Why was the ball dropped?

[Mylie10]

After last years playoff run it was clear that a few things were needed for this year.

Clear space for Monta and Beans

Find help for Boomsama

Rebounding

Shot blocking


The Jason Richardson trade was a good move. We cleared his salary and also picked up our future PF. Good move.

We lost some rebounding in Jason, but to our surprise Monta has been a very good rebounder and has more than picked up the scoring slack. He's also shown that in a few more years he'll be an upper echelon PG in this league.

We never took care of the back-up PG situation. From the offseason to the regular season the moves have been pathetic. Troy effing Hudson? Are you kidding me? How could they have thought this was a good idea? Anthony Johnson and others would be helping right now if this was handled properly. DROPPED BALL

Rebounding; Monta has rebounded well and Beans has to for the most part. But no ther moves have been made in oreder to help this situation. Wright has been waiting all year to show many what we already knew, that his length would be a big help in the rebounding woes. Lasme was drafted as an athletic rebounding shot blocking player who might be a little undersized, but possibly a bigger version of Pietrus. O'Bryant should have been a help here as well.

Shot blocking; Beans has done it all year, but his blocks are down. The guy's minutes have been to low and he has ZERO help out there. Wright should have been a help here as well. He's fantastic as a help defender and he should have been playing some back-up 3 and 4 all year instead of our extremely undersized guys. Lasme was known for his shot blocking. Wright, Lasme, and O'Bryant would have given us 3 guys off the bench who could protect the rim.

Nellie's now playing only 6 to 7 guys. The legs are gone. He says we're not as deep, but the finger should be directed in his face, because we had help, but his refusal to utilize it is killing us right now.

The only way our style can work is if we come at the team in waves. We have to allow the starters enough breaks in the game to keep fresh and also use morel ength off the bench but still maintain our running style.

You can't shorten the bench and continue to run all year.

The trade deadline came and went with a wimper for us. We had a few trade chips that were waisted and we've allowed this team a slow death since getting them no help what-so-ever.

Management threw up their arms and said "Good luck fellas, your getting nothing and we're lengthening the main 6's minutes"

THE BALL HAS BEEN DROPPED!

I believe that if we would have developed more of the young guys early on, then Lasme would have been playing SF and PF providing rebounding, defense, and shot blocking. Very cheap nad very athletic. We could have moved Pietrus.

O'Bryant should have been backing up Beans all year. We would have had more rebounding and length to battle other teams down low and we'd have put a stop to much of the parade to the hoop that we've witnessed all year. Those 2 would have turned into a tough center duo. All Patrick needed was a coach who could put his arm around a kid and teach him the NBA.

Wright would have been playin g for me from day one. He would have logged as many SF as PF minutes for me and we'd have had an other long rebounding and shot blocking player that would have helped our bench depth. The refusal to play him has been maddening.

Overall the do nothing attitude from management has killed our chances this year. We never addressed the main issues that this team has had THIS YEAR and I'm truly disappointed in what has transpired.

I applaud the guys who've played all year. They've given it their all and even though we have a glimmer of hope, I'm sorry they were ignored by the front office. They've been run ragged and are being blamed for the season's collapse.

I blame it on the FO and the ODB, for not fully grasping the problems and doing something about it other than the MBenga, Hudson, Watson, Webber, pretend helpers.

Yeah we have enough money to re-sign Monta and Beans, but I feel that we had enough on the pre-season roster to help and if that didn't work out we had enough on the trade front in order to grab someone to help us in this final push.

Could you imagine if we had done this:

Baron......Anthnony Johnson
Monta.....Azu
Jackson.....Wright.....Lasme.....Barnes
Al.......Wright....Lasme....Barnes
Beans.....Obee......Croshere

Then I would have brought in Ron Artest. Artest would be looking pretty good right about now and his toughness would be huge for this fianl push.

Kurt Thomas would have worked. I wanted Brevin knight and I was wrong, but he'd have helped us more than what we've done. There were options out there and we did nothing.

This season has been fun, but at the same time frustrating as hell. I blame Nellie for the horrible handling of the roster (playing time). And I blame the front office for sitting on their hands, when the team was needing help the most.

THE BALL HAS BEEN DROPPED

[Mylie10]

Do something dammit! Play everybody!

[Left*My*Heart]

I primarily blame the front office for this season. They are being overly cheap to the detriment of the team. I also blame Pietrus, Barnes and Buike for their poor inconsistent play off the bench. I would have thought we would have gotten some production at least equal to the level we had last season out of Pietrus and Barnes. Those guys are playing for a paycheck this off season and they both haven't lived up to anything. Pietrus was in such a funky mood about not being traded and now that he has a hang nail, he probably won't play again this season. Barnes has not played well at all and I don't expect to see him in a Warriors uniform next year.

