History 101: Warriors Playoff Coaching Records

The Warriors got their asses decisively handed to them last night by the Lakers. The Title Favorite as of the 20% mark just toyed with Keith Smart's "coaching" schemes and made li'l GQ Curry crawl up into the fetal position and cry while Smart carried Nellie's mind game shitty rotation crap out in Nellie's absence, eviscerating Anthony Randolph publicly and unnecessarily by removing him after a minor play that provided the best shot for Smart to "make an example" of the kid and flex like he had a clue or deserved the authority.

This is the current Warriors coaching technique, across the board, and it doesn't work. At all. Give Randolph the free reign currently given the team's worst defender, Stephen Curry, and STFU Warriors. Period. Brandan Wright was ready all last year and got benched for entire second halves after making huge differences in first halves, repeatedly. Then he was our "best player" in camp (like Corey Maggette?), according to Nelson. It might be true, but that's also Nelson's code for "Make me an offer." Randolph subverted Nellie's "Hall of Fame" mind gaming and outed the coach's "motivational" technique, wherein Don Nelson tells a talented young big man to have his agent find a trade to another team for him. In the first month or two of the kid's rookie season. Now the team has Assistant GM Steph Curry talking about patience and practice habits. Nellie inspires the best in people. So with Keith Smart now running CJ Watson and Chris Hunter (Rob Kurz motivational technique returns again!) out more than the young lottery pick, while starting Mikki Moore, the team officially stops trying to cover up what the legitimate NBA world already knew... The Warriors hate Randolph.

The fascinating boat race last night was probably an accurate matchup preview should the Warriors (stifling laughter now)... make the playoffs (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!). Lakers 1 seed, Warriors 8 seed. Or sure, grab those extra wins to get the 2 seed matchup and avoid the Lakers. Definitely. Good plan, fanboys and girls, and you PR rats who LOVE my blog. But seriously, I'm assuming the game was the best attended game all season, or at least the most tickets were sold for a game to date. And yet, Keith Smart had no one ready to do much of anything of consequence against a team not coached by dead men walking (Nate McMillan is fired after Lawrence Frank, if Pritchard really wants to keep up with Presti) or just plain not interested in blowing energy on the Warriors one runrunrun showing per month (Dallas).

The Warriors can say they'll draw Portland, Phoenix, Dallas, or another choice "matchup" for Nellie to "exploit" like a genius. But realistically, Nelson's finest hour as Warriors head coach in the playoffs happened in 2007 and Keith Smart will fold under any legitimate pressure, as we just witnessed, ushering in a fresh round of inexcusable rotations, unnecessary/inconsistent youth censure, and ineffective team defense AND offense.

Don Nelson won his "400th" game with the team last Friday night against Portland. The team has yet to acknowledge it in any way. This sheds strong light on current tensions between Nellie, Robert Rowell, and PR guru Ray Ridder's band of merry hucksters. They never mention the names "Rick Barry" or "Chris Mullin" these days, either. So we can assume they hate Nelson now, with a burning passion that festers worse in Rowell's soul than the non-Rudy Fernandez pick (Nellie: "Marco Belinelli is a star!"). You signed Stephen Jackson, you signed Corey Maggette, you signed Don Nelson. Nelson ain't saying goodbye to $6+ million and even a face-saving "reallocation of resources" puts Nellie back on Maui, collecting that sweet sweet bank. So you freaking lost, Robert Rowell, and you're an idiot when it comes to basketball of consequence. Loser franchise run by loser monkeys?

HELL NO!

INCREDIBLE franchise currently imprisoned by loser monkeys, in fact.

This is headed for a nasty arbitration, at best. Nellie won't show up for staff meetings if he's "front office" intelligentsia. He'll just phone Larry Riley and make the call. The call that brought you Marco Belinelli instead of ANYONE decent and Steph "GQ" Curry, the box office draw (originally) instead of a starting caliber NBA player.

