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		Ellison likely to make changes with Warriors By David Zizmor July 14, 2010

	OAKLAND- New Warrior owner Larry Ellison and Oracle CEO is most likely to step in and change the front office personnel with the player personnel when he takes over the ownership of the team from Chris Cohan. When it became pretty apparent that the Warriors were going nowhere in large part due to poor management by Chris Cohan and the people he picked to run the team. For 15 plus years that Cohan owned the team he took over from the very successful Dan Finnane and Jim Fitzgerald duel that had seen the Warriors go to the playoffs several years before and made the Warriors one of the hottest tickets in the Bay Area. Not too long after Cohan took over the team it went into the tank and never really came back and they had one good playoff run and that was when former Warrior Baron Davis led Golden State to the playoffs in the 2006-07 season and they had a good season following that despite winning 48 games but they didn't make the playoffs. But two good seasons out of 15 does not impress anybody and more important than the poor record is that the Warriors were just inept over that time frame. They didn't do a good of managing their salary cap, they didn't do a good job of picking players to come on the team and succeed. Anytime they managed to find players for good they somehow manage to screw up those relationships and have the players leave only to succeed in other places that's really what destroyed the Warriors so much that not only was the team bad on the court but they picked talented players and didn't do anything with them. They got these players like the Gilbert Arenas of the world and they still got to a place where they were able to screw up and let them go and when they left they ended up making the All-Star game and became very successful outside of Oakland. This really soured the team and soured the fans on the team and as loyal as the Warriors fans are they were just tired, they were just plain tired of watching Cohan and team president Robert Rowell and lazy head coach Don Nelson and Larry Riley the team General Manager they were sick and tired of watching these guys really man a revolving door in Oakland. Team players just came and went even when it seemed when things were going well they somehow managed to screw it up. Just three years ago everybody was on cloud nine because the Warriors had that great playoff run where they knocked off the Dallas Mavericks and pushed the Utah Jazz in the semi finals that was a fantastic team. Baron Davis was one of the top point guards in the league they had this whole cast of guys that really kind of embodied the Golden State spirit they had Stephen Jackson, Matt Barnes, and Baron and Andres Biedrens, they had all these guys that came together in this great fun style of basketball with Nelson leading the way. Later they were still a very good team and they won 48 games and then later they managed to completely dismantle the team. The team went back in the doldrums and that was it. So the Warriors are sitting here at this point where the team has been waiting and waiting for Cohan to just leave because he clearly doesn't know how to pick guys that can manage this team. They announced a couple of months ago that they were officially accepting bids for the team Ellison for a long time had been known as the guy who is very interested in the team. You only need to look so far as the Arena itself which is the Oracle Arena. The naming rights are Ellison's company Oracle. Ellison has long been interested in this team and he's been waiting for the right time when Cohan was really truly officially interested in selling this team and that time had finally come. Ellison is listed as the sixth wealthiest person in the world making him the third or second wealthiest in the United States behind the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Gates and Buffet have not shown any interest in buying an NBA team anytime soon. That makes Ellison the richest man in buying a basketball team. It would certainly make him the richest guy in the NBA. It would certainly lead one to believe that a new set of management and competence hopefully are coming to Oakland. Ellison is tying up a lot of loose ends and it will be within the next few days that Ellison will be officially announced as the team's new owner. David Zizmor covers the Warriors and the NBA for Sportstalk Radio