ODB is partially to blame for not giving the playing time to Wright that he deserves. ODB needed help off the bench and he did nothing to get any of the young guys minutes early in the season to help cut the minutes of the starters. We now have Baron and Jack hitting the wall at the worse time.

[Head Leader]

I primarily blame the front office for this season. They are being overly cheap to the detriment of the team. I also blame Pietrus, Barnes and Buike for their poor inconsistent play off the bench. I would have thought we would have gotten some production at least equal to the level we had last season out of Pietrus and Barnes. Those guys are playing for a paycheck this off season and they both haven't lived up to anything. Pietrus was in such a funky mood about not being traded and now that he has a hang nail, he probably won't play again this season. Barnes has not played well at all and I don't expect to see him in a Warriors uniform next year.

ODB is partially to blame for not giving the playing time to Wright that he deserves. ODB needed help off the bench and he did nothing to get any of the young guys minutes early in the season to help cut the minutes of the starters. We now have Baron and Jack chucking the ball at the worse time.

fixed.

[turk3d]

I primarily blame the front office for this season. They are being overly cheap to the detriment of the team. I also blame Pietrus, Barnes and Buike for their poor inconsistent play off the bench. I would have thought we would have gotten some production at least equal to the level we had last season out of Pietrus and Barnes. Those guys are playing for a paycheck this off season and they both haven't lived up to anything. Pietrus was in such a funky mood about not being traded and now that he has a hang nail, he probably won't play again this season. Barnes has not played well at all and I don't expect to see him in a Warriors uniform next year.

ODB is partially to blame for not giving the playing time to Wright that he deserves. ODB needed help off the bench and he did nothing to get any of the young guys minutes early in the season to help cut the minutes of the starters. We now have Baron and Jack hitting the wall at the worse time.

No I blame Nellie for this also. All 3 of those guys have gotten numerous starts when they should be bench players exclusively and have logged many minutes at positions which they are not best suited for (name Power Forward and sometimes even Center). This is what has caused their perceived failures and inconsistencies. Play them at the right positions (2 and 3 instead of 4 and 5) and don't try to make them starters (they all should be bench players) and I believe you would have seen much more consistent play out of them. Nellie puts guys in positions where they're doomed for failure, rather than positions where they have the best chance for success.

All this tends to result in is a number of fall guys for Nellie to pawn off the blame on.

[Mylie10]

-= original quote snipped =-


No I blame Nellie for this also. All 3 of those guys have gotten numerous starts when they should be bench players exclusively and have logged many minutes at positions which they are not best suited for (name Power Forward and sometimes even Center). This is what has caused their perceived failures and inconsistencies. Play them at the right positions (2 and 3 instead of 4 and 5) and don't try to make them starters (they all should be bench players) and I believe you would have seen much more consistent play out of them. Nellie puts guys in positions where they're doomed for failure, rather than positions where they have the best chance for success.

All this tends to result in is a number of fall guys for Nellie to pawn off the blame on.

Great point Turk and one that has been made a 100 times on this board.

Guys need to play at positions where they can succeed.

That's why having Pietrus battle guys at the 4 is most often to our detriment. Barnes can handle it better, but he's much better as a 3.

There's no real reason we shouldn't have had Al at 4 and Beans at 5 for the majority of every game. Beans has shown that even if he starts slow in a game, we should stick with him and over the length of the game he'll provide the length and rebounding we need from him.

His over 30 minute production is really good.

Now the Koolaide crew will say the only reason the over 30 minute production was good, was because he was playing well in that particular game, hence the minute increase. But I think Beans is a player that will provide good minutes over the coarse of every game. Even if he is struggling, you can count on him to bring effort everytime he steps on the floor.

We had the season set for some improved bench play, but most were ignored. Now the bench is the scapegoat? It's just not right.

Blame Baron and Jax all you want, and point to the bench as the reason for to many minutes, but almost every other playoff team made moves to help.

We wouldn't be where we are right now without Baron and Jax, and we had help from the bench but they were ignored.

We could have added a veteran piece for the stretch drive, but the FO said NO.

Mullin's on the hot seat if you ask me.

[Sleepy51]

You have to be fair in your evaluation, while those three bench players were not alway put in favorable positions as far as defensive matchups, their offensive responsibilities were always the same, but each of those guys took giant dumps on the court for long stretches on offense.

