Or should I say ‘joie de Turiaf’? I know that Turiaf’s joie de vivre is a contagious force, an irrepressible energy that somehow transforms the way I watch televised basketball.  Years ago, I met a Philly guy who lectured me on how much he loved Turiaf.  This dude was a casual NBA fan with no real attachment to the Lakers (Ronny’s team back then), yet he felt compelled to drunkenly express his bizarre Turiaf love (Nah, nah, ya don’ undah-stand… He’s a BEAST…a BEAST…I LOVE him). I thought it was odd at the time, but I get it now.

And here’s where it gets a little messy.  Because, well, I’m not sure where to separate Turiaf the player from Turiaf the lovable force of nature.  For the purposes of clarity I’m chucking metrics and win percentages out the window.  Hell, Turiaf competes for playing time with two of the most productive (in my opinion) Warriors and I still love the guy.  I know he’s merely a capable backup center. Trust me, I know.

It’s that Turiaf owns his space.  He’s not going through the motions of a NBA basketball game–he’s celebrating every moment. In a corporate, pressurized, sport, Turiaf stands out as a whirlwind of innocent exuberance.  He gets hyphy, and so do you.  You do because he conveys just how much damned fun competition should be.  That’s corny, but it’s coming from a guy who might just channel his inner Ronny next time he wins at pickup hoops or even Madden 2010.  It won’t look as cool when a 5-11 Jewish dude’s jumping around and flailing, but I’m wringing more celebration out of life because Ronny showed me the way.

And here’s where it gets a little messy again. I have no clue who the real Turiaf is.  I’m not even sure whether to call him, “Ronnie” or “Ronny.” He really could be anybody, even a two-faced Kirby Puckett type.  All I know is that he gives a piece of his being every night on the court, and we’re better for the transference.  Oh and then of course, there’s this:

A lot of praise around the internets for the Dubs effort vs. The Lakers.  I certainly didn’t expect anything but a Laker blowout, so…we should be happy?

Or not. The Warriors have near 50 win talent with a healthy squad, and these efforts should be the norm.  The Lakers game was a shining example in how brutally bad lineup decisions are snatching defeat from the splash whiskers of victory. Of course I’m going to talk about Anthony Randolph, and I don’t care if people are tired of hearing it.  Anthony Randolph, he of the ‘too many (gasp!) mistakes,’ played a shade under 19 minutes.  Who can fault Nellie for that, the kid was clearly overmatched and killing the team?  I mean, getting only 5 blocked shots, going 3/5, 5 assists, a whole turnover, making Lamar Odom pee his pants, we can’t have that, can we?  I mean, getting only 5 blocked shots, going 3/5, 5 assists, a whole turnover, making Lamar Odom pee his pants…Hey, whenever you can sub out a guy on pace for a quadruple double for the unshaven corpse of Vladimir ‘rather be snowboarding’ Radmanovic…well, I’ll stop with the cloying sarcasm.

Here are the AR per 36 minute totals:

Age      Tm      Lg      G      GS      MP      FG      FGA      FG%      3P      3PA      3P%
20      GSW      NBA      29      5      671      6.4      14.5      .439      0.1      0.3      .200

FT      FTA      FT%      ORB      DRB      TRB AST     STL BLK TOV      PF      PTS
5.3      6.5      .810         3.3         6.9        10.2 2.1          1.3        2.5 2.4       4.5      18.1

I’ll also add Randolph’s PER of 18.64 (second on the team).  And don’t start with that ‘but he kills the team chemistry on defense!’ The numbers ain’t with ya on it. Sorry.

Here is Don Nelson’s record since the beginning of last season: 38-75.  To those waiting for Nellie to coach us back from oblivion, do yourselves a favor and get super comfy.

