FanHouse Anthony Randolph

PHOENIX -- The Warriors played basketball like five individuals wearing the same uniform on Friday, instead of like an NBA team that was anywhere near capable of playing as a cohesive unit. As a result, they were run off the floor by a Suns team that shared the ball to get easy baskets, led by a 20-assist performance from Steve Nash.

Besides the fact that Nash had more assists than the entire Warriors team did, there was something else that was interesting about this one, and that was the way that Don Nelson chose to use - or not use -- one of his most athletic players in Anthony Randolph.

You kids and your Twitter. There's something about 140 characters to get your point across that just seems to make sense. The whole idea got me thinking that instead of dragging out some fantasy basketball column that you'll likely just skim over, what do you say I give you 50 fantasy basketball tips and observations in 140 characters or less. You have no vote in this matter, so you're getting them anyway.

These tips are not only designed for those of you who have yet to draft your fantasy teams, but they're also for those who are looking to improve on their post-draft squads. Hopefully this is a helpful way to get out as much information as possible while keepin' it mainstream.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- When Warriors coach Don Nelson let it be known early Thursday that he was going to start Corey Maggette at power forward instead of Anthony Randolph, you could almost hear a collective groan among fans in the Bay Area.

"Not this again," seemed to be the refrain.

Randolph is considered the Warriors' brightest young star and figured to be a shoe-in to start at at the four this season. But now that Maggette's the man -- at least for now -- it's only natural to wonder whether Randolph is back in Nellie's doghouse, a place Randolph spent a good chunk of his rookie season.

The power forward position is the deepest of all positions. Much like I mentioned how many of the the best power forwards are eligible at center, many small forwards and centers have dual eligibility at power forward. The range of ability consists of some of the league's best rebounders, scorers, three-point specialists, and efficient shooters. Some fantasy owners load up on power forwards and slot them into their center and utility positions. This position runs so deep, so deep that 50 players may not be enough to cover each and every fantasy relevant power forward. The depth leaves great value toward the end of drafts, but there's no reason to sleep on the players atop the draft board.

Again, I followed Fleaflicker's fantasy basketball positional eligibility. The rankings are based on standard, 8-category head-to-head (H2H) scoring: points, rebounds, assists, blocks, steals, three-pointers, field-goal percentage, and free-throw percentage.

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Warriors haymaker Stephen Jackson is again talking to Yahoo!'s Marc Spears about the injustice of it all, in which "it all" is a $30-million extension from a bad team who has apparently broke its promise to stop sucking. Clearly, in the grand scheme of the Golden State's familiar foray into bleakness, Stephen Jackson is the victim, according to Stephen Jackson.

But he's also a cause, and not because of this latest impetuousness. The very fact that Jackson is considered the Most Valuable Warrior -- or even a valuable Warrior -- helped get Golden State into this mess.

FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.

Point forward. The final frontier.

These are the voyages of the... okay, that joke ran out of gas before it even started (much like the Warriors' playoff hopes. Hey-O!). The point is, the point forward position, the true point forward position is essentially the Holy Grail. Long rumored, we have specific evidence to support its existence (Magic Johnson), and often imitated (LeBron James), but no one has seemed to find it in years.

Enter Anthony Randolph and the Temple of Nellie.

FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.

The optimists around the Bay Area like to say that the Warriors' 29-win season in 2008-09 was primarily the result of too many injuries and a very young roster.

The pessimists say that last year's significant step-back-- from 48 wins the season before -- was mostly the result of poor management decisions that yielded a mismatched roster with too much overlap on the perimeter and not enough bulk on the interior.

The goal in 2009-10 is to figure out which side was right.

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The NBA career of forward Brandan Wright has not gone according to plan. The UNC product, acquired by Golden Sate as a lottery pick during the 2007 draft in exchange for Jason Richardson, has played rarely for the Warriors, stuck outside Don Nelson's infamous tunnel vision.

His 2009-10 season has another more immediate challenge now: Yahoo!'s Marc Spears reports that a shoulder injury suffered during Friday's practice could put Wright under the knife, and off the court for up to six months.

Warriors general manager Larry Riley cleared his late morning and early afternoon schedule on Tuesday and sat down to do a series of one-on-one interviews with Bay Area beat writers and columnists.

He addressed all sorts of issues, ranging from Stephen Jackson's trade request to which position Anthony Randolph is going to play this year to the general direction of the team.

And, of course, he answered several questions about the perception that he is little more than Don Nelson's surrogate.

OAKLAND -- As last season wore on, Warriors coach Don Nelson and rookie forward Anthony Randolph finally began to find some common ground and move past the acrimony and tension that had marked November and December.

Randolph thought he should be playing more, and Nelson thought Randolph should be working harder. Things reached a low point in December when Nelson declared he was putting Randolph "on ice" until Randolph began to show a glimmer of a work ethic. Randolph's response, in essence, was to say that he "was going to continue to work hard."

Things eventually thawed between the two, and Randolph would make some nice strides in the final months of the season. And from the looks of it, both men want to pick up where they left off – not go back to Square 1. Maybe that's why Nelson is getting mom and dad involved.