Did Hawks dodge a bullett??

[hds428]

From RealGM Wiretap

"The Warriors, in the midst of their best run in nine seasons, were flabbergasted Friday when starting guards Gilbert Arenas and Jason Richardson did not show up for practice one day after the team completed a sweep of the respective conference champions.

The reason for their absences at the late-morning workout was fuzzy. Agent Dan Fegan, who represents both second-year players, said Friday night that the two missed the practice because of "injury and illness," but the Warriors said they had no idea why Arenas and Richardson were absent.

The no-shows came one day after Arenas played a season-low 15 minutes and sat the final 21 minutes and Richardson rested the entire second quarter and logged three fourth-quarter minutes in a 105-97 victory over the New Jersey Nets.

The missed practices culminated a 2 1/2-week period during which Arenas admitted to being in a funk and hinted at displeasure over reduced playing time, and Richardson, irked by repeated benchings resulting mainly from defensive difficulties, met with Musselman to make sure the two were "on the same page."

But according to Peter Vecsey of the New York Post the issue lies squarely with coach Eric Musselman, who according to some of Vecsey's contacts is sacraficing the team's youth and future in exchange for wins now. The most hard-hit of the Warriors has been rookie Mike Dunleavy, the third overall pick in last June's NBA draft, but Richardson and Arenas are also feeling the veteran pinch with Earl Boykins and Bobby Sura getting key minutes down the stretch in games.

"The issue is trust," swears someone in the know writes Vecsey. "Eric was brought in here to develop young talent. Instead, he has alienated the team's top draft picks [Mike Dunleavy and Jeri Welsh] by telling people they can't play."

"What Eric has done to Dunleavy is dead wrong. What he's doing to Richardson and Arenas is just as unkind and uncalled for - he's undermining them by complaining about their deficiencies to outsiders. Sure, they have deficiencies - they're only in the second year in the NBA. What Eric doesn't understand is that a coach is supposed to be a custodian of his players' reputations."

"Eric has aborted his mission," continues Vecsey's contact. "Yes, he can coach. Yes, he has strengths. But this recent winning has gone to his head. Three and half months into his rookie season, the guy invites TNT into his locker room at halftime of the Nets game. Playing to the camera, he gave 'em the whole shebang - video, pep talks, individual stuff. Are you kidding me! That's not about the team! That's about the coach!"

"The Warriors have been mired in the mud for eight years. They've enjoyed short-term blips before. And this short-term blip is not necessarily an indication of great team chemistry. They're very talented, that' it."

"Eric has to make a decision. He has to understand the difference between winning 25 games and winning 35 at the expense of his young nucleus. John Lucas, Scott Skiles and Lon Kruger found out, if you can't bond with your young nucleus, you won't be coaching that long. Coaches who identify with young guys and bond built trust. There's none of that here."

[Gray Mule]

Sounds like another N.B.A. coach that we all knew that

liked to use veteran players and not make use of his bench

players. It brings wins now but hinders the team in the

long run by not developing their youth.

Short term -- good. Long term -- bad.

So much presure on all coaches to "Win now" that they don't

have the opportunity to work on the long term good of

the team, developing players and developing the team

chemestry for the future.

[beav]

"But according to Peter Vecsey of the New York Post"

That's pretty much all that I had to read to realize how much water this story held...

The Warriors are two games away from winning as many games that they did all last year (and only a few more from the year before)... with pretty much the same cast...

[Teeareess]

Maybe, but you have to remember, this is Vescey talking and he loves taking shots at people, so I wouldn't be too concerned. He's a rookie coach learning who to play and how to treat them. I think he'll be alright.

[Diesel]

2 things....

1. This is Vecsey. (He hates to see something working).

2. So what?

If E-muss wants to develop his own personality... So what? Nobody every said that the Zen-Master was wrong... and how much talent has the Zen-Master ever developed?

Losing teams spend all their time trying to develop players. Like the Bulls, Cavs, Clipps, etc...