So. Let's say Keith Dumb, as Smart is affectionately referred to around the intranetz these days, takes over under this cloud of Warriors Professional Policy informing Ken Berger's piece on Nellie's imminent PERMANENT departure from the coaching seat (oh, he has swine flu now? Uh huh): http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/12514475/nelsons-abrasive-style-might-have-him-on-way-out

Last night put any doubts to rest: he's clearly ready for playoff matchups of any sort!

Oh yeah, the Warriors playoff coaching track record:

1. Bill Sharman (67-68) 13-12, .520
2. Al Attles (70-83) 31-30, .508
3. George Senesky (56-58) 10-10, .500
4. Frank McGuire (1962) 6-6, .500
5. Eddy Gottlieb (47-55) 15-17, .469
6. Alex Hannum (64-66) 5-7, .417
7. George Karl (87-88) 4-6, .400
8. Don Nelson (89-10) 14-21, .400
9. George Lee (69-70) 2-4, .333
10. Neil Johnston (60-61) 4-8, .333

The Warriors used to be a proud NBA franchise making the playoffs on a regular basis. And as I documented (no one else did), Nelson winning his 400th game puts the Warriors into an exclusive, four team club in NBA history. http://chriscohansucks.blogspot.com/2009/11/since-no-one-else-is-giving-great.html Only the Lakers, Celtics, and Bucks have two 400-or more team game winners in their all time coaching ranks.

But at the same time, Nelson's 5-6 record in the OUTLIER, FREAK PERSONAL VENDETTA/DIRK DECONSTRUCTION 2007 playoffs bumped his career Warriors playoff work up from 9-15 (.375) to only 8th on the alltime Warriors playoff coaching list. The halcyon days of Run TMC were WORSE in the playoffs than the chuck attack. George Karl had more playoff success than Nelson before the Dallas series, and now the We Believe! team is gone but Nellie's still here collecting checks. The team is officially a complete disaster interpersonally, competitively, and publicly. They're waging war against their fans in the online forums and smearing some of their best talent to push penny-pinching and power-grabbing agendas ahead of winning basketball with a plan for the future.

2007 looks like the last time Don Nelson will coach in the playoffs but he stuck around for the cash after milking that for a cool $17 million or so, right? Good riddance. This money-grubbing, player-killing old man can't win when it counts, anyway.

Keith Smart is not a desirable alternative but he is an "easy mark" for whatever lame-brained idiocy Robert Rowell and Ray Ridder dream up next for the franchise they've killed. He's easily dealt with.

Too bad Sid Moncrief sniffed all of this out and wasn't fairly compensated for building Monta Ellis' jump shot and the rest. Cue the PR rats making fun of him for ... NOT having to put up with the Warriors incompetence.

New Jersey, anyone?

Geinus-O-Meter Update

These rookie point guards are incredible!

Formula: [Production + Projection - Hype]

1. Brandon Jennings
2. Tyreke Evans
3. Darren Collison
4. Ty Lawson
5. Johnny Flynn
6. Rodrigue Beaubois
7. Jrue Holiday (Williams injury opens door, Jrue CAPITALIZES)
8. Eric Maynor
9. Toney Douglas
10. Ricky Rubio (hype and entitlement FTL)
11. GQ Curry (you're seeing his peak)
12. Jeff Teague (doesn't play)

Don Nelson Forfeits Texas Trip Pre-Flight

Don Nelson is apparently too sick to travel with the team for games in Dallas and San Antonio.
Uh huh. We've never seen this before.

(DNC-LAZ)

11/24 UPDATE: Marcus Thompson reports that Nelson may miss as many as 3 games after this Texas road trip, and that's just his preliminary estimate. Tim Kawakami also suggested Nelson would probably miss more than just the two road games, tonight and tomorrow.
http://www.ibabuzz.com/warriors/2009/11/24/nellie-sick-as-a-dog/
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami/2009/11/23/don-nelsons-pneumonia-itd-be-no-surprise-if-hes-out-until-early-december/

Got that 400th Warriors win, sits out, probably lets Roth run the show?
NO! Of course not. Keith Smart is totally his chosen heir apparent.
No doubt about it.