Barnes has never found his shot this year, Bukie lost his for a long stretch of the season, and Pete took no interest in anything involving effort until his showcase a couple of weeks ago.

Playing good, coach pleasing defense is hard in this system, but holding your own on offense isn't. The bench guys played like minimum contract 1 year rentals. I don't blame them for being what they are. I blame us for depending on that caliber of player to fill spots 6-10.

This is not how a playoff/contender team is built.

[DBurks2818]

What did the front office and Nelson think they were going to accomplish by being stubborn with guys like Pietrus, O'Bryant, not playing Wright, playing several guys out of position too often, sticking with a mostly 7-8 man rotation with only 1 real center getting minutes...

They went into the off-season being more concerned with playing hardball than trying to improve the team.

Not to seem annoying or anything, but how bad would a Pietrus-O'Bryant for JWill-2nd rd. picks have been? You traded expiring contracts for expiring contracts. You trade guys you have no plans to keep to fill a position of need. You get someone that actually fits the team's style and would excel in the system. You keep Baron's minutes down and open up minutes for Azubuike, Barnes, and Wright at their natural positions.

Was the FO scared to make any moves or what?

[Sleepy51]

The front office was cheap.

The knew they wouldn't get better for less money (even in the short term) than what they had in place so they stuck with it.

[Mylie10]

If you're gonna be cheap, then you have to use the players on the roster.

You have to force the issue with Nellie.

They could have picked up either Kurt Thomas or Ron Artest and still been in relatively the same financial situation we're in anyway.

We should have played our young guys and seen if they could've helped.

If we are to be the ultra running team, then you must go 9 or 10 deep to keep fresh legs. Otherwise you're running your main core into the ground.

[turk3d]

If you're gonna be cheap, then you have to use the players on the roster.

You have to force the issue with Nellie.

They could have picked up either Kurt Thomas or Ron Artest and still been in relatively the same financial situation we're in anyway.

We should have played our young guys and seen if they could've helped.

If we are to be the ultra running team, then you must go 9 or 10 deep to keep fresh legs. Otherwise you're running your main core into the ground.

I also agree with you on this. Once again, I do not agree that it's the players faults (especially the guys who were playing starter minutes when they shouldn't been). This is totally the coaches call. It would have been very easy to play guys when they were producing and if not, giving them a nice warm seat on the bench. There was no consistency here either. He did it to beans and Monta in the playoffs last year. He finally did it with Barnes this year. He did to Al this year. He even did with Monta at times (CJ). He should have did it with Jack (another thing which hurt as).

How hard would it be for him to "rest" a guy who's chucking for a while so that when he goes back in he's settled down and is a bit more selective on his shots? This would be very easy for Nellie to do, but he chose not to do it for the most part (or was very selective in who he did it to) so he gets the blame. Here we are at the end of the season and we still don't really know who two out of 5 starters are although finally it seems that Beans and possibly Al, but who knows?

Then we get guys like POB and Lasme who he's chucked. No consistency at all and if it weren't for all those players efforts (Pietrus, Bukie and even Barnes to a lesser extent) we would not have done as well as we have. It's just that Nellie's plan hasn't worked and it's time to try something new.

Smallball will not get us anything other than fool's gold (quoting 510) and it's finally become obvious to everyone. Even if we get into the playoffs, it won't be because of Nellie's genius, it's going to be due to some luck and Denver's choke even being greater than ours.

What I don't agree with is that we needed to make any kind of a move. I think we had the rignt mix of talent for what we were doing and what we could have gotten would not have no have really benefitted us. We would have been better off (as you pointed out) going with our youth more (name Wright and O'Bryant) but this just was not in the cards in the Nellie scheme of things.

[FNQ]

The way I see it, there's only 2 viable scenarios here:

1 - Cohan, Rowell and Mullin knew exactly what they were doing here. They know that Don Nelson's brand of ball uses unusual players (re: cheap) instead of expensive ones like most other coaches would want. Despite that, they would play an exciting, up-and-down brand of basketball that would bring in fans. Coming close to, or making the playoffs, with this squad would be a huge pocket-liner for the W's. This could also explain why Nellie held out for more money - he knew what they were trying to do and thinks more money should go to the man allowing that style to happen.

2 - Our FO really is as damaged as they look. There may have been an order to not spend a ton on free agents, but not all minimum deals. Remember, Nelson CHOSE to keep Pietrus and Barnes on for 4 and 3 mil, respectively, this season. Speaking of, our FO resigned those 2.



Then there's pretty much facts that we all can agree on:

- The Hudson and Mbenga signings were done for familiarity and gigantic personnel mistakes by Nelson. (and Nelson alone.)

