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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.

New twitter account, btws:

Unlike Tim Kawakami (he’s often amusing), I refrain from deriding fans who still show up to Warriors games.  I’m a sucker like everybody else, and I occasionally find myself grinding teeth in the Oracle.  But I’m not going to our first nationally televised game on Friday–witnessing the Bobby-Cohan brigade suffer a revenue drop is just too much fun. For those who are going, allow me to be an arm chair general. To Warriors Nation, I propose a compilation of snarky in-game activities.  I’m not endorsing outright subversion per say–the following is just a collection of things fans ought not to not to do:

• The old bag on the head: Classic. Concise. Still comical.
• The ‘All I want for Christmas…’ signs:  We have so many desires this holiday season–new ownership….a sober coach….new coach…Randolph starting. I also would enjoy a “Happy Hannukah, our coach is meshuganah” sign. 
• The ‘We Suck’ signs: Whoever came up with that is a genius. Bagheads, this would be a great sign to rock.
• Start a campaign for Bill Simmons as GM:  The ESPN cameras would be more inclined to pick that one up than would the PR friendly CSN operation.

• ‘Bring back Mullin’ chants
• ‘Fire the drunk’ chants
• ‘Fire Nellie’ chants
• ‘Where’s Randolph at?!’ chants (’The Wire’ reference):  You could also go with ‘Where the F*** is Randolph?!’
• Boo Nelson at any opportunity: Any bad substitution, any time he gets up off the bench, pre-game intros, whatever. Don’t feel badly about it either, this guy made a scotch-soaked call into KNBR on a gameday.  Nellie needs some harsh consequences to break through that fog around his dome.

I’ve been reading a trope around here, one that really bothers me in lieu of recent events: It’s the idea that fans can’t judge the jackasses running this awful team.  For every reasoned critique of Warriors madness, there are a few comments that fall into the ‘oh what do we poor little fans know, we have no clue what’s happening behind the scenes!’ category. In a way that theme is correct: Warriors operations are so murky that it indeed is hard to know what the hell is really going on. But that shouldn’t take away our ability to judge. Hell, a big part of the problem is the lack of transparency.

I’ve worked for the NBA (low level, of course) and followed it my whole life. Trust me when I say the league is replete with incompetence at every management ladder rung.  Yes, Morey, Presti, and Buss are a part of this league. But the NBA also has its share of doddering ex-jocks (McHale, I. Thomas, Kiki V), and looney ‘businessmen’ (Sterling, Cohan&Bobby).  Yes, we damn-well can harshly judge an operation that fails to make the playoffs 15 out of 16 years. And we have more evidence at our disposal than ever before:

Notice the two starters (now one due to surgery) at the bottom of this list:

And here are some Hollinger PER stats:

Randolph PER: 18.11

Radmanovic PER: 7.84

Moore PER: 11.42

(Note: I don’t buy the bad Ellis rating because he’s in virtually all game for a terrible team, sort of like Kevin Durant last year. Plus/minus is best when comparing guys who don’t play )

So if there is a rationale for letting Randolph rot on the bench, it can’t be winning now. But hey, we can’t judge.  We don’t know the game like the guy who plays Vlad Rad at center. Unless Randolph has a Michael Beasley situation on his hands (i.e. addiction), this is inexcusable. Please, give em’ hell on Friday.

Courtesy of Golden State Worriers, this pretty much drives home my point:

Let me begin by saying Vlad has the physical tools of a good NBA player. He’s 6-10 and used to have a three point shot.  He could wake up tomorrow and turn it all around.  And he wouldn’t be the first player to repair his image amid Warriors chaos.  Odds are against it, though.  My last post dealt with some fairly objective Anthony Randolph stats, but my Radman doubting has a subjective attribution: Fringe NBA hopeful Paul Shirley used to constantly joke about Vlad’s apathy and lack of work ethic. This can be dismissed as uninformed NBA gossip, but Vlad hasn’t improved since 2003 (this is where subjectivity meets cold, hard evidence of suck). 