However, what Finals Champion ever had a team full of players that they developed?

1. Lakers - Shaq, Kobe... Shaq had been to the finals with Orlando.

2. Spurs - Duncan, Drob. I'll admit, this was a team with talent they had developed. But DRob was a 10 yr vet by the time he won his first & probably only title. This team was a vet team with guys like Ellie, Elliot, and Dudley.

3. Da. Bulls. - Every combination of the Bulls were vets. Phil even benched guys like Caffey and Blount in exchange for old men like Parrish and Salley.

4. Houston. OK, Houston did have Cassell and Horry as young guys that they had developed. BUT Hakeem (the major piece) was a vet.

This has been about the last 12 yrs. No developing rookies. In fact, I would go so far to say, that in this day and age, if you are developing players, more than likely another team will have the advantage of having that player in the future. Look at Chauncey Billups and Ron Mercer. Look at Jermaine Oneal. Look at Shareef. Look at Tmac. All these guys started with one team who took time to develop them and now they are with another. GS is no different. They have done it for yrs as a Losing team. Look at the list of names out of GS!

1. Chris Webber

2. Latrell Spreewell

3. Tim Hardaway

4. Chris Mullen

[Jamil]

Ok so Vecsey is probably 100% right that Richardson and Arenas are pissed off because they are getting benched more times than they'd like during games.

What's amazing is the tone of the article.

Instead of this "Musselman is sacrificing the future to win now" crap it should be "Musselman refuses to accept losing and is sending the message to his players that either you get the job done or you sit."

Losing should never be acceptable. Musselman should be applauded for the job he's doing. He's taken a franchise that was in dire straits and has them winning and believing in themselves.

Back on December 16, the Warriors were 8-16. Now they are 20-23 and that run has not been all against patsies. They have wins against NO, Philly, HOU, WSH, MIN, LAL, NJ, UTA in that period. At this rate they will not only finish above .500, but they might make the playoffs...currently they are only 3.5 games out of the 8th seed. And if that happens, then Musselman should easily win COY.

Eric has made his decision to try to instill a winning mentality into his players. Good for him. I only wish that the much more talented Hawks had such a coach.

[beav]

WARRIORS MIDSEASON REPORT

Uniform improvement

With familiar cast, Golden State finds itself in playoff contention

Brad Weinstein, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, January 27, 2003

The comment came from center Vlade Divac in the first quarter of a Dec.

22 game at Sacramento, where the Kings were in the process of dropping the Warriors to 9-18.

"Man, you guys are really talented. If you guys could only find a way to put it together," forward Antawn Jamison said Divac told him during the Kings' 103-88 victory, after which point guard Gilbert Arenas said selfishness was destroying the Warriors' offense.

What Divac lacked in timing he made up for in intuition. Indeed, the Warriors have put it together, rolling to 11 victories in their next 16 games, clinching their first winning month since February 1996 and accepting questions about a postseason run with a straight face. (Golden State sits ninth in the Western Conference, 3 1/2 games behind Houston for the eighth and final playoff seed.)

The Warriors have nine of their top 10 players back from last season's 21- 61 team and have received just a smattering of production from two first-round draft picks. So the gang's all here -- excluding a missed practice reported by an agent -- but not as you remember it. And the only person to wear projected backup point guard Steve Logan's uniform has been assistant coach Hank Egan, who donned No. 22 for Tuesday's charter flight to Los Angeles during which every team employee was required to wear a jersey.

"We might be basically the same team in terms of the guys," Jamison said, "but we're not the same team."

A few reasons why, besides the dramatic impact of Musselman and his staff --

"I would say that we're as well prepared as any team in the NBA," general manager Garry St. Jean said -- and good health that has enabled the Warriors to start the same lineup every game:

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: Musselman described the "Jersey Flight" this way: "We have a fine system with what we wear on planes. A couple of guys continued to wear jerseys and took the fine. Eventually I just said the next flight we had, everyone has to wear a jersey or you get fined."

