No Trades and the 15-Year Status Quo

The Warriors made a little "We're actually trying to have a good team" BS Putsch last night through a few handy shills- some of whom took the bait, some of whom immediately called BS and/or wrote about ticket sales. The tagline: Warriors Really Serious About... Two Impossible Targets. Local folks have since clammed up on the trade talk as the actual information and reality come to light via national sources and actual research/inquiry. When ticket reps call local reporters to announce trade fantasies, and reporters run it without at least a little critical distance, it all makes for bad news.

As has been widely discussed today, in the national and non-shill media, the Warriors' supposed offer is Biedrins and Randolph for Chris Bosh. Presumably, the same sort of offer was floated to Phoenix for Amare Stoudemire. Also, Monta Ellis is up for grabs.

There's no way to make such a trade with only those pieces due to Biedrins' Base Year Compensation status. He's on a new deal that pays him lots more than his rookie deal and that puts him at 50% "trade value" but the standard CBA rules governing trades still apply. So the Dubs would have to bring back close to Biedrins' actual full contract value in return.

Usually, deals with BYC players involved work best with more than one team. However, the Warriors pulled off an impressive contract move with some BYC/Poison Pill level complications not that long ago when they shipped Mike Dunleavy and Troy Murphy out with trade filler and a young big with lottery "potential" for Stephen Jackson, Al Harrington, and trade filler. Some of that Indiana trade filler, Josh Powell, now logs minutes here and there for a title favorite in L.A. He apparently was not a good bench NBA "big" for Don Nelson, either, who is now saying "We need some bigs" as he draws up his best Azubuike-at-Center schemes for the Defensive Test against the D'Antoni Knicks tonight at the Oracle.

This all boils down to the offseason seeming like a really transparent series of Robert Rowell BS. To have resigned Ellis and Biedrins at all was, at best, a status quo necessity. The way they've been dicking Biedrins around on minutes (and incentives benchmarks) and Ellis on contract issues and punishment (Threats and distance. GREAT playing atmosphere, no way he tries to do too much too soon, ruining everything) suggests their respective agents could be as invested in getting them the hell out of town as the Warriors are now claiming to be. Rowell is now using them as trade deadline PR release fodder just to see what shakes out in the way of team interest in the Warriors' pieces in general.

One obvious scenario is to make the Warriors a third party to a larger trade, in which the team sheds Maggette or Jackson and commits fully to moving on with youth and a formal rebuild. Neither of those players have the make-up to lead, consistently or otherwise, toward anything of consequence, and both have seriously selfish games that don't help anyone but themselves all too often- occasional good nights notwithstanding. Meanwhile, they make entirely too much money for entirely too many years.

Jackson's heinously premature extension, in particular, shines a bright light on the Rowell Offseason ego trip. There is no legitimate defense of the move, even if you absolutely LOVE Stephen Jackson (not like a client, like a god). The smart business call was to retain the financial flexibility and sense of urgency and not overextend on a seriously flawed NBA player with known focal issues when on a longterm guaranteed contract. Now we're playing him 43 minutes in blowouts to get him meaningless triple doubles because, well, he's just nothing special besides the numbers he gets now and then and the team has nothing going for it with him at the helm. And it won't.

Despite most of the good logic supporting a move of vets, not youth, the league is unlikely to give much of anything for those two selfish vet wings on bad contacts or for Jamal Crawford and Rowell wouldn't have the guts to admit his idiocy and cash out if some expiring contract were even available to him. Let's be honest- who wants to talk to this little dweeb if he thinks Maggette and Jackson are worth MORE than Jermaine O'Neal at this point?! Yet Nelson can get far more of what HE wants from these three veteran, known commodities, than he has ever gotten out of young players suffering some growing pains, in all his years in the league.

It's a virtual certainty that none of the Warriors older players- the ones Nelson gives the majority of his minutes to without exception- will be moved this week.

The bottom line seems clear:
Don Nelson approves of shipping any and all bright futures for any and all available All Star-type problem children who won't stay any longer than he coaches and will be playing for their next contract the entire time they're here. It all adds up to nothing happening or something terrible and egregiously short-sighted but not remotely championship caliber happening in the last great blow up ego clash of Don Nelson's career. If only it could be the last in Cohan's, too.

This formula always works so well for us.