I keep banging the same drum because the inexcusable occurs with alarming regularity.  Warrior ‘drama’ gets all the pub, but Nellie’s unfettered mind-numbingly destructive lineup decisions is the real overarching trope of the post ‘We Believe’ era.  Nellie’s addiction to ’small ball’ (or in this case, intentionally losing and passing it off as a strategy) continues unabated, and I have this stupid urge to make the holdouts accept reality: Please, for the sake of sanity, objective truth, and common wisdom,  admit that he’s coaching the team into the ground.  It’s painful enough to watch this happen to my favorite team, I don’t want to also feel like John Lithgow from ‘The Twilight Zone’ movie (there’s a gremlin doling out minutes to Kurz/Mikki/Vlad!).

It went from frustrating to comical back to frustrating and perhaps back to comical again.  At least this losing strategy has it’s comedic benefits. One sideshow of the Nellie ball experience is hearing/reading Nellie apologists defend these decisions to the bitter end.  As Nellie gets crazier, the apologists are forced into odd contortions.  If Randolph balls it up in mingy minutes, we get something like, ‘Hey, Randolph grabbed two more rebounds after he was yanked and Nellie talked to him, yay Nellie!’ Father knows best, right?  I’m sure he has his reasons, huh?  I’d be more inclined to believe this if Nellie hadn’t pulled the same crap with virtually every young big who had the misfortune of suiting up for him.  Look, I have nothing but love for all the Dubs fans out there, and I want the Nellie lovers to be correct…but I don’t think we’re at a point of arguing the subjective anymore.  As in, one can argue that Wade is superior to Kobe Bryant, or vice versa. One cannot reasonably argue that Anthony Parker is superior to Kobe. And you can’t make solid, data-based arguments for keeping the 20 year old on the bench.

The paternalistic excuses for Nellie’s handling of Randolph have officially jumped the shark.  Nellie’s not raising a child, he’s keeping one of his best players off the court in favor of NBA dregs.  This isn’t 1972, we have endless empirical evidence to prove a coaching failure. Warriors Fans, it’s time to wake up and smell the scotch: Your coach is hurting the team.

The Colts sacrificed their perfect season amid angry boos from a home crowd.  Like everything in sports it was trivial. Going 19-0 is trivial, winning a Superbowl is trivial, a ball flying through two sticks in the ground is trivial, etc.  So all’s relative in the ‘Caldwell’s a jerk’ versus ‘He did the right thing’ debate.  I think it was the wrong way to go, but that’s not what interests me about this mini controversy: I want to know why the fans weren’t even a part of the discussion.

Kudos to Howard Bryant for at least bringing up the fan factor.  He’s in the minority.  Last night I watched oh-so-serious football men Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison sagely opine that the Colts had no responsibility to anyone but the team.  Really?  What about all those angry people who bought tickets for that game? What about all the Colts fans who wanted a perfect season?  I understand Caldwell’s perspective on the matter, but the arrogance of the talking heads is staggering.

For all the daily sports jibber jabber about what team’s number one, what team’s a fraud, and which coach is on the hot seat, the fans get ignored with alarming frequency.  These all-important sports moments are presented as though they occur in a vacuum and that we intrinsically understand their profound impact on our lives.

I didn’t hear or read one argument like the following: Caldwell has a right to pull his players, but he should have informed ticket buyers ahead of time.  Or how about this one:  The Colts should have put their decision to a local fan vote, seeing as how the fans watch the games and buy the tickets.  Such arguments are considered subversive and deviant in the ultra corporate NFL, a league that can’t possibly fathom a world where Americans no longer care about football.  Hey, we’ll blackout your games in a recession, our coaches will intentionally roll over upon clinching playoff berths, and our sport will cripple your heroes for life…but you suckers will never turn away, right?

The NFL has an underlying assumption that Americans will do anything for pro football—as though it’s encoded in our national DNA.  That’s a mistake.  Football is popular here, but it’s continued dominance isn’t assured.  The United States boasts one of the fastest changing, most diverse populations in the world.  Not everybody wants to hunker down and watch the start-stop-timeout-challenge ‘action’ of the NFL.  I do, but most of my friends who emigrated here don’t.  Soccer and basketball have done far more to ride the globallization (get it??) tsunami.  I’ll still root for the Chargers, but part of me wants America’s other sports to overtake this self-important, fan-hating concussion mill.

