Blabbing about Baron, Dunleavy and the Warriors (again)
All my past Warrior blatherings (of only a little over a week ago), coming back to haunt me…
The GoldenStateofMind website posted part 2 of my Q & A with them and I was just as full and frothy in my answers this time as I was in part 1.
Oops. Oh well.
Might as well link to it because, once again, if I have to type and think at the same time, I consider it work, especially if it has the capacity to get Warrior players and execs mad at me.
Plus, I might as well also add some thoughts and details to the hiss and sputter that I offered on the Q & A:
+ I implied to GSoM, and have mentioned before, that Warrior fans would be astounded to hear how much Davis is disliked by significant figures around the league.
Not so much the little guys. Not the assistant coaches, assistant GMs and runners.
It’s the coaches. The GMs. The agents.
I always try to add (but didn’t in the Q&A), that I like Baron, even though we’re not too close these days. He’s smart and stubborn and I have to admire that. He’s also, when healthy, an excellent player.
But he gets hurt a lot. He has a swagger. In New Orleans, they believed he dogged it coming back to force a trade. There have been other incidents.
Baron’s reputation is not good. As Chris Mullin said a few months ago: The best part of that is how great it will feel to Baron, and to the Warriors, when and if he shows all the NBA critics that he can put a franchise on his back.
I’m open to seeing that happen.
+ Even without having talked to Don Nelson since his introductory Warrior news conference, I’m getting a strong feeling that the opening night line-up/8-man rotation he’ll toss out against the Lakers will be:
C-Troy Murphy.
F-Mike Dunleavy, Ike Diogu.
G-Baron Davis, Jason Richardson.
First off the bench: Mickael Pietrus (for Diogu), Monta Ellis (for Murphy or Dunleavy), Andris Biedrins.
Not sure about: Adonal Foyle, Patrick O’Bryant, Zarko Cabarkapa, etc.
+ I said on the Q & A that I thought Dunleavy would get the early shot at small forward and Mickael Pietrus might come on late.
New estimate: Dunleavy could be Nelson’s power-point presenter.
Nelson was hired to get Dunleavy going. He’ll push him and push him and move Dunleavy to big minutes at power forward and big minutes at point guard, which will be weird but possibly fun to watch.
Pietrus will get lots of minutes playing forward with Dunleavy.
Just a guess. Just frothy thoughts.
So if anyone wants to get mad at me for the Q & A, get mad at me for the blog, too. (It pays better.)
I read Newhouse’s comments / story this morning, Sept 14th… Confirms much of your thoughts above.
Nothing gets around the fact that Dunleavy can’t shoot straight, the Warriors will never play defense under Nelson, and Murphy wants his double double from the perimeter ….and most of the Warriors are overpaid and under long term deals, with no incentive to improve. If anything, watch for lots of trades, but what team would want any of the long term deals with GSW mediocre players?
Nelson will get frustrated and be back in Hawaii pretty quickly.
Rumors have it that the Spurs don’t want to have to play Duncan at center, and are looking for a defensive minded center to pair with him. Insofar as Foyle will be a poor fit for Nellie-Ball, do you think the Spurs might be interested in a mutually beneficial trade of Foyle (plus possibly a 2nd round pick) for Brent Barry + Fabricio Oberto?
Plz stop talking defense, plz. The W has not gotten into playoffs since 93-94 so the first task is to make the playoffs then we can talk about defense and other stuffs. I like what Nellie said about Pietrus, a defensive player who has been trying to score. That’s not Pietrus’s job and should not be. Pietrus should imitate Bowen of the Spurs.
I think Baron will be gone before the all star game b/c Nellie will push him and test him and as we all know Baron does not like authority and is not disciplined.
Hopefully Nellie can whip them into shape physically. I believe all the players were not in basketball shape thus they all died in 4th quarther too often.
Your insight is welcome. You have better information than we do and your analysis makes sense. I wish Baron would “rededicate” himself but its been 2 years since his last All-Star appearance and he should have been doing that before.