Phil Jackson used to call Vlad a ’space cadet,’ and it’s not hard to see why.  Passes fly into the stands with alarming frequency, so much so that Vlad cranked out ‘the worst turnover rate at his position’ last year, according to ESPN’s John Hollinger.  In the past, Vlad’s shooting offset some his spacey ways. But it’s been awful of late.  He plays decent perimeter defense, which would be a plus….expect he’s always playing power forward or center for us.  Expect him to keep getting bludgeoned by the Joakim Noah’s of this world.  For all the hate directed at Maggette (yes, he sometimes drives me crazy too), I wonder how Vlad Rad escapes criticism.  He can’t shoot, can’t pass, can’t run, can’t jump, can’t block, can’t steal, can’t defend the 4 position.  And is rumored not to care or work hard. 

Predictably, this earns him a starting spot upon arrival.  What the hell am I missing here? Am I misreading his PER of 9?  Should I be hypnotized into lauding Vlad whenever he slobbers all over his mouthpiece like a horse chewing an apple?

I’m not trying to deliver a cliche, ‘That guy’s a bum!’ argument.  I just think management sends a bad message when they play someone who can’t contribute and probably doesn’t care.  Since the Warriors coaches are supposedly so intent on rearing Randolph like a child, I’d like to know what the lesson is here.  At least the impotent Mikki Moore looks like he wants it.  And that’s the sad state of Warrior Land positivity: At least the comically washed up player playing over the young talent looks concerned, unlike the apathetic starter who might be even worse.

Some bitter, semi-related post Bulls game thoughts….

I don’t even know why I care anymore. I don’t know why any of you care anymore.  I guess I just love basketball and I love the Bay, and I can’t not watch the flashy car wreck on my TV.  Perhaps it’s because some primal part of me loves to yell at Don Nelson through my TV.  My intellectual curiosity pushes me towards finding the ‘why’ behind the badness.  I suppose it’s happening because people in large organizations subconsciously work within whatever pattern solidifies.  Maybe the pattern of needlessly alienating and trading promising players set in awhile ago. Of course this isn’t a conscious goal of Warriors management, but it sure could be subconscious. I’m grasping at straws here, because so little makes sense.  My intellectual curiosity is no match for Warrior Land madness.

Following this team is like watching a friend stab himself, and then seeing the friend turn the knife on you. Does the Warriors organization hate its fans? Why else would a team mired in a lottery season play Mikki Moore over Anthony Randolph?  Ticket revenue is down 22%, and the coach/es insist on starting the two worst players in the rotation and playing ESPN’s #6 ranked sophmore a meager 22 minutes per night. Then we have to listen to mumbled paternalistic Gary St. Jean sermons about how Anthony Randolph must ‘earn his minutes.’

Well the Warriors sure are earning their losses. They’re earning them every time Vlad Rad plays minutes at center. They’re earning them every time they start Mikki Moore in a real life NBA basketball game.  It’s apt to say they’re ‘earning them’ because the Warriors coaching staff is losing games while employing inherently losing strategies.  The path of regular basketball knowledge (i.e. least resistance) would win games that ‘all SG’ lineups lose.  Losing like this takes effort.  The Warriors are giving up games using bizarre strategies, not backed by basketball metrics.  And they’re doing this night after night, to the detriment fan interest.  Doing the same ineffective thing over and over again is one definition of madness.  They might have to create a new word for what ever the hell this is.

(I decided this post works better when people read onlxn’s ode to Mikki Moore’s craptitude)

Not a day goes by without a Bay Area media type sagely opining that Anthony Randolph should play ‘under control,’ or blaming Randolph’s lack of PT on ‘out of control’ play.  Whenever the 20 year old plays well, he’s given the backhanded compliment of having played ‘under control’ that evening.  I understand that the sentiment can come from a good place, but I chafe at the paternalistic tone with which Gary St. Jean uses it.  Actually, I chafe at anything Gary St. Jean says, and I hate how it always seems like he just woke up from a nap. Anyway, I fear that we’re starting to drink the toxic Kool Aid that comes from our coaching staff, the same staff that works under management that has institutionalized destructive madness: We’re starting to believe that Randolph hasn’t earned a starting spot and is having a bad second year. Poor Nellie, he had such high hopes for the kid.

