2010 Warriors Defense
If the Warriors defense was dead, now it’s in hell.
Guard-Stephen Curry
Guard-Monta Ellis
Small Forward-Reggie Williams
Power Forward-Vladimir Radmanovic
Center-David Lee
If Nellie springs this five at any point next year, l might laugh up bile-soaked vomit. And would vomited laughter be less of a medical curiosity than Dubs defense? The Warriors are headed for D so absent, it’s unserious—even if sanity nixes Vlad-Rad minutes. Were Randolph, Azubuike, Maggette, and Turiaf great defenders? Nope, but they punched harder than most on the team, plus Turiaf was a shade better than decent. And Anthony Randolph had potential, an adjective the Warriors sell but never invest in.
I’m not including CJ Watson, a legitimately skilled defensive guard who may help the Heat win 73 games. Dismiss CJ at your peril, he has great lateral mobility and blurry-quick hands. So he’s probably gone. Good riddance to helpful players.
The Warriors were awful at defense last season, minutely better than a historically passive Raptors ballet troupe. Now their stingiest have been chucked in favor of David Lee. This likely won’t end well, which should be a familiar mental refrain to sentient observers.
Is there a ray of hope beaming from this Huffington Post statistical case for David Lee? There are those who dismiss stats as the foolish avocation of dorks, and they are a graying, shrinking, stupid contingent. This is decent analysis, I won’t throw a rock at it. Jonathan Weiler’s paean to Leefficiency is solid, but it is possible for two things to be true:
1. David Lee is underrated.
2. The Warriors were dumb for dumping two quality players, plus a 20-year-old phenom, all in the quest to sign Lee to a huge contract.
The new “center” won’t address what ails this team, but his contract will block healing avenues. In the meantime, the Warriors will score with a junkie’s urgency. The best defense for a hideous defense is a good offense, I guess.
Style of play, play at a slower pace, dont jack up first open shot, keep a big near basket and I will bet we go to the middle of the pack in defense….hello
god there’s some idiotic comments being thrown around here. Who the hell would say biedrins has one of the leage-worst contracts. Big men get paid more than other positions, and a double/double guy at 9 per is a cheap contract. Plus it doesn’t escalate and none of that BYC stuff. That makes it a great contract.
Regarding Lee, there are several sites that have advocated Lee as better than Amare, including ESPN insider, the HuffingtonPOst and the WagesofWin blog. Both put up similar, all star statistics. Amare might be slightly more athletic but please remember Lee is not your typical whitebread and measured a higher vertical and quicker acceleration than randolph when he came out of college. Both are bad at D. But one gets paid 20 million a year and another gets paid 14. (Hint: the 14 million guy is the better deal and might be the better player)
Ask any NY Knicks fan: Lee is a winner, no matter how crappy his team and even with an organization deliberately tanking, Lee gave his all and inspired his team/fans to the few wins they got. Lee is an effort player, ambidextrous, the best 2-pt. perimeter shooting big man in the league (go look it up, highest percentage of converted shots from mid range in 2010), and is pretty good inside. Rebounds well, runs well.
You idiots need to do some research before spewing all that garbage from your mouth.
Oh my GOD!!!!! Can you be serious right now? ok all of the writers on this website need to either start watching the NBA, or go back to college and learn how to write an article that doesnt include a picture as its main premiss. I mean come on this analysis is so shallow, have the warriors always struggled on D? YES!!!!! Everybody knows that and the main thing is you need talented healthy players to help make a run at any sort of championship, be it conference or finals or the first round of the playoffs. You go and get the best players avaliable……. im sorry but turriaf is garbage, buke has played less than 82 games in 3 years (82 games is a regular season schedule, not that this is for the viewers of this article but for whoever writes this trash day in and day out) and randolph is hitting night clubs while hes hurt and wanted out. Potential is something that is always half empty, but a big man that made an all star team within his first 3 years in the NBA?????? Thats half full, the fact is nelly needs to go and someone that actually watches basketball and doesnt get excited about pictures of bunnys he got by googling bunny needs to start writing these articles….. I mean how does everyone on this website rip Lee but think Udoh is the greatest thing to happen to the bay since wilt……..
Thank you and goodnight,
p.s. Im not joking when i say these articles are TERRRIBLE,
Randolph’s career would have went down the drain playing w/ the warriors. We don’t exactly have the right coaching for our big men. I think it’s clear to see that Randolph played much better his rookie year compared to his second year. We did the best thing for him to trade him to the knicks. Now, he can get well coached by Patrick Ewing.
