Warriors Come Out