I don’t wish to offend, but the point of this post is that such ruminations shouldn’t be offensive.  I’ll skip past the perfunctory statements about who Chris Henry was and how sad his early passing is.  I’m commenting on a related phenomenon:  When athletes die, sports kabuki follows.  In the wake of a wake, famous deaths get used by the less principled for sleazy ends (see: the aftermath of Reagan’s death).  Sports are no different.  Subconsciously or consciously the big sports leagues seek to maximize their benefit from tragedy.  And we’re stuck in the sand—frozen by social mores, and a powerful impulse to avoid the ‘Not cool, dude’ chide.

Last Sunday was disgusting.  Chad Johnson probably feels real pain for his lost teammate, but all of that is mixed in with a staggering narcissistic streak.  He cries for the cameras, claims he’ll wear Henry’s jersey, dress in his locker, whatever. Dude…it’s not about you.

Perhaps it’s Ocho’s way of dealing with the pain, but he certainly doesn’t hate the attention.  And neither does the NFL.  This is drama, a chance to further hype a marquee matchup between two top teams.  By all means, keep the cameras on Chad as he weeps on the sidelines! How compelling!  It’s also a chance for the NFL construct an alternate memory of who Henry was, and deflect the casual fan from thinking ‘human crimewave.’

Look, I hate when guys like Colin Cowherd jump into these stories as though someone rang a racial paternalism bell.  But I also hate how we scrub history clean in the name of sensitivity.  We don’t have to cruelly say ‘he deserved it,’ or dismissively say, ‘it wasn’t surprising.’ We don’t have to act as though (this is directed at Cowherd) a freak incident is the perfect template for shaking our fists at young black athletes—as if Henry is indicative of some grand social problem that must be solved right NOW.  What society should do is stop large corporations from manipulating our humanity. I wish some sportswriter would say, “Gee, NFL, CBS, it’s death, not a commercial for your game.”

The power of sports kabuki prevents us from doing this. We have to ‘mourn’ the loss, turn Henry’s life into an acceptable narrative (Chris Henry was reformed! Pat Tillman was a hero!), and help the NFL  squeeze as much good press as they can from the contrived emotion.  Any major figure who questions this dance will be chucked into the realm of deviancy faster than post-911 Bill Maher.  Perhaps it doesn’t matter, but I like veracity. Not ‘oh-so-serious’ NFL bullshit kabuki.  What I saw last Sunday just didn’t seem honest.

Ironically sports are all about emotional manipulation.  They are totally trivial without our collective feeling irrationally poured in.  But a ‘NBA on NBC’ Marv Albert-narrated montage gooses your feelings in a positive way.  The NFL appealing to your sensitivity for the sake of its own ratings and image just erodes your capacity for sympathy from a distance.  If media companies constantly gun for our empathy, we become a cynical, silly people.  I don’t have the Hollinger stats to prove this, but Jacko death hysteria+Tiger Woods hysteria+ongoing wars+feudal healthcare system = a country without emotional perspective.

My Jewish Christmas has me thinking NBA lottery gifts.  Is it too soon to think about the lottery? That question is rhetorical.  Thanks to the GSoM scouting project, much of that thinking will be refined to a tasty pulpy paste that Nellie should happily gobble or drink…if he’s heard of the internet.

Just for fun, I’ll add my rusty two cents about four months too early.  The Warriors are this year’s Grizzlies: They have redundancies of redundancies, which could force a dumb decision.  Who among us watched the Grizz glumly pick Thabeet and thought it would work out well? No one, except the rare breed of character who would actually admit to having thought anything other than ‘STIFF’ on draft day.  I respect that person’s honesty, and perhaps Thabeet will hit a championship-winning half court shot before it’s all said and done.  But in the pre-Thabeet half court shot era, the pick looks awful–especially since Conley’s looking like a guy who merely rode Greg Oden’s coattails (which will eventually lead to Greg Oden fracturing both coattails).  I guess my point is that W’s management shouldn’t worry about redundancy because we barley know who’s good on this youthful, crazy team.