- He did not trade Jason Richardson with the thinking of landing Wright, it was for Yi. He also (still) refuses to make Wright a consistent rotation player despite the advantages he's brought.

- Cohan + Rowell are not done playing us. Picking up that extension while we were still in the playoff hunt was a stroke of genius. If we miss the playoffs, smallball was a failure (from most fans standpoints). Picking up his option after the fact wouldn't make sense... so now those 2 have ensured that they have another year of fools' gold to line their pockets again.

[St.Nick]

They could have picked up either Kurt Thomas or Ron Artest and still been in relatively the same financial situation we're in anyway.

Really? What was the asking price for Artest? I never heard published reports about him being so easy and cheap to attain.

And would you have given up a first round pick for 25 games of Kurt Thomas? I sure as hell wouldnt have.

We should have played our young guys and seen if they could've helped.

We all love potential and young talent. Its such a wondrous and splendid thing to dream about. Of course, reality is that most young players do not contribute on winning veteran teams.

Dont believe me? Take a look at every playoff team in the NBA and see how many rookies are being real difference makers. Horford and Thaddeus Young are playing well on the lower seeded booby prize EC playoff teams. Landry and Stuckey are playing very minor contributing roles on good playoff teams. The rest....nada. (Edit: Scola, is too. Although I think he is nearly 28 years old.)

What makes our young guys so different? Is it just because you say so and you have "the mysterious power of the unknown" and a few mentions of "stupid nellie" to back you up?

You are grasping at straws, as are the rest of the people that are second guessing a 50 win team without a PF that has about 6 players that can be relied upon on a regular basis.

How many wins would we have if Nellie werent so stupid, anyways?

[The_Believer]

I also find it hilarious that Nellie was giving MBENGA minutes over Dre awhile back, and how our roster is really just a bunch of d-leagers after our big 3, Al, Dre, and Buike.

[Left*My*Heart]

Pietrus and Barnes all played the same roles last season, but overall I believe they played worse this season. Buike, with a year under his belt should have performed better. If he was just able to be consistent would have paid big dividends.

I fault Nellie for not involving the young players at the start of the season. He needed to develop one or two of the younger players into the rotation to keep the starters fresh. I do believe that if Nellie was able to rely on Barnes and Pietrus for reliable consistent production, the younger players may have gotten more run.

Nellie does not make decisions on player moves...it is up to Mullin and the front office. Player moves fall squarely on Cohan, Rowell and Mullin, not Nellie.

[FNQ]

Nellie does not make decisions on player moves...it is up to Mullin and the front office. Player moves fall squarely on Cohan, Rowell and Mullin, not Nellie.

Gimme a break...

Croshere - from Dallas

Hudson - in Dallas' division the entire time Nellie was there

Mbenga - from Dallas

It's not a coincidence that Nellie's signings were people he had coached before or knew very well.

I believe that the only things Mullin did this offseason was draft Brandan Wright and sign Kosta Perovic.

[turk3d]

+ 1

[St.Nick]

Without knowing everything that goes on behind closed doors, I think Nellie absolutely has a say in FO decisions. I dont think he has the final say, but you dont shut that guy out of th personnel discussions.

BTW: I loved the Cro addition, think Hudson would have been a good third PG, and feel Mbenga filled in admirably (or at least he didnt pee his pants when inserted into the game).

I would have loved to have signed Brevin Knight with part of our MLE and traded for some stud with our Trade Exception, but its not abnormal for teams to resist making risky moves if they dont think it could dramatically help the team.

We succeeded in being a good team during the most competitive conference race in NBA history. Asking for much more is asking for too much.

[turk3d]

Let's put it this way, I think Nellie can be quite persuasive when he really wants something, and particularly has a heavy influence on Mullin, considering their very close personal relationship.

[zhenyasj]

The ball wasn't dropped. The team is playing better then they did last year and have a winning record in the most competitive division in a long time. It's ridiculous to blame the front office saying that they are cheap. Who could have they signed that wouldn't kill the cap situation? Fully blaming Nelson is ridiculous as well. He does make questionable decisions, but no other coach would do any better with this squad. You can't have them playing a half court game, we see what happens when they do. The team wins as many games as they do because Nelson allows them to be who they are. They take bad shots, don't play defense, but play with heart. There's no way any coach would make Baron play better defense, because nobody tells him what to do. There's no way any coach would make Monta or Al play better defense because they just can't. If Warriors don't look for mismatches, they can't win consistently, and that's what Nelson is good at. And please, stop with POB and Wright playing time. I can guarantee that playing both consistently would lose us more games at this point.