Season Preview Warriors

[KG-MVP21]

Okay, I didn't see this coming. After a season and a summer spent hearing executive vice president of basketball operations Chris Mullin insisting that he is sticking with head coach Mike Montgomery you begin to believe it.

Well, on August 30th he changed his tune and brought in the second-winningest coach in NBA history to helm his Warriors, Don Nelson. Most recently of the Dallas Mavericks, Nelson has been tabbed to try and right the ship for this team that currently holds the distinction of having the longest playoff drought at 13 years without an appearance. At the time of their last appearance their head coach happened to be Nelson, who has never had the reputation of being a soft-spoken leader, and often clashed with team superstar Chris Webber in a public feud that ultimately led to both leaving the team shortly thereafter.

What has happened since is a series of front-office bungles that have caused this team to year-after-year try and make lemonade out of the lemons on a roster that often included players either way past their prime or never destined to have a prime at all. Today, the roster is virtually unchanged from the one that went 34-48 last season, and the onus will be on Nelson to try and turn this around this moribund franchise.

Fortunately for Nelson this team does have two things going for it: Little internal strife and Jason Richardson. Even as it became apparent last year that they were destined to miss the playoffs again despite high pre-season hopes, this team did not turn on itself, a testament to the character of the guys on this Warriors team. Instead they wistfully looked back at what might have been had point guard Baron Davis been healthy all season or if Mullin had been able to land Ron Artest like he tried to do for the first third of the season. It would have been easy for this team to turn on itself for not getting the job done, but the fact that they didn't gives one pause to think that maybe on-court chemistry is just a heartbeat away from matching their locker room chemistry. It's a long shot, but it's a start.

They'd better hope it will be, anyway, because this summer the biggest acquisitions this team made outside of Nelson were the two guards they nabbed from Utah (Keith McCloud and Devin Brown) for Derek Fisher, neither of whom is much of a game-changer at this level, and that brings us back to Richardson, the other reason for hope on in the Bay area. Richardson has seen his game improve every year he's been in the league. He's taken himself from the ranks of pure dunkers up to a place where he is among the most potent scorers in the league today. He can create his own shot off the dribble, he can spot up and shoot, and he's also a pretty good passer and rebounder, to boot. He shoots an okay percentage from midrange and a great percentage from three and best of all he has remained relatively injury free throughout his five-year career.

Despite all of this, though, Richardson has not been able to do much to pull his team out of the lottery since being drafted out of Michigan State. His defense is absolutely porous and he doesn't seem to have that ability to know when and how to deliver in a way that puts his team over the top. It was thought last year that he wouldn't have to shoulder that burden with the arrival of point guard Baron Davis, but the Warriors found out fast what the Hornets have known for years: You can't build a team around Davis because you never know how many games he is going to be able to play in any given year. He's only averaged 54 games per season since 2002, and his body isn't getting any younger. While the Warriors will appreciate anything they can get out of the once highly-touted guard this season, the focus for this team will have to go back to Richardson for any shot at success.

Nellie has already proclaimed that he will bring his now-famous 'small ball' approach to this Warriors roster in an attempt to capitalize on the athleticism and offensive acumen he has at his disposal, while doing his best to hide the relative lack of defense that tends to be the calling card of his up-tempo squads. At the forefront of this attack will be Richardson, given an open court to utilize his speed and leaping ability to maximum effectiveness, and he'll have to make quick decisions with the ball to keep the offense chugging along.

If it turns out that even Nelson can't right this ship with his run 'n' gun offense, trades will be on the horizon, and when you look up and down this roster, there aren't many players who are worth they money they are commanding outside of the high-flyer Richardson. Mullin would be loath to trade his best player away, but another losing season would put the nail in the coffin for this version of the Warriors and it's ability to work as a winning formula. It's funny in a way to think that another losing season for Richardson could actually see him wind up in a better situation in another city, but that's a discussion for next April, and one that Nelson wants to make sure doesn't happen anyway.