If the Warriors Secaucus their way into the top 3, almost any pick should force a trade.  I love Derrick Favors as Amare 2.0, but what happens if we actually have the luck to get him? Biedrins trade? We give up on Randolph?  Another Monta vs. Curry situation among bigs? Same problems arise with the glorious John Wall.  This isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just an interesting place to be after so much pre-season playoffs hyping. Winning the lottery will set off a Tim Kawakami speculation bomb. Just prepare for it, no biggie.

Given our lotto luck, I wouldn’t be surprised if we slip past top 3 pay dirt.  If that happens, remember Evan Turner. I may be getting ahead of myself, but his talent will most likely exceed his draft selection number.  Hell, I’ll prematurely conjecture my mental mind into thinking we’ll get him.  So why does Turner Talent>Turner Selection?  He fractured two back vertebrae and is out two months.  This is a concern, but it is also a chance to get a DuJuan Blair bargain.

I heard an interview with Daryl Morey once, where he said that the Rockets consistently take on injury risk as a means of beating the basketball market (paraphrasing).  Perhaps Mr. Quantum physics was merely playing a Jedi Mind trick so he could laugh when Donnie Walsh signed Jonathan Bender, but Morey’s words seemed pregnant with the veracity of a thousand George Washingtons.

In Morey I trust.  And in Evan Turner’s awsome rebounding, passing, and driving ability I sort of trust.  He’s six-foot-seven and ath-a-letic, as the announcers say. Check out this Turner youtube mix set to Eminem’s ‘Till I Collapse’ and try to keep from getting pumped (He looks like Tyreke Evans on some of the drives!).  Behold, his mighty rebounding and assist numbers (two huge Warriors concerns). With a little luck, we can add him and at least compensate for our suckitude with a historically youthful, compelling cast. Call it ’suckcitement.’

stay tuned.

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One thing I wanted to make clear before the post starts: I’m not against drinking, in fact I find it necessary for getting through Warriors games (joke). I just find it odd that Nellie’s drinking could be an issue and yet we only obliquely refer to it….

It’s not libelous or even improper to ask the question. There are veiled references to it everywhere—on this site, ESPN, and in the local papers.  We all know that Nellie loves his scotch.  Back in the day, we almost reveled in his possible alcoholism. It was amusing to watch a guy beat the No. 1 seeded playoff team, and pop open a beer in the post game.

Now, it’s not so amusing.  As the losses pile up, and the Warriors start to disintegrate, the question goes begging: Does a non functional alcoholic have a huge hand in our team’s present and future? This is the elephant in the room (no Don Nelson weight jokes, please).

Just a short time ago, Nellie called KNBR from a bar, in the daytime.  If that’s not remarkable, what followed was: He said he was drinking scotch, and told Ralph it was “harder than hell” to trade Stephen Jackson.  I would add that, subjectively, the guy sounded sloshed.  How many other teams would countenance their coach getting drunk (probably) and publicly harming a player’s trade value?

I didn’t hear a whole lot of outcry about that PR disaster, possibly because we’ve become immune to Don’s drinking.  Now, after his health problem (pneumonia is a disease that disproportionately impacts alcoholics), his odd practice behavior (Mavericks jacket?), and recent lineups that boggle the mind in only bad ways Vladimir Radmanovic at center?), I wonder how much longer we dance around the issue.  Nellie could be the coaching version of Robert Irsay, and we’re acting as though it’s normal for a 69 year old man to lament the loss of a drinking buddy when his star wants out.

Obviously there are many attributions for the current Warriors disaster.  But this could be the most underrated one of them all.  I have issues believing anyone in his right mind would start SF VladRad at the center position in an actual game.  I don’t think I’m alone. In the meantime, the wrong players keep taking shots for Nellie.