Keith Smart got his ass handed to him by Sid Moncrief in every conceivable way when they took turns running the team in Summer League but I'm sure Smart's deflection counting is now professional grade. Ho boy.

Can we fire this sad sack quitter yet?

Oh yeah and he still wants to screw with his best player:

Warriors coach Don Nelson has been notably effusive in his praise of Monta Ellis
lately, which is no coincidence considering that Ellis’ agent, Jeff Fried, flew
to Oakland last week to meet with the Golden State brass. No long-term solution
was reached; it is believed that Nellie still wants to trade Ellis and the
feeling is mutual. But getting into verbal confrontations with a player and
making him a miserable scapegoat is no way to get full value in a trade. The
situation between Nellie and Monta will be further cooled by Monday’s diagnosis
showing that Nelson has contracted pneumonia. Nelson, closing in on the NBA’s
all-time record for coaching wins, will miss games this week against Dallas and
San Antonio.

http://ken-berger.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/11838893/18502616?source=rss_blogs_NBA

Update: Cohan's Genius-O-Meter

Last week, my amazing rookie point guard ranking system showed Jeff Teague and Eric Maynor all kine love. But Jamal Crawford's incredible play (Boy, a team could really use a great 6th man of the year candidate like him. You don't just dump those guys for nothing, that's for sure!) has knocked Teague back into wasted rookie year territory. Evans has been out but he's badass so he'll stay near the top. Flynn has contracted Rambisisapparentlya-stubborndumbshit-itis. Holiday is 14 years old and witness to Philadelphia's attempts to justify dumb contracts on guys like Lou Williams. So there's been some drift.

Meanwhile, John Hollinger swears Stephen Curry is a shooting guard (I don't think he's all that wrong) and Don Nelson swears he meant to do that. Whatever he did.


Formula: [Production + Projection - Hype]
1. Brandon Jennings [ROY. No one's catching him.]
2. Tyreke Evans [Most Important King. Not close.]
3. Darren Collison
4. Ty Lawson
5. Eric Maynor
6. Toney Douglas
7. Rodrigue Beaubois
8. Johnny Flynn
9. Ricky Rubio [6.5 PPG/5.5 APG thru 4 for The TradeChip]
10. GQ Curry [Almost 22 years old!]
11. Jeff Teague
12. Jrue Holiday [By the time the blow-up is done, he'll be shaving and playing]

No one disputes these rankings in any way.

UPDATE:

David Thorpe's latest rookie rankings are out and GQ Curry continues to drop like a freakin ROCK!

1. Brandon Jennings
2. Tyreke Evans
3. Ty Lawson
4. James Harden
5. Johnny Flynn
6. Marcus Thornton
7. Omri Cassppi (Those lucky Kings!)
8. Darren Collison
9. Chase Budinger
10. DeJuan Blair
11. Toney Douglas (Even off a quiet game)
12. GQ
13. Jonas Jerebko
14. Rodrigue Beaubois
15. Eric Maynor

Return of the Team PER Ratings

Now that CrapJack is gone (and the Warriors' PR intern "ajbry" has mysteriously dropped off the face of the earth, too), we can run the numbers on the team:

Maggette - 21.89
Azubuike - 20.49
Chris Hunter - 18.40 (The Difference. I'm sure of it.)
Randolph - 18.21
Watson - 17.26
Ellis - 16.64
Bell - 14.87
Biedrins - 14.51
Morrow - 13.81
Curry - 11.95
Moore - 10.46
Radmanovich - 8.14
Turiaf - 4.49
Claxton - N/A
George - N/A
Wright - N/A

Since No One Else is Giving the GREAT Golden State Warriors Franchise and Don Nelson the Respect They Deserve....

For whatever reason, our petty PR Department in Warriorville is spending its time and (your) money putting Stephen "GQ" Curry autograph signing event coverage together and spamming fan forums with Dump Monta propaganda.

