Playoffs 50/50 Chance?

[Mylie10]

Leftmyheart wrote:
"What we didn't fill was our need for a SG or big PG to play along side Monta. Mullin says it will be Jack and I have seen Jack play the SG position with the Pacers and Spurs very well. He has the ability to even D up on most PGs. I assume the Warriors will pick up another SG from NBDL or who knows maybe Marco will step up."



Didn't Monta average 4.5 assists without being the primary ball handler? That's pretty dang good.

Marcus has enough size that you can get away with playing him and Tay together in stretches.

Jax can play 2 and can guard anyone.

Maggs can play 2....yuk!, but he has a size advantage on 2's.

Belli may or may not play, but he has enough handle to play with Tay.

Morrow is a nice edition and can shoot the lights out. He and Tay can play together.

Looks like we have multiple options alongside Tay.

[Khoee]

of course we're making the playoffs this year...Nellie loves this team...below the radar...no expectations...Nellie hates expectations...

plus, we make the playoffs and Nellie can squeeze another $10-15m out of this thing...

[GSWhoopfan]

The Suns are no lock. They need Grant Hill to play 70 games and how many games will Shaq miss? Nash is another yr older and they don't have much of a bench.

Nash and Amare making anyone look good. They are a lock.

The chances of us making the playoffs are really slim. We cannot take any game off. Every game means something. I dont know if the Warriors and their youth are capable of that. I would like to see it happen, but the uncertaintly of it is the winner. I dont think we'll be playing ball in the 3rd weel of April.

[Sleepy51]

The Suns are no lock. They need Grant Hill to play 70 games and how many games will Shaq miss? Nash is another yr older and they don't have much of a bench.

Nash and Amare making anyone look good. They are a lock.

The chances of us making the playoffs are really slim. We cannot take any game off. Every game means something. I dont know if the Warriors and their youth are capable of that. I would like to see it happen, but the uncertaintly of it is the winner. I dont think we'll be playing ball in the 3rd weel of April.

Provided Randy and Wright haven't jsut been cooling thier heels in Foyle's old seat for the first 3 months of the season, there's a distinct possibility that we could play BETTER when Maggs get hurt and Nellie retires in March. Moncrief FTW!

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Interesting Gatling...sure you're not trolling? If not, you're certainly one pessimistic fan.

Some food for thought: Maggette replaces Baron's scoring, almost exactly, but he does it on 5 fewer shots per game, i.e., Maggette should give us more productive possessions.

The Warriors WITH BARON couldn't win to start the season last year. Didn't start winning until SJAX returned to the team. Arguably, SJAX was the important cog, not Baron. It seems to me that fans tend to remember Baron's last second heroics, but tend to block the last second flops. The fact is when you have a player like Baron who demands the ball in his hands in crunch time, he will win some and lose some, but it was the team who put him in the position to win it or lose it.

Not a troll or a pessimist just a realist. Those other teams in the West are too damn good. I don't know why the team started out emotionally flat last fall. It was not just the lack of Jackson and JRich. The whole team was standing around watching on defense instead of utilizing their quickness advantage to create chaos.

On offense I think a lot of Warriors fans have underestimated the degree to which everybody's open shots depended on Baron penetrating and forcing the defenses to sag in order to stop him. I have doubts whether Monta can replace Baron in the pick and roll with Andris.

When the fast break is not there this team will probably have to clear a side and let Monta or Maggette work one on one the way Nelson used clear a side and have Sprewell go one on one.

Do you remember how the pre Baron Warriors could never hold a lead for the last 2 minutes of a close game. The opposing team would start playing their crunch time defense and the Warriors offense would just break down. Baron Davis single handedly changed that prior to Nellie's arrival.

I approve of 80% of Baron's chucking. A 33% three pointer is a good percentage shot. Long rebounds are bad but not so bad that you need stop firing 3s. I only had a problem with Baron chucking when he chucked so much that the team offense got rusty.

Baron can't be replaced by Maggette. Baron made the team offense work. When Baron got tired the offense bogged down.

Maybe Monta can replace Baron but I doubt it. Monta and Maggette can definitely replace Baron's scoring but everybody's FG%s are likely to go down without Baron orchestrating the offense.

