Nelson needs a good assistant the only reason they had success in Dallas is because General Avery was at his side to bridge the disconnect between certain players and the head coach. I think the same thing is needed in Golden State. They need a strong personality that can work with the players on the defensive end and also help with the rotation. Nelson, like any coach, has his pros and cons. -bB

re: I disagree with quite a few things in this blog.

Firstly, I don’t know how you can say Nellie doesn’t play his best players enough. If anything he OVER plays them. We had a 7 man rotation for about half the season, and those guys off the bench were averaging about 20 mpg or less. You do the math on that, but in short our starters were in the game at least 35+ mpg.

Nellie did, whether you want to admit it or not, re-invigorate this team. If you’ll remember the Montgomery era and the pre-effective Monta era, Monty basically refused to deal with developing Monta. He was an under-sized SG that turned it over every other time he touched it. In Nelson’s first season he gave Monta the starting PG spot. He struggled mightily for half a season and then grew into the role. What’s important here is that Nelson was willing to develop Monta, something other coaches like Montgomery did not want to do.

Very few coaches can employ small ball as effectively as Nelson did. I don’t think that should even up for debate.

While I agree that we need to create a package centered around Harrington (preferably for a PF/C type to help the weaker Biedrins on D), he is not a cancer to this team. SJax shoots 40% from the field…on 20 shots a game and turns it it over nearly 3 times a game…from the SF position. Baron Davis shoots 6+ treys a game at a terrible clip. Our bench went 2 deep. It’s pretty unfair to say Harrington is a “cancer”, but it is fair to say he was not aggressive enough as a result of his sporadic minutes. Which is why my stance is to trade him or give him more solid minutes.

Can’t agree more with #2. But you have to focus on who we could actually acquire. Jamison is getting paid near the MAX and there’s no way the other guys would be traded. Jamison will be available no doubt, but I doubt the Warriors can stomach his salary. Players like Jermaine O’Neal, Elton Brand, Chris Kaman, or Drew Gooden are all very attainable at the right price.

LB23

defensive minded warriors need to step it up on the defensive end, until they make a committment to actually playing defense, and that does not mean stepping up their offense, they will still be good, but remain in the middle of the standings in the unbelievable western conference, stern needs to step up and allow the warriors in the playoffs, i mean if the hawks are in the playoffs c’mon, all teams with a winning record should be considered, the East sucks, and its going to be a slaughterhouse until the conference finals

re: Warriors definitely need to improve their man to man defense. But where would a coach even begin to fix that? SJax was lazy this year, BD tries on D only when he has to, Monta is a matador, Biedrins is too thin to defend in the post, and our PFs are really SFs. This starts and ends with personal work ethic and player acquisitions.


Our player acquisitions this year, that weren’t rookies, were Austin Croshere, Troy Hudson, CJ Watson, and Chris Webber. Seriously Mullin? Come on now, now onder we didn’t have a bench.

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LB23

Agree with recommendations except Number 4. The Warriors have to play some defense, they should not be giving up 100 points which they do on a regular basis. It’s like the President and the economy. Take credit when it’s going well, and deflect blame when it isn’t. Nellie can’t take credit for the defense playing well when he doesn’t emphasize it, at all!

- Freddie Footballer

re: That reminds me of a halftime interview Nelson had during a TNT broadcasted game. The reporter asked something to the effect of “you allowed 60 points in the first half, what are you going to do to slow down player X (forgot who)” and Nelson responded “well we usually don’t miss as many shots, we just need to start making our 3s” funny, sad, and true all at the same time.

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LB23

nice glad to see this blog post get a lot of comments. i must admit that my argument had a few holes in it and was formulated out of frustration. However, Harrington is indeed a cancer to the team. More minutes for Harrington is the LAST thing that the Warriors need. A trade is in order. He’s just not a good team player, and he needs to be on a team that plays small ball.

I agree that the one of the team’s biggest problems is the lack of defense and should have addressed it in the post.

re: A team cancer kills a team from within. Please, tell me how Al Harrington did this. He had no run-ins or disagreements with coaches or players, he did not complain when he took on a lesser role, and he did produce int he little time he played.


The only reasoning you gave as to why Harrington is a cancer is that he can’t pass. I disagree, PFs shouldn’t even be called upon to pass as much as PG/SGs. Monta gets lazy on his passes quite often, does that make him a cancer too? SJax tries to take his man 1 on 1 all the time and forgets how to pass, does that make him a cancer? I don’t even think Harrington is a bad passer, he just doesn’t make the flashy pass.


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LB23

Gilbert Arenas is a 10x the team cancer that Al Harrington is. And yes I said it, so you can quote me on the quote unquote. Last season Arenas was 65th out of 67 point guards in assist ratio. No wonder analysts are starting to correctly observe that the Wizards are a better team without him. And unless the player is tearing the team apart from the inside it’s kind of ridiculous to label a team’s 4th scoring option as a team cancer. I could give you a whole list of tertiary scoring options that are a lot more selfish than Harrington. Take Jarvis Hayes for example. Defensive liability who ranked in the 1st-2nd percentile in a defensive composite scores study of last year. Hayes is nothing but a shooting specialist who can’t shoot (career 41% FG, has topped out at 50% TS). I’m sure there are hundreds of other statement about the Dubs worth making than “Al Harrington is a team cancer.”

re: Harrington “Within” can mean a lot of things. I agree that there haven’t been any off court situations in which he’s been cancerous. I’m just talking about being cancerous on the court. On offense, the lack of passing skills disrupts the offensive flow. On defense, his lack of intensity, awareness, and rebounding is the root of the Warrior’s poor team defense. Harrington averaged 1.6 assists, 5.4 rebounds, and 0.2 blocks this year. He had a whopping total of 16 blocks. He also takes a lot of bad shots, which is why he shoots a poor 43% from the field. For a guy who is athletic as he is and stands at 6’9, 245lbs he should be posting better numbers.

He can run and he can gun. They have enough runners and gunners. To win a championship, they need a big man who can run and bang inside. With that said, instead of the word cancer, maybe I just should have said that he doesn’t do what a big man should do.

re: I agree, he doesn’t do what a big man should do, but realize no PF (outside of the Pau Gasols and Kevin Garnetts of the league) is expected to be a great passer. Out of the top 6 shot blockers in the NBA, only 2 of them get more than 2 assists a game. Out of the top 16 rebounders in the NBA only 6 average more than 2 assists a game.

I don’t think Harrington takes a lot of bad shots, he just takes a lot of threes (like Baron…). Now SJax, his 40% from the field is full of bad shots. 43% in limited and sporadic playing time is not bad at all. I agree Harrington must go in a trade if we want to improve, but he is far from a cancer.
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LB23

warriors harrington needs to go indeed. they need a power forward who can help them out defensively, instead of chucking threes and driving to the hoop.