Season Preview Primer

Golden State Warriors

Coach: Don Nelson
2007-08 Record: 48-34
Pythagorean Record for 07-08: 47-35
Offensive Rating: 111.8 (4^th in the league)
Defensive Rating: 109.5 (22^nd)
Possessions per 48: 98.8 (2^nd)
Min%: 65.5 (24^th)
Four Factors:

Roster (Red indicates new acquisition, Blue indicates rookie)

Monta Ellis reminds me of a young Tony Parker, back when Parker was still trying to figure out how to be a point guard. Like Parker, Ellis makes a living in the paint, taking 44% of his shots in the paint and making an astounding 68% of them. While Ellis isn’t much of a three-point shooter yet, he’s becoming an excellent mid-range shooter, and that makes him basically impossible to guard on the pick-and-roll. The problem is that he’s too small to be a shooting guard, and he doesn’t really have point guard skills yet. Unless the Warriors can find a big point guard who can cross-switch on defense, Ellis is going to have to develop his floor vision and figure out how to distribute the ball to his teammates. Of course, there’s also the matter of that little moped incident in the offseason. Ellis will miss at least 30 games, and we’ll have to see how he plays after he returns. He’s heavily reliant on his speed and quickness, and an ankle injury could affect that, at least early on as he’s trying to get back in game shape.

I love Andris Biedrins. People tend to disregard him because of his limited role offensively, but he does what he’s called on to do and does it extremely well. Biedrins’ 62.6% field goal percentage led the league, and he rarely missed because he rarely takes shots outside his comfort zone, which is a little 5-foot radius around rim. A whopping 89% of his shots came in the immediate basket area (3^rd in the league). He does a great job generating offense without having plays run for him by cutting off the ball and crashing the glass. He’s one of the best rebounders in the league, and might be the best in the league at tipping in offensive rebounds. He has fantastic hands and catches basically everything thrown to him. He’s also one of the few Warriors who cares defensively. He’s a solid shot blocker and a fantastic rebounder who is probably the only reason the Warriors didn’t give up more offensive rebounds than they had defensive ones. He’s only 22 and has played the last two years under Don Nelson, which probably means he hasn’t had a play called for him his whole career. He’ll be a great value for them at $9 mil a year.

I honestly have no idea what to think of the rest of this roster. It’s completely nonsensical, but that’s what you get from a Don Nelson team.

Al Harrington is wildly overrated offensively, and he’s a liability defensively against most power forwards (to say nothing of those moments when Don Nelson decides he should be playing center). Last year was actually the first year in his career that he posted an above-average offensive rating, and he did it by chucking up a whole bunch of three-pointers. Now, that’s great when you’ve got Baron Davis driving and kicking to you. With Marcus Williams? Not so much. Combine that with the fact that he’s a mediocre rebounder for a small forward and a downright terrible one for the power forward position, and you’ll forgive me if I don’t think he’s worth $10 mil a year.

In fact, Harrington and Stephen Jackson both suffer from the same problem with defense. Namely, they suck at it when they aren’t defending Dirk Nowitzki.

Jackson actually can be a fairly effective defender, but he rarely wants to be. He has all the athletic tools and is a fierce competitor when he decides to try, but his effort is very inconsistent over the course of an 82-game season. Offensively, he’s another fairly overrated player. He’s a serviceable scoring option who settles for far too many jumpshots. Actually, the best facet of his game, and one that we’ll probably see more of this year, is that he’s a good passer for a small forward. He had an assist percentage of 15%, which is high anyway for a SF, but even more impressive when you factor in Golden State’s isolation-heavy offense. With no solid point guard option, Jackson may be relied on as a point forward more often this year.

The Corey Maggette signing should be a great value for them over the next few years. He’s been one of the most reliable scorers in the league over the past 5 years, maintaining his efficiency despite being on bad teams. Maggette’s main offensive weapon is that he gets to the free-throw line at an absolutely prodigious rate and shoots 80+% once he gets there. Last year he averaged just over 14 FGA per game, and averaged an absurd 9.7 FTA. To put that in perspective, he made more free throws per game than LeBron (no slouch at drawing contact himself), but averaged almost 7 field goal attempts less. That’s crazy. He’s also one of the best rebounding guards in the game, using his strength and athleticism to put up rebounding numbers better than a lot of forwards (paging Al Harrington). The question with bringing in Maggette though will be how does he fit on this team? They already have quite a few guys who are high-volume scoring types, though none as efficient as Maggette. Without a real point guard around, who spreads the touches around?