Monta is a great scorer, Biedrins is a very good team defender, Jackson does a lot off things well, but Baron was this team's best player.

The Warriors got TERRIBLE production from Barnes last year, and he burned nearly 20 minutes per game. Hard to imagine we don't improve on that.

Catalog the Warrior's losses last year and you'll see a common thread through many of them--we were beaten on the front line. With Turiaf, we should hold our own on the boards and perhaps slow down the 4/5's of the opposition a bit.

Barnes even is his sucky year last year was one of the leagues better passing forwards. Barnes was not complete trash.

I like Turiaf. I was surprised that he did not have better rebounding stats than he did. He has good blocks stats. Too bad we can't play Turiaf on defense and Harrington on offense. Turiaf will be a little undersized if he plays back up center.

Too bad the Warriors can't play Wright on defense with Harrington playing offense. I hope Wright has added something to his game this summer.

We will miss Baron's leadership, but it's not like the rest of the team doesn't have it. Monta was making great decisions in the second half of last year and Maggette loves to have the ball in his hands at crunch time. Statistically, the Warrior's are better than what they were last year, so they should be in a better position to make the playoffs. They just need someone to step up and lead them there. I think it will happen.

"Statistically, the Warrior's are better"..... Because of Maggette's numbers?
I will be very surprised if this years team is as good as last years team.

[FNQ]

Not a troll or a pessimist just a realist.

Realism is pessimism here... Anything other than glossy eyed, unabashed love for all current Warriors (except the designated scapegoat - oh where have you gone Junior?) and the front office is blasphemy.

It makes the offseason too long... its not the realists fault either. I dont know about them, I've tried waking up and saying "Sweet, we got Corey Maggette!"... 0/30 so far. I keep turning the W into a H, damnit

[St.Nick]

510, do you ever wonder why people consider you a pessimist and a generally negative person? Its because you are.

[FNQ]

I give props when their due... I think Mullin wound up breaking even this offseason, with his bad signings (Maggs / Buke) to neutral signings (Turiaf) to good ones (Monta/Biedrins)...

You can say pessimist because I dont like the moves that we do... if we had signed Evans for the proposed 3 year deal, I'd like the offseason a whole lot more. Because I don't like the way the Warriors went with the offseason, I'm a pessimist? Stick to randomly pimping players for no reason..

[St.Nick]

So lets get to the core of it all. You want cap space for future FA's like LeBron James, Carlos Boozer, and Brandon Roy. You want to accumulate top-3 lotto picks until we can put together our own little dream team. You then want to fill in the spaces with top notch, cheap role players.

Here is a little clue: We ALL want to do that. The problem is, no team in NBA history has ever been able to do that. The rest of us ALL know that, too. So let it go. If you claim to be a realist, just let the fantasy go and come on back to reality.

[FNQ]

I don't expect all 3... see thats where you exaggerate. Each idea's been suggested individually.

Any one of the 3 would be good... cap room? Well we saw Marcus Camby, a starting C (while overrated, still solid) go for nothing. There's going to a be a glut of free agents, and teams who might be trying to shed some quick salary and pay well for it.

The point is options... the shrewd GMs have left their options for 2010 open. We'd need to make a trade for that to happen, and I'm sure most GMs are well aware of the fact that their 08/09 expirings are a lot more valuable because of that fact.

That's the actual issue for people keeping score... not random hyperbole... or just making stuff up (top notch, cheap role players? When I suggested paying more than what they signed for? ). It's not unreasonable to be focusing more on the future of our young, long term prospects, than on the present, w/a coach they likely won't be working with.

[St.Nick]

You think building a franchise involves signing a bunch of mediocre players to identical three year deals, just so all of our cap space can emerge at one time. Yeah, fantastic idea in theory. Then you start to realize that James Jones wants a 5 year deal and not a 3 year deal. Mo Evans tries to get you into a bidding war with the Hawks. When faced with the prospect of Kosta Perovic being your only backup center unless you sign Turiaf to a $4M deal over four years rather than a $3.5M deal over three years, you decide to pull the trigger.

It's not nearly as clear cut as you make it to be. You Reggae-- and I am not saying this to insult you-- honestly have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to actually signing players and making personnel moves. You simply have theories that look good on paper and that can be argued over the internet. They have nothing to do with the actual happenings that occur in the world of NBA players, agents, General Managers, and owners.