We’re warming to this theme because humans seek order in their lives and can’t stand the thought of authority figures doing irrational things. We want to think that Nelson has a tough love plan, that Randolph must be hurting the team, or that Mikki Moore brings veteran magic dust.  Our brains have trouble understanding why highly paid, motivated people would sacrifice game after game starting washed up scrubs like Vlad and Mikki. Poor management, with the injuries they’re trying hard in a bad situation!

And we know how this thing usually goes in Warrior land. Management touts player, player gets blamed for team problems, player gets traded for crap, player flourishes elsewhere.  So before that happens with Anthony Randolph, I want to ask a simple question:

How bad has his second season been?

Let’s check Randolph’s stats and compare them to the 20 year old seasons of three realistic comps: Lamar Odom, Josh Smith, and Gerald Wallace.

First, here are Ant’s numbers so far:

G    GS  MIN    FG           FG%    3P        3P%    FT           FT%    STL    BLK    TO
19    1    22.3 4.2-9.7    .427 0.1-0.3 . 200     3.6-4.3 .829 0.80    1.20 1.4

PF    OFF    DEF    TOT    AST    PTS
3.1    2.4       4.6       7.0 1.1      11.9

I would add the Hollinger stat of 18.97 PER, which is higher than Randolph’s 16.94 total from last year.  How did Anthony accomplish this while being so damned ‘out of control’? The free throw line has a lot to do with it. Ant’s reckless ways are getting him there 4.3 times per game, an impressive total a 22 minute run.  It also helps that Randolph made nearly 83% of his freebies.  This aides in offsetting his mediocre shooting percentage (so far his biggest flaw, but something that tends to improve with age).  Here’s the part where I add that Vlad is averaging .7 FTs and Moore is racking up .5 per game. Only Donaughy could help those two get to the line at an average rate.

Obviously Randolph’s main contribution isn’t at the line.  He’s out there to rebound.  And he’s done that to the tune of 7 boards per 22.3 min run.  Throw in the solid 1.20 blocks as a bonus, and we have that shot blocking, rebounding power forward we always needed….if we weren’t so totally stacked right now at that position (I hope Vlad Rad doesn’t give a snippy Hall of Fame speech like MJ did!).

There is one particular area where Randolph isn’t under control: He’s picking up 3.1 fouls per game.  The fouling issue usually comes with the territory for shot blockers, but Randolph makes the occasional away-from-the-ball hack, and he leaves his feet too often.

As for the turnovers, well they’re at a staggering 1.4 per game (gasp!).  Per 36 minutes, that’s a “whopping” 2.2 TOs.  Oh no, a super careful PG like Monta won’t stand for that kind of blundering! Okay, I’ll stop with the sarcasm.  Just know that it’s a decent rate, especially for a 20 year old kid who frequently takes it to the rack. Now for the three Randolph comps at age 20:

Lamar Odom

G      GS      MP      FG      FGA      FG%      3P      3PA      3P%      FT      FTA      FT%
76      70      36.4      5.9      13.5      .438 0.8      2.2      .360      4.0      5.5      .719

ORB      DRB      TRB      AST      STL      BLK      TOV      PF      PTS
2.1      5.7        7.8 4.2         1.2        1.3          3.4        3.8       16.6

Josh Smith

G      GS      MP      FG      FGA      FG%      3P      3PA      3P%      FT      FTA      FT%
80      73      32.0      4.1      9.7      .425 0.4      1.4      .309         2.6      3.7      .719

ORB      DRB      TRB      AST      STL      BLK      TOV      PF      PTS
2.2          4.4       6.6 2.4       0.8      2.6        2.0       3.3      11.3

Gerald Wallace

G      GS      MP      FG      FGA     FG%      3P      3PA   3P%      FT      FTA      FT%
47      7      12.1      1.9      3.9      .492 0.0      0.1      .250      0.8      1.6      .527

ORB      DRB      TRB      AST      STL      BLK      TOV      PF      PTS
0.8         1.9           2.7 0.5         0.5      0.3       0.9          1.4      4.7

I’d say Anthony Randolph matches up pretty well with those guys.  The criticism is really what’s out of control here. That, and our criminally insane coaches who think height is a disadvatage in basketball.

Mostly cathartic Warriors venting.

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