In case you haven’t picked up from the “lack of a real point guard” comments, I’m not real high on Marcus Williams. He’s wildly turnover-prone, seems to have no sense of his role as a point guard, has been perennially out-of-shape, and doesn’t play defense. Do those sound like problems Golden State’s free-wheeling system can fix? Didn’t think so.

In fact, Williams has been so unimpressive that undrafted rookie DeMarcus Nelson out of Duke has been getting most of the minutes at point guard this preseason, and may even end up starting. Now, Nelson was a solid player in college and will probably defend better than any guard on the roster, but when your starting point guard is an undrafted rookie who never played point guard in college, you might have a problem.

X-Factor: Brandan Wright – This is not so much a “how good will Wright be?” so much as it is a “how much will Wright play?” Don Nelson doesn’t really appreciate big men in his system, at least not if they can’t shoot threes. However, if Golden State wants to succeed, they need to make use of Wright, who played extremely well in limited minutes last year. He has a massive wingspan and really makes good use of it. He blocks a bunch of shots and has nice touch around the rim. He’ll need to bulk up a good bit to play the power forward position, but he’s very athletically gifted, and has a lot of skill for his size. He and Biedrins could form a very strong shotblocking frontline that could make up for the many mistakes Golden State’s perimeter players make defensively, and offensively they provide high-efficiency guys who can contribute without the ball in their hands.

Overview

The Warriors really caught the short end of the stick last year. They got career years from almost all of their roster and vastly improved from the previous year, but because the Western Conference was so uber-competitive, they missed out on the playoffs anyway. Honestly, I’m not sure what to think of Don Nelson’s coaching job with this team. On one hand, he’s succeeded with a very odd roster, and he was able to thoroughly outcoach Avery Johnson in the playoffs two years ago. At the same time, it seems like there are a lot of things this team could’ve easily improved on, and it almost feels like Nelson is just playing around like a mad scientist at this stage of his career. A team with Golden State’s talent and athleticism couldn’t have been better than worst in the league in defensive rebounding? To put in perspective the team’s low commitment to rebounding, keep this in mind. The Warriors had the 6^th best rebounder in the league (Biedrins), and were STILL the worst defensive rebounding team in the league, by a significant margin. That’s impressively bad. I certainly didn’t expect them to be a title contender last season, but I can’t help but think that Golden State should’ve been better last year.

Prediction

This is a team that could be in a lot of trouble. They might not defend anyone this year, and they won’t be as good offensively. About the only thing the Warriors did well defensively last year was force turnovers, and now the team’s top 3 ball thieves (Davis, Matt Barnes and Ellis) are either gone or missing significant time. They rebound poorly, they give up easy shots, they foul too much, and they don’t have any real intimidating rim defender. That’s a recipe for disaster. Offensively, this is a team that thrived off Davis’s offensive versatility and ability to push the ball. Now, not only do they lack Baron, they lack a serviceable point guard, period. Instead, they’ll be counting on Nelson and Williams, two guys who have played less minutes combined in their careers than Davis played in just last year, to hold them over until Ellis (who is also not a true point guard) comes back. Now, the good news is that they’re still a tough team to match up against since they have a whole host of versatile and prolific scoring options. Jackson, Ellis, Harrington, Maggette and even Kelenna Azubuike can all drop 30 on you on a given night. Of course, with the Warriors’ defense, they’re going to need to score 30 to have a chance at winning. The team is going to struggle mightily with Ellis out, and I think before too long you’re going to see them basically shut it down and develop the young guys like Wright and Anthony Randolph.

9th in the West – The Drop-Off

xphoenix87 is a Contributing Writer for BallerBlogger.com. Little known fact: he does a finger wag to the crowd whenever he finishes a post. He’s writing season previews for all 30 NBA teams. Check back in tomorrow for the Clippers preview.