So when you say that you have the perfect plan to build us into champions in three years and then criticize nearly every move that is done IN REALITY because it doesn't fit your un-realistic plan, that is why you get called negative, pessimistic, and delusional.

[FNQ]

I have no idea...

Give me a break... Jones signed an NFL 5 year deal (re: 2 year deal)... Mo Evans signed for less than Horror Story... you just these intangibles when its something your against... same old stuff... I could literally script out every argument you're in..

I said I have the perfect plan? Or did I explain what I wanted to see? What I thought were better ideas? Do you even see how you come off? I literally respond to your posts purely for entertainment... And this has been a boring offseason after our signings.

[St.Nick]

Right, so complaining about Mo Evans making $2.5M/yr compared to Kelenna making $3M/yr doesn't make you sound negative and like a know it all?

We saw your idea for building the team. We all agree that it sucked. So now you are back to your regular antics of inflating your ego via nitpicking our front office's moves and telling us how you would have handled it (even though you have no idea what is really happening in the world of NBA player movement).

Notice that you are pretty much the only one following the philosophy of signing aged role players, being horrible for several years to get top picks, and then getting superstars with the cap space left over. So does that make you a visionary or just delusional? Based on the collective intelligence of this board, which is pretty high, I'd say with the utmost confidence that its the latter. Well, that and the whole deal which would have netted us Marko Jaric and Antoine Walker.

Anyways, its a tired act Reggae. Try contributing something to the discussion (look to the Maggette thread for how discussion is supposed to be made) instead of just being this egocentric loudmouth. We all know its a facade.

[a8bil]

Not a troll or a pessimist just a realist. Barnes even is his sucky year last year was one of the leagues better passing forwards. Barnes was not complete trash.

I like Turiaf. I was surprised that he did not have better rebounding stats than he did. He has good blocks stats. Too bad we can't play Turiaf on defense and Harrington on offense. Turiaf will be a little undersized if he plays back up center.

Too bad the Warriors can't play Wright on defense with Harrington playing offense. I hope Wright has added something to his game this summer.

We will miss Baron's leadership, but it's not like the rest of the team doesn't have it. Monta was making great decisions in the second half of last year and Maggette loves to have the ball in his hands at crunch time. Statistically, the Warrior's are better than what they were last year, so they should be in a better position to make the playoffs. They just need someone to step up and lead them there. I think it will happen.

"Statistically, the Warrior's are better"..... Because of Maggette's numbers?
I will be very surprised if this years team is as good as last years team.

You make some good points, Gatling, but I still think you are WAY to pessimistic. It's not like the Giants this year, after they got rid of their only power hitter and went into the season with no punch. Now there's reason for pessimism. By contrast, I think the warriors understood exactly your point that the W's need someone to break down defenses in crunch time...Maggette does that and has a higher scoring average, gets to the line more, and has a higher shooting percentage from the line than Baron. The W's did go out to figure out a solution, and I for one think it is interesting. Further, the W's had glaring weaknesses on the front line that left Biedrens overwhelmed at times in the paint. They went out and got Turiaf to deal with that. They did lose Baron, but Monta with the growth and poise Monta showed in the second half last year, the sky's the limit for him, and they went out and got Williams, who may be a bust, but he had one time had a good reputation for running an offense and passing. There's reason for optimism.

Your one biggest concern seems to be ball movement in the offense. Personally, I think Baron WAY too often got into the iso mentality and the offense stagnated with him, particularly during crunch time. My sense was that when they did not have Baron on the floor, they tended to move the ball more because there wasn't someone there demanding the ball and calling for people to clear the lane for him. I was at many games last (I share season tickets) and some of the most fun games were when the second unit lit up other teams whipping the ball around the court. Then Nelson would take them out, put Baron and JAX back in and we would return to a plodding, two man offense. Not saying those guy suck, just saying that the team seemed more reliant on a two-man game when Baron in particular was on the floor.

In short, if the W's had not made the moves they did, I would agree with you that you're being a realist, but they did add some potentially good pieces in areas that the really need. The question is will they mesh and find a team flow in Baron's absense. For you to assume they won't is being pessimistic, IMHO.