But when legitimately historic NBA things happen.... radio silence.

Don Nelson won his 400th game as Warriors head coach last night against the Portland Trailblazers. This is the second team Nelson has won 400 or more games with, the first being Milwaukee. Only 21 NBA head coaches have won 400 or more games with a team and this marks the 24th time it has happened in the NBA. Nelson joins Phil Jackson and Pat Riley in having won 400 or more games for two different teams. Only Phil Jackson has ever won 500 games with two different teams. Jerry Sloan is the only NBA head coach ever to win 1000 or more games with one team. The Golden State Warriors become only the fourth NBA team all-time to have employed two or more head coaches who have won 400 or more games with the team (Boston, Golden State, LA Lakers, and Milwaukee).

Here's the complete list of NBA coaches who have won 400 games with one team, alphabetically by team
(still active with team):

Atlanta: none
Boston: Red Auerbach (795) & Tommy Heinsohn (427)
Charlotte: none
Chicago: Phil Jackson (545)
Cleveland: none
Dallas: none
Denver: Doug Moe (432)
Detroit: Chuck Daly (467)
Golden State: Al Attles (557) & Don Nelson (400)
Houston: Rudy Tomjanovich (503)
Indiana: Slick Leonard (529)
LA Clippers: none
LA Lakers: Pat Riley (533), Phil Jackson (505) & John Kundla (423)
Memphis: none
Miami: Pat Riley (454)
Milwaukee: Don Nelson (540) & Larry Costello (410)
Minnesota: Flip Saunders (411)
New Jersey: none
New Orleans: none
New York: Red Holzman (613)
Oklahoma City: Lenny Wilkens (478)
Orlando: none
Philadelphia: Billy Cunningham (454)
Phoenix: John MacLeod: 579
Portland: Jack Ramsay (453)
Sacramento: Honorable Mention for Rick Adelman (395)
San Antonio: Gregg Popovich (690)
Toronto: none
Utah: Jerry Sloan (1049)
Washington: Gene Shue (522)

All statistics found at http://www.basketball-reference.com/

You know, no big whoop.

GQ Tank: The 09-10 Golden State Warriors

Season Review, less than 10 games in:

Par.

The Matchup We've All Been Watiting For: Brandon Jennings vs. CJ Watson!

When Warriors Team President Robert Rowell fist bumped with the team's "GM," Larry "beer caddy" Riley on draft day, the end was already nigh. Oh my, who knew? Oh yeah. Me. http://chriscohansucks.blogspot.com/2009/06/robert-rowell-revival-clipping-and.html

So in tonight's visit to Milwaukee, after a magical benching of Curry in New York (Cam Inman was spot on: Nellie deprived NY of the chance to boo or whatever they wanted to do to the poor kid), we should expect more bench time for Curry against a current Rookie of the Year front runner, Brandon Jennings. The guy the Warriors passed on for no reason besides, his name wouldn't successfully prop up a ticket sales push in time for the current crew of idiots in the Warriors front office. As I said before, correctly, CJ Watson is ahead of Curry on the true depth chart. Acie Law probably should be at this point, too. Assists numbers, as Stephen Jackson so nicely demonstrated en route to under 30 wins last year, don't mean shit outside a stat sheet vacuum. And Jennings passed Curry on that rookie list as of last night. He won't be the last. Curry can whine to his 30,000 Twitter followers and GQ readership all he wants, he's not worth the Sebastian Telfair-grade hype he's received and he doesn't really look like he ever will be. Oh well. So it goes in the Marketing Basketball Association game.

