The Warriors: Lighten up Francis
Easy, Nellie, easy baby. It's early yet.
Tuesday night, the Warriors came from behind in the Oracle to beat the Portland Trailblazers relatively easily, 108-96. But in the post-game news conference coach Don Nelson was acting like the Warriors had just blown the season.
Head hanging, shirt open several buttons at the collar, hair disheveled, the seemingly overly overwrought Nelson moaned that "there were so many things wrong" with the team's performance in the first half, "I just couldn't fix them all." He seemed exasperated and depressed, drained of the manic energy he brought with him from the retirement shores of Hawai'i. At one point, Nellie landed an especially barbed jab, lamenting that the effort "looked like the team from last year." Ow-ch.
An equally subdued Baron Davis confirmed Nelson's wrath. "Yeah, coach was pretty hard on us at halftime."
Serenity now coach, serenity now.
Yo, coach, it's the pre-frickin' season! And the Warriors are knifing their way through it like Mike Dunleavy slicing through traffic in the lane en route to a monster two-handed reverse tomahawk jam over Ben Wallace.
We-elll, maybe that analogy is more wishful thinking than reality, but the Warriors ship is holding water this preseason. Small-ball is in full effect, and so far it's looking decent. They're 6-0. They're averaging 118.6 points per game (compared to 98.5 ppg in 2005-2006), with an 8.2 average margin of victory against NBA teams. They've blown a team out by 54 and pulled out an overtime win. They've won in the Oracle and on the road. They've taken down a playoff team from last year and rolled a peer-level squad. Damn it feels good to be a gangster.
OK, OK, it's only preseason, but for a franchise as historically moribund as the Warriors, winning, on any level, at any time, in any context is a positive experience. Like any new sensation though, it can take a little while to get used to, which is why this preseason has particular value for the club. The team psyche is unformed and fragile. The coach should be lifting them up right now and celebrating their success, not pissing in their Gatorade.
Nellie's Tuesday night theatrics were silly but not surprising. He's an old-school hard ass. His two previous coaching gigs ended in mid-season departures. He's got history right here in River City. And then there's the really juicy stuff.
Recent reports have Nelson working the players extremely hard in practice, which is a good thing -- to a (breaking) point. Physically, the team is already starting to look a little ragged. The regular season hasn't even started yet and the Warriors infirmary is growing quicker than Tony Snow's nose. Baron's thigh was hurting him over the weekend. The annual Mickael Pietrus injury tally got its first entry of the year on Tuesday night as the fragile forward had to sit out the game with a strained right groin. Troy Murphy has missed the last few games with a broken nose. Monta Ellis appears poised to go Tony Parker on the league this year, but already has all kinds of aches and pains. Colitis survivor Dajuan Wagner is lighting it up when he's in there, but according to Nelson, he can only go about four minutes at a time before he gets fatigued. Zarko Cabarkapa has a bad back. Chris Taft's mysterious injuries from last year mysteriously continue. And all this on top of news that Jason Richardson, the team's leading scorer the last three years, may not be fully recovered enough from knee surgery in August to suit up on opening night.
It's understandable that Nellie wants to hurry the process along. He's 66 and not likely to be a long-term fixture in the coach's box. He wants results and he wants them now. And who doesn't? Let's keep the bigger picture in perspective here though. Does Nellie need to drive his players to the IR by overdoing it before the season even starts? Do you get a ring for winning the preseason? Won't it be better to peak in April than in November?
Rome wasn't built in a day Nellie, you can't spin gold out of straw in one preseason. This franchise is a reclamation project on the scale of Hoover Dam. A heavy hand works for a while, but it gets old quickly. How long until the players tire of running penalty laps around the gym like 15-year olds who were late to practice? How long until their mental fatigue equals or exceeds their physical fatigue? The fact that the team's PR spin machine is already out there downplaying the Nelson reputation is telling.
As the wizened officer Bob Hodges liked so say, "There's two bulls standing on top of a mountain. The younger one says to the older one: "Hey pop, let's say we run down there and fuck one of them cows". The older one says: "No son. Lets walk down and fuck 'em all".
Whaddya say Nellie? You up for a walk to the playoffs?