No player put on his Warriors garb -- except one.

"Earl said he wasn't going to wear anyone else's," Musselman said.

After all, a Warriors jersey has been an ideal fit for the 5-foot-5 Earl Boykins, who started late (he signed Nov. 27) but, with his quickness, caught up in a hurry. Boykins almost certainly would not be a Warrior if the team had signed another Cleveland native, second-round pick Logan, a fortuitous break for Golden State because the smallest player in the league is at the height of his powers with his fifth team since 1998-99.

Boykins, 26, who entered the season with career totals of 4.3 points on 41. 5 percent shooting from the field in 11 minutes a game, is averaging 11.3 points on 46.8 percent in 22.6 minutes. Starting point guard Gilbert Arenas has not been thrilled to give way to Boykins in several fourth quarters, but the journeyman looks right at home in crunch time.

Let freedom ring.

"That's the key. Eric allows me to go out there and do whatever I want to do," Boykins said. "Basically he tells me to go out there and, plain and simple, says, 'Earl, do whatever you want to do, just get the job done.' "

Passing muster: Golden State started to move when the ball did. After that 15-point loss in Sacramento, punctuated by Arenas saying the Warriors "get mad passing the ball," Musselman installed an offensive set called "open" that promotes constant motion, backdoor cuts and dribble handoffs. The Warriors, for instance, produced 40 of their 114 points against the Lakers using the play, the first of three consecutive games that they shot at least 50 percent from the field.

"It's been a pleasant surprise for us," Musselman said. "We were hesitant to put it in right away because it's a little unconventional. I don't think there is a team in the league that runs a passing game that's just so free- lanced and a passing game where it's all reads and there's not much structure to it."

The Warriors distributed the ball as crisply as they have all season in Saturday's 37-point first quarter against Utah, racking up 11 assists -- two fewer than they totaled at Sacramento -- on 15 baskets.

"Guys are starting to look for each other and be unselfish," rookie small forward Mike Dunleavy said. "When you have that, a play like 'open' is going to work."

Said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan: "We could not even get close to guarding them. They just ran us out of the gym."

Internal improvement: The Warriors had no scheduled practice New Year's Day.

Second-year power forward Troy Murphy showed up anyway to lift weights.

Through hard work that began with an ambitious offseason regimen, Murphy has benched the notion that he's not an NBA starter and pressed his case for the league's most improved player award.

Other Warriors have addressed weaknesses -- such as Jamison with his defense, guard Jason Richardson with his 3-point accuracy and nearly the entire roster with free-throw shooting -- but no one has reshaped his game and body as thoroughly as Murphy, one of eight players averaging a point-rebound double-double.

"That's the type of growth and development that you hope most of your young players have when they come into the league," assistant general manager Gary Fitzsimmons said.

Finishing the deal: After a lot of close-but-no-cigar results in 2001-02, the Warriors are filling their humidor this season. The Warriors went 6-18 in games decided by six points or fewer last season; they are 8-6 in such games this season.

"It's just confidence," Arenas said. "We have that belief now."

Said Jamison: "The biggest difference is we're winning the close games and we're not rattled so easily like we've been in the past. That's what happens when you're together for an extended period of time. Things start to click."

Just as Divac figured.

[Jamil]

In reply to:

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their first winning month since February 1996

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OMG I hadn't realized they had been so bad for so long. And we thought we had it bad!

[Traceman]

Richardson, Arenas and Murphy are all still playing over 30 mpg despite the fact that Richardson and Arenas are not playing as much down the stretch. If they were still losing, I could see why this might be a problem but if you can WIN plus play your young guys over 30 mpg, what the heck is the problem? They are still getting a lot of experience, they are just doing it while having a chance to win every night. As for Dunleavy, who is supposed to sit so that he can play? Unless the Warriors make a trade to free up some minutes at SF, Dunleavy will probably learn primarily from the bench this season.