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Davis, Nellie may not be back as W's wrap this side of 08 up
By David Zizmor April 16, 2008 |
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OAKLAND--It's not like the Denver Nuggets are a bad team and the Warriors and the Nuggets are a good team but they don't play a whole lot of defense, but a whole lot of offense. The Warriors are very similar team but you could say the top players on the Nuggets are slightly better with Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony and are as potent a scoring combo as there is in the league. Of course Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, and Monte Eliis are a pretty good top three as well. When it comes down to it you can say all you want about the Nuggets and ask who is better the Warriors or them you can argue it back and forth because really these teams could have finished with identical records and who could say if you could legitimately say one is better than the other. The Nuggets won the head to head this year, the Nuggets have a big home court advantage this year and because of the thin are in Denver. These are both teams that are flawed and again both the Warriors and the Nuggets are really good teams with Davis, Jackson and Ellis their high scoring trio. The Nuggets have Anthony and Iverson a high scoring duel not to mention a very good presence of Marcus Camby who has a great supporting cast around him. These are teams that are built to go really far in the playoffs but if you don't play defense it can really drag you down and the Warriors were like that last year and in the playoffs that creates a very iffy situation if you can't stop teams from scoring. The Nuggets and the Warriors are the same in that respect. This is a Warriors team that might be a little bit better on defense when they try, but the Warriors are so tired out as they demonstrated even with big guys like Davis, Jackson, and Ellis who didn't have the energy to stop guys at the end of the season. The Nuggets didn't try to make a pretense of trying to stop people they just play all offense all the time and kind of lag on defense. The Nuggets probably won't go very far in post season against the top seed in the Western Conference so far their scheduled against the Lakers if things hold. So looking back at the Warriors season it was unfortunate that they could not knock off the Nuggets when the Nuggets were in Oakland last season. The Warriors had a tough time and the Warriors were clearly worn out and Davis, Jackson and Ellis were exhausted in 40 minutes a night per most of the season. For the Warriors the season took it's toll on the team and getting down to the end of the wire the Warriors just didn't have enough in the tank to make it work. You saw Ellis, Davis and Jackson run out of gas. The Warriors have had spurts where they looked good but they just haven't been the same and it's because they play so many minutes they just can't do it. Part of the fault of this is on head coach Don Nelson he should have found someone to take their place that could give them a breather every now and then. So it's not like if Nellie played these guys they would not have won 48 games this season and it's kind of a double edged sword. But if they rested the Warriors may not have as many wins as they finished with and they would not be in a playoff position and whose to say if it was good or not. You have to hope assuming this team is pretty much the same group of guys that it was this season, so next year it ought to be better. Jackson, Ellis, Andreas Biedrens, Brandon Wright obviously they'll be able to get more minutes. Wright will get his minutes as he gets bigger and gets more experience and as the younger players get more experience some of the top guys will be able to rest a little bit longer. The Warriors who are not in the playoffs that makes them a lottery team and the Warriors have the 14th pick and the last pick in the lottery but that also means they have a shot at one of those top three picks. So with the Warriors in the draft anything is possible and those ping pong balls fall in funny ways. Davis while hopeful at one point during the season to return to Golden State will think about returning to Golden State for next season. Davis who was the cover player for the Warriors last season was benched in the second half of Monday night's game in Phoenix was none too pleased but also may not be coming back as the Warriors maybe going in a different direction IE money and maybe a different set of players. Nellie is malling over the idea of returning next season. Nelson said before this season even started that he may not return to the bench but now Nelson is entering his possible third year with the team and the Warriors have made it clear that they want him back but does Nellie want another tenure after getting the team to post season last season and no post season this season. The Warriors look at Nelson as the best coach out there for what they want but Nelson may want to go back to resting his bones in Maui again at age 68 and really hang up the thrills of teaching guys how to hold and fold them for next year's NBA season. David Zizmor does Warriors editorials and will be assigned to the NBA Playoffs for Sportstalk Radio. |
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