Warriors coach Don Nelson doesn't give a lot up to the media these days. He's acknowledged losing interest in the daily give-and-take with the team's beat writers and looks to end his postgame press conferences as quickly as he can.
Nelson has said, though, that he likes doing radio because it's a way to speak directly to the fans. To that end, Nelson had one of his most open exchanges on Thursday while speaking on his weekly radio show on KNBR.
Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News reports that the agent for Monta Ellis will meet with Warriors management Thursday, with the entree allegedly an Ellis desire to be traded away. Just like Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson. In fact, with this latest news, I'm beginning to think something wacky is going on in Oakland!
It's all become a little more ridiculous every single day for Golden State. Kawakami reports that when Ellis attempted to do a leadership schpiel to the team following an embarrassing 28-point home loss to the Clippers, coach Don Nelson (the apparent source of Monta's consternation) told the guard to "be quiet." The pair had an altercation in front of the media a week later. Fun times.
Hawks buzzard Josh Smith has famously wasted quite a few Atlanta possessions over the years by taking ill-advised three-pointers. That phraseology is actually redundant when it comes to Smith: it would be considered ill to ever advise Smith to take a three.
Thankfully, someone showed Josh the light, and he hasn't attempted a trey all season. He convinces when he tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he hasn't even felt tempted to fire up a bomb. He found Basketball Jesus! Like a good son of the word, he should spread his experience. Which players would most benefit from a Brother Smith knock at the door?
SACRAMENTO -- It's not so much the Warriors' 1-4 start that's the problem. It's the teams they've lost to and the manner in which they've been defeated.
Nobody expected the Warriors to be among the Western Conference elite. But they shouldn't be a team that can't compete with the L.A. Clippers and Sacramento Kings. But they can't. Not now.
What a miserable weekend it was for the Warriors. And you could tell by taking one stroll through the locker room after their 120-107 loss to the Kings on Sunday that there's more to this tough start than just a tough start.
Warriors haymaker Stephen Jackson is againtalking 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.
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.
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry weren't on the floor together at any point during the Warriors' 108-101 preseason opener against the L.A. Clippers on Sunday night.
That's going to change. Warriors' coach Don Nelson said so.
And you know what? Ellis, who at first wasn't crazy about the notion, seems to be coming around to the idea.
"You can't take anything away from him," Ellis said of Curry. "He can shoot, pass, defend, all of that. He's got the whole package. ... He's better than I thought he was."
Three days after Black Monday, the issue no longer is whether or not Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry are going to play together. That's going to happen. Heck, it's happening already.
The real question is, how much?
"We had a scrimmage (Wednesday night), the last 20 or so minutes we were on the same team," Curry said of Ellis and himself. "He was running the point and I was running the two. Defensively, we played against Kelenna (Azubuike) and Corey (Maggette). It was fun because offensively we got into the open court and we had (Anthony) Morrow on the other side.
Ellis certainly didn't backtrack from his comments from the previous day, but he did acknowledge that, yes, there might be times a smallish, quick-ish backcourt of Ellis-Curry could be used. But it's not like he was embracing the idea.
Warriors coach Don Nelson doesn't give a lot up to the media these days. He's acknowledged losing interest in the daily give-and-take with the team's beat writers and looks to end his postgame press conferences as quickly as he can.
Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News reports that the agent for Monta Ellis will meet with Warriors management Thursday, with the entree allegedly an Ellis desire to be traded away. Just like Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson. In fact, with this latest news, I'm beginning to think something wacky is going on in Oakland!
Hawks buzzard Josh Smith has famously wasted quite a few Atlanta possessions over the years by taking ill-advised three-pointers. That phraseology is actually redundant when it comes to Smith: it would be considered ill to ever advise Smith to take a three.
SACRAMENTO -- It's not so much the Warriors' 1-4 start that's the problem. It's the teams they've lost to and the manner in which they've been defeated.
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. 
FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.
FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry weren't on the floor together at any point during the Warriors' 108-101 preseason opener against the L.A. Clippers on Sunday night.
Three days after Black Monday, the issue no longer is whether or not Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry are going to play together. That's going to happen. Heck, it's happening already.
OK, so maybe Monta Ellis can play alongside Stephen Curry -- every once in a while, here and there a little bit, and maybe when the matchups dictate.
