number
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/10635/c-j-watson-ok-with-giving-up-no-23-toney-douglas-not-so-sure

Don Nelson: "It's harder than hell to trade that guy."

philthiest — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:15:37 -0000

Don Nelson: "It's harder than hell to trade that guy."

Nellie on KNBR: "We know Jack wants out, we’re trying to accommodate him," he explains. "It’s harder than hell to trade that guy. He’s got his history; he’s got a long-term contract. We’re trying."

C'mon Jax, It's Win-Win

philthiest — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:30:29 -0000

C'mon Jax, It's Win-Win

You get out of Golden State and get to play for a contender, and we get rid of your contract... (You just have to give up a couple million dollars.)
Although, Chad Ford basically breaks down why this won't happen:
"Why won't this happen? One, because Jackson knows he robbed the Warriors this summer and there isn't another team in the league foolish enough to give him that much money. And second, because we've never seen a player willing to put their money where their mouth is."

Maggette or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ballhog

philthiest — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:27:14 -0000

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.

That leaves three players who have played significant minutes: Stephen Jackson, Monta Ellis, and Corey Maggette. Each of these players deserve some blame for the Warriors poor start. Jackson has already tried to sabotage the season before it began with his trade demand, and his on court play has left a lot to be desires. He's averaging 15 points, but his TS% stands at .488, and he's averaging a stellar 2 boards, 3 assists and 3 turnovers. Ellis is scoring points (averaging 22.5 points per game) but doing so by using up a lion's share of the teams possessions, his usage rate 30.8% (for comparison, Lebron James is 30.9%). He also has shot poorly, turned the ball over a lot, and not gotten his teammate involved (averaging just 4 assists). Both Ellis and Jackson have not only played poorly, but they have undermined the teams chemistry- Jackson's trade request and Ellis straight up saying he and Curry playing together won't work.

However, neither of them has gotten the amount of blame or hate as Corey Maggette. Maggs is closing in on the Armando Benitez zone as far as fan approval goes. For those of you who follow the Giants, you should know this idea well. For those of you who don't follow the Giants, Armando Benitez was the highly paid and highly ineffective closer for the Giants from 2005 to 2007. He kept finding new and unique ways to blow saves and get booed off the field until the Giants management had no choice but to trade him for a journeyman reliever, 3 goats and a 6-pack of Heineken. That's where Maggette is heading. He has shot poorly (.374 TS%), increased his reputation for being a ball hog (usage rate of 29.2), turned the ball over way too much (19.1 turnover rate), and he is getting playing time that could go to golden boy Anthony Randolph. Also, I believe that Maggette clubs baby seals in the off-season. He obviously is the biggest problem with the Warriors this year and deserves the majority of the blame.

There's only one problem with this: The Warriors have played better with Maggette in the game than they do with him on the bench. Much better.

In 2 games, the Maggette has played 43 minutes. In those 43 minutes, the Warriors have had 96 offensive possesions and 98 defensive possessions. They've scored 97 points and allowed 100. If we weight this for 100 possesions to give Maggette an on court offensive and defensive rating, we get an ORate of 101.04 and a DRate of 102.04, meaning that when Maggette is on the court, the Warriors lose by 1 point per 100 possessions. This doesn't sound good until you remember the Warriors as a team lose by 11 points per 200 possessions. Also, when Maggette is on the bench (which has been 53 minutes) the Warriors have played 112 possessions and scored 111 points while their opponents have played 110 possessions and scored 131 points. If we once again find an offensive and defensive rating per 100 possessions, we get an off-court ORate of 99.11 and an off-court DRate of 119.09. So when Maggette is out of the game, the Warriors lose by nearly 20 points. If we combine this with his on-court numbers, we get the the Warriors are 19 points better with Maggette on the court than with him off it.

So, if Maggette is shooting the ball poorly and turning the ball over, why are we better off with him in the game?

As noted earlier, it isn't his offense. He's shot the ball often and poorly and turned it over. He is even getting to the line slightly less this year. Of course, offense only accounts for half the game of basketball. Is is possible the Maggette is a great defender and we don't realize it?