Incidentally, if there were ever a better time to boot a guy who holds power because of supposed marketing prowess (Robert Rowell and his Great Time Out!, etc.)... it's now. This is a Cosmic Fail on the part of the PR Department. Tim kawakami did great work with his list of Rowell's fireable offenses already: http://blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami/2009/11/09/once-again-rowells-25-fire-able-warriors-offenses-more-fire-able-now-than-ever/

Rowell's constant turnover of racists and weirdos (remember the ugly Ghetto Prom business that got a senior PR guy booted 3-4 years ago... and Ray Ridder, incidentally, promoted?), plus the incredible mess of the PlantGate summer scandal, with Ray Ridder and Bob Fitzgerald posing as ticket-buying fans in Warriors forums, really should have been enough. These guys are slimy as hell and no one deserves the free pass the media gave to Ridder when the PosterGate mini-scandal broke. The guy is in control of his own bullshit and may have already thrown others under the bus to get where he is today. Covering his ass at the first sign of trouble was a mistake on your part, media folks. But Rowell himself, as team president, is mostly indefensible at this point as his Stephen Curry marketing directive completely tanks and Brandon Jennings and others show they've got the true NBA lead guard chops when 3 years younger than the shrimpy score-first Curry.

Jennings, for example, would win and lead the team to better places if they really wanted to replace Ellis in the draft like. they. did. Contrary to their spin at the time. In fact, as the interview transcript from Kawakami linked below demonstrates, he was excited to play with Ellis and the first words out of mouth, more or less, were run, run, and run. But he wouldn't have sold tickets for the first 10 games. About that... 10 games in and we're pretty much done for the season already.

Memory lane on the Warriors' point guard philosophy pre-draft:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/23/SP3Q18BK0B.DTL&feed=rss.bjenkins

Meant to do that:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/2009-07-14-nba-insider-ellis_N.htm

Jennings talks like a player. Not like a GQ model. Warriors' institutional racism continues? (Hoopsworld lead trick):
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami/2009/06/11/warriors-workout-brandon-jennings-and-jonny-flynn/

Bottom line, as I see it, is the Warriors took the groomed, 22-year-old, professional MOUTH who was supposed to be ready (more experience, like Stephane Lasme!) and passed on all the difference-making longterm talent available. They took the little guy with the supposedly best jump shot from the ranks remaining but shoved him directly into an internal roster power struggle and asked him to suddenly become a viable NBA point guard after a (loooooong) college career of scoring first, passing later.

Now, David Thorpe and the rest of the intelligent, hard-working (non-gimmicky drunken) coaching and managerial NBA ranks know the jump shot can be improved at incredible rates with proper technique and training, and that cosmetics like NCAA PPG and jump shooting never trump more substantive concerns in system offenses and strong team concepts. Never mind defense, which the 22-year-old Curry looks permanently clueless about besides the famous Warriors hands-first deflection bullshit that only worked for 20 games in 2007 and means nothing now. So in an offense that could never claim floor space or true ball movement (Fast Break? What's that?) as signatures, just the chuck, the jump shot is of course the only offensive "skill" required. Iso-ball slop means lots of one-on-one drive (no kick, unless it's flashy and/or desperate abortion of a bad idea drive, far too late to matter) and tons of bad shots. As a result, jump shot skills are in fact completely WASTED on any position besides CENTER in the Warriors offense!

Witness, one Anthony Morrow.

Besides the false significance bestowed upon the jump shot in Nelson's drunken XO work, Curry's neurotic Must Pass self-consciousness results in tons of cross-court heaves and too-late deliveries. He doesn't actually see the floor in productive offense as of yet, probably because he's working so hard against his own coach and teammates as he searches for a clue about system and collaboration. But unfortunately, he's on the Warriors, a team he refused to even work out for before the draft. So don't tell us you're sorry, GQ. You rejected us on principle before you ever even met us. Don't complain now. You're not good enough to decisively overrule bad play and coaching. It's not your fault, but it probably means we won't have to make nice together for long.