Turiaf and Buike are good players but we have two other players who haven’t seen the court in a long time. Wright and Raja Bell have always been hard workers and with Wright’s length, i’m sure he’ll be able to control the paint with lee and biedrins. As for Bell, he has way more experience, better shot selection, leadership and defense compared to Azubuike. The only thing i would give Buike over Bell is rebounding, but w/ David lee, Wright, and a healthy Biedrins…I’m willing to give that up.
The warriors defense has always been shakey. However, our steals by our guards make up for that loss. Monta and Curry were in top ten for steals of the nba. Watson had his share of steals as well. But lets not forget about how much second chance points the warriors gave up. David lee is here to put a dent in that failure. All in all, Warriors will have a much better season than last year. I’d say we can for sure be above .500.
That would be a nightmare of a defense. To others rooting for the best … we had hope, we had a team, we had a fricken playoff birth. ‘The Warriors were who we thought they were, and the Nelson/Riley//Rowell Syndicate threw it all away’ for nothing more than to stroke their own egos.
Our frontcourt looks even more injury prone replacing Turiaf with Dan Gadzuric, who hasn’t had knees sinced high school. Charlie Bell could be replaced by a rookie free agent and no one would notice, and if we don;t sign CJ because of our salary issues with Bell, the Maggette trade is a loss. I was somewhat lauding the trade because of their contracts ending sooner, but we replaced it with spending 16 mil/yr on Troy Murphy without the corner three.
Troy was a double-double machine because Dampier was still on the other side of the court by the time the other team put up a shot. Ditto: David Lee and Eddy Curry. This offseason has been absolutely disasterous, and with Larry Ellison likely focusing more on getting the America’s Cup to the Bay, its not going to get any better. Commitment to 25-30 wins … can’t wait …
Can’t we all just let it go! I am a Warrior’s fan like the rest of you! Maybe if everyone would just show support and love our team, we might do something. We have an All Star Back court, and we just put them with an All Star Forward. We will be much better than last year and might be able to get to the playoffs. So please Relax! Support your team!
I really think that you’re simultaneously right and wrong here. You’re right that the W’s defense could be horrible, but you’re wrong to assume it will be. I think the problem is all in the coach. If you have any coach other than Nellie can you even imagine them throwing out that lineup you suggest? It’s ridiculous that the W’s have a coach who makes fans look at every trade/acquisition in the worst possible light.
If we get a guy like Lee who should be a great PF in the right situation (surrounded by a good defensive C and on a running team) we all worry that Nelson will screw it up and play Lee at C where’s he’s horribly out of position. Or maybe he’ll play him with Wright at C or something else stupid like that.
If we got a guy like Randolph in a deal we’d all worry that Nelson can’t coach young players and help them improve. We’d worry that he’ll yank around the guys minutes and ruin his mindset.
Basically no trade that is remotely even will “work” for W’s fans because we all assume Nelson will make bad decisions and our side will end up losing. As long as Nellie is around we’re hosed.
Did you write this post before the dubs picked up dorrel wright:?
@Hoyle,
Yes, Biedrins contract is one of the league’s worst. And yes, the Warriors overpayed for Lee. He’s a good player, maybe even a very good player. But he is the third-best player on a championship-caliber team and you simply cannot pay the third-best player $16 mil per (or nearly 25-30% of salary cap).
This is in fact the best move the Warriors have made in years, since they actually have equal or better talent coming back in trade for the first time since Baron trade or trade for SJack. But it is not a great move and it will constrain the Warriors in years 2-5 when new ownership and management hopefully have a plan in place.
Hey Holye, I agree that Lee will play the 4 almost exclusively, this was one imagined defenseless lineup that could get some burn. I too like the Wright pickup, but Bell and Gadzuric aren’t good enough to justify much NBA playing time–in my opinion. As for Lee’s contract, it could be a decent deal, but the Warriors didn’t unload any salary in the process of signing it. They’re still paying Monta, Biedrins a lot of money. My main beef with the move is trading away a young, promising player in Anthony Randolph. Good teams never cycle out draft picks like the Warriors do, it’s a risk you don’t take in the NBA.
I think you’re way off on this one strauss. Everything I have read and the multiple interviews lee has given all indicate he will be playing the 4 almost exclusively.
With the recent addition of dorrel wright at the 3 and picking up two primarily defensive players in the magette trade, i see a marked improvment and seeming commitment to defense.
I think moving middling talents for an all-star is a move improving teams make. Everyone keeps saying how bad his contract is.. that must mean Andris’ contract is one of the worst in the league because its only a $4 million a year difference.