PLAYER                        MIN
Maggette, Corey, GSW	    43.77  
OVERALL
ON           OFF      NET
-1.00        -19.98    18.98
OFFENSE
ON          OFF       NET
101.04      99.11     1.93
DEFENSE
ON          OFF       NET
102.04      119.09    -17.05

Offensively, the Warriors are slightly better when Maggette is in the game. Defensively, the Warriors are much, much worse when his NOT in the game.

Another main reason that Maggette finds himself as the target of so much hatred is that he is seen as impeding the progress of superstar in the making, and possibly the second coming of Christ, Antony Randolph. This is observation is true, Maggette has not played once this season with two other big men on the floor (which I guess would make him the power forward, but positions are pretty hard to determine with this team). However, Randolph has seen a fair amount of playing time, but the results haven't been great:

PLAYER                          MIN
Randolph, Anthony, GSW 	      34.70
OVERALL
ON      OFF     NET
-25.64	-2.31	-23.33
OFFENSE
ON      OFF     NET
96.15	102.31	-6.15
DEFENSE
ON      OFF     NET
121.80	104.62	17.18

What's the point of all this? I don't know. It's not that Maggette is the savior of this franchise. He's not. It's not that Randolph sucks. He doesn't. I think it's more that hating on Maggette is kind of pointless, especially when him being on the court has a direct correlation with the Warriors playing well.

Actually, I think the real point is this: It's only been two games!

Poll

So, do you still think Maggette is to blame for the Warriors bad start?

No. I see the error of my ways and am now backing Maggette for Defensive Player of the Year.

17 votes

Yes. I don't need numbers and stats to lie to me. I watch the game and see that Maggette is awful.

40 votes

Wait, you're trying to convince me with numbers that are highly affected by the other nine players on the floor with just two games of data? What the hell man?! This whole post is stupid, as is calling this whole season over after two games.

52 votes

109 votes | Poll has closed

The Warriors and APM

philthiest — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:59:56 -0000

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?

NBA Live 10 Preview - NBA Live 10: Changing the Game

philthiest — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:24:17 -0000

NBA Live 10 Preview - NBA Live 10: Changing the Game

It looks like NBA Live is moving away from old style "spreadsheet ratings" and more towards using play-by-play data to accurately simulate a player's tendencies. This looks awesome not just from a gameplay point-of-view, but also as a tool for researching players. Also, those numbers will be getting updated on a regular basis as the season progresses, which should be pretty cool to see as well.

Too bad that NBA 2K is generally the better series if you want to actually play basketball in video game form.

Thinking too much about the draft

philthiest — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:58:20 -0000

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.

Your 2010 Starting Warriors

philthiest — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:00:23 -0000

Your 2010 Starting Warriors

freedarko.com continues their obsession with the convoluted mess that is the Golden State Warriors. If you know anything about freedarko, you know that they tend favor style and uniqueness over all else, which makes this lineup quite tantalizing. But if your a Warriors fan, and you favor winning, you should be a little worried right now.

(Also, I know that Nelson has said his projected lineup is Ellis, Jax, AR, BW, Beans with Maggs off the bench, but freedarko, I think, is being slightly more realistic.)

Interesting Nelson Article from Free Darko

philthiest — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:47:35 -0000

Interesting Nelson Article from Free Darko

From the article:
"There's a team to develop here, but it's entirely likely that by season's end, all notion of well-distributed depth, and a roster full of possibilities, will give way to the belief that what's needed is lesser beings to hang in the background as Ellis and Randolph are given free rein going forward. If it works perfectly, you'd get a foundation that's achieved some measure of order and logic, like a point guard unto itself. And then on top of that, those two. And behind it all, Don Nelson, about to unleash his most diabolical team yet."

I'm not quite as optimistic about the future of Ellis and Randolph, but I do like how the article points out that they are mirror images of each other: both are freakish athletes with no true position, both have unique skill sets compared to comparable players, both have flaws in their games that are tough to see them overcoming, both get a pretty fair amount of hate from this blog (and some times for good reason).

Another interesting thing that is pointed out in this article, is that Nelson has never been successful without a quality point guard. He's always had a Hardaway, Nash, or Baron to rely on to run whatever freakish monstrosity of an offense he conjures up.