PROBABLE STARTING LINEUP

PG - Baron Davis

He says he's slimmed down to his lowest weight since college, and that he's chomping at the bit to play in an open-court running offense like reigning MVP Steve Nash did when he balled with Nellie and the Mavs. For that to happen, I hope Davis spent as much time working on his jumper as he did working on his waistline, since he has shot below 40% from the field for the last three years and his penchant for firing up ill-advising three pointers could sink this team and it's porous defense before it has gotten a chance to learn the offense. Davis knows that his stock is at about its lowest point since he came into the league and I genuinely believe he is going to work himself to the bone to resuscitate it, but with him it all comes down to whether or not his body will betray him. His decision-making issues can't be rectified from the bench, and if he can play even 65 games this year it'll be a marked improvement.

SG - Mickael Pietrus

The athletic Frenchman gets the nod here due to Nellie's decision to play small and the fourth-year guard has a lot to prove going into a contract year. First of all, his jumper is just as shaky as Davis', and his career shooting percentage of .417 is mostly bolstered by a higher than average (for him) second season. He's a horrid free-throw shooter who is going to have to work hard on every aspect of his offensive game to work within Nelson's system. Of course with Pietrus, his calling card is his defense. He is a lot like Raja Bell, an ex-Mav in Nellie's time, when he was breaking into the league. He was a defense-first player who had a horrid offensive game in his first few years in the league but kept at it and became a key offensive cog last year on the league's best offensive club (Phoenix). His ability to run the floor and finish on the break, along with an absolute absence of defense on the perimeter in Golden State, should keep Pietrus in the starting five regardless, but it would really help the other offensive threats if he could learn to bury it a bit more consistently.

SF - Jason Richardson

He's always on the outside looking in. So nearly a star in this league because of his nightly appearances on SPORTSCENTRE, but so often let down by his team and his own lack of big-game experience. Under Nellie, Richardson could turn into this generations Michael Finley, the ultimate offensive plug who can hit shots from anywhere on the floor in any manner of ways to keep his team from slumping offensively. It was Finley's play early on in Dallas that afforded Nash and Nowitzki time to hone their games without being called on to be 'the man' in Dallas. Richardson could prove to be that piece here as the Warriors look to rebuild around him. It might just turn out that his fate isn't that of a lone star but that of a piece, an integral piece to a successful whole. Well, no matter what role he is ultimately destined to fulfill, you know he'll be doing it as spectacularly as anyone in the league.

PF - Mike Dunleavy

The fact that this guy has the word 'power' anywhere near his title is something of a fallacy, but sticking Dunleavy here is the whole thinking behind Nellie's small ball in Golden State, so let's go with it. Ever since getting drafted, Dunleavy has fallen short of expectations. He's rabidly inconsistent in nearly every aspect of the game, which has made him entirely unreliable throughout his fours years in the NBA. Nelson feels that a move to the four spot will benefit Dunleavy because he can operate better around fours than threes on offense, and clearly he realizes that he's defensively inept at either position, so that shouldn't factor into the equation. He sees him as something of a 'point forward', a term usually applied to players like Antoine Walker or Lamar Odom, guys who can bring the ball up the court and make sound playmaking decisions when asked. I guess Nelson knows something about Dunleavy and his abilities that no one else does if he thinks that's a role he fits, but hey, at this point in his career I think Nelson has earned a leap of faith every so often.

C - Troy Murphy

It seemed like any time there was a big player available on the trade market in the last year, the Warriors were begging to give up Troy Murphy and his enormous contract to land them. Murphy is one of those guys that everyone, especially the Warriors, thought was on the cusp of becoming an impact power forward in the league. He was a tenacious rebounder, especially offensively, who could nail three point shots and run the floor pretty well for someone at 6'11". In the end, though, he's never been able to crack that barrier, and despite his impressive 14 point and 10 rebound per game averages of late, his abysmal shooting percentages and relatively soft interior defense have kept him from joining the ranks of a Memhet Okur or a Brad Miller. Nellie believes, however, that if he can commit himself to playing the pivot this year that he'll be looking at having a career year in his system. Nelson sees him as one of his 'mystery guys' going into the season, being someone who he has an idea of how to use him but it will be up to Murphy as to whether or not he can adapt to that image, in this case playing centre. If it turns out he can't, it'll be too bad for both sides because not only will Murphy fall out of favor with Nelson, but his already unattractive contract will become downright untradeable.