So the Warriors, per all the pre-draft pundits' correct assessments, screwed the draft up again. They would have taken Curry over Evans, they would have taken him over Flynn, they took him over Jennings and a number of others now ranked well ahead of Curry in not only David Thorpe's shifting rookie rankings, but Cohan's Genius-O-Meter [Production + Projection - PR Hype], too:

1. Brandon Jennings
2. Tyreke Evans
3. Johnny Flynn
4. Ricky Rubio (Hate his Euro GQ hype but astronomical trade value)
5. Ty Lawson
6. Eric Maynor
7. Jrue Holiday (19 and being held out a bit until the Philly blow-up is done)
8. Toney Douglas
9. Jeff Teague (Behind Crawford, and rightly so)
10. Rodrigue Beaubois (Admit it... you don't even know)
11. Darren Collison (Elite defender already)
12. Stephen Curry (22 and whiny, benched for major PG matchups thus far)

While Curry gets the major free passes from the usual Warriors corners, Ellis, Jackson, and Randolph all want out already and Nelson is manipulating injury status again. Andris Biedrins, already the heart of major Warriors trade discussions, may have been intentionally injured by Don Nelson when he was played with an existing injury. Or, it may just be the benching before the trade. Steve Nash and Jason Richardson are doing the heavy lifting in Phoenix, although Stoudemire is putting up solid numbers and playing really hard in his mega contract year. Imagine the moody, lazy, selfish Stoudemire in Golden State. Just imagine it. Biedrins is an All Star in Phoenix. Period. Go for it, you hacks. And keep Curry all you want. Hilarious that you pitched him so hard just to sell a few extra tickets.

It's true, Stoudemire's injury and attitude question marks weren't going to move the needle like one of the major NY media market sell point picks has. So the planning there was solid, the strategy partially successful. Unfortunately, the Warriors forgot that the team's other residual chaos would override any short-sighted gimmickery. In fact, those pre-existing conditions, much like Biedrins' injury (and who knows? Randolph says he's totally healthy while Nelson and the complicit Tom Abdenour et al play talk point chess with a bored media/public), were only exascerbated by the cheap play from Fist Bump and Drunky on this.

This was all obvious from the outset, even as Dan Dibley plasters the forums, blaming the finnicky fans for the team's woes with his best impression of Jeff Kent vs. public opinion (Enjoy the games, people!). Now the latest reports have the Warriors considering moving Nelson to his "consulting" position (http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/12514475/nelsons-abrasive-style-might-have-him-on-way-out) and throwing the woefully incompetent Keith Smart in as a free replacement option they can dismiss from his interim post easily at season's end when they hand the reigns over to the computer wiz, Stephen Silas. Seriously, that's the plan. They alienated Sid Moncrief or Nellie made it clear he wouldn't let him get a foothold with the organization, even though he's the guy they needed, Ellis' favorite. Cal Cheaney clearly was not a relevant Ellis mentor under the incredibly toxic set of circumstances the team promulgated before attempting any sort of reconciliation (we fly around the country to talk to all of our players in the offseason!). And now, of course, Ellis is the problem per the usual team talk pointers in the forums and the PR releases and media reports.

And....

You know what?
There's far more to cover but it all heads down the same shit-stained hill.

It's over.

Go Kings.

Pacers 108, Warriors 94

So the team sucks.

So a no-defense shitfest between two of the league's worst teams is all we have to appreciate this season (Minnesota's David Kahn seems ready to start wheeling and dealing. Ricky Rubio and Flynn probably BOTH on the block- Sessions better for the triangle anyway according to some... http://twitter.com/howlintwolf).

So we're trying to trade the untradeable (http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/10556/don-nelson-its-harder-than-hell-to-trade-that-guy). Best part, Nellie's still drinking and laughing about the whole mess.

So we're smearing the previous generation of Youth Centerpieces (Andris "no incentives" Biedrins, Monta "Ink" Ellis, Anthony "Attitude" Randolph).

So we gave totally unearned leash to a spoiled brat pretty-mouthed shrimp hype ticket sales gimmick draft pick (Stephen "GQ" Curry). Currently plummeting in the rookie ranks. Poised to become the 8th best point guard in his draft class.


At least we're still better than the Pacers!

Oh... about that.

Clippers 118, Warriors 90

Speechless.
I've contacted Daryl Morey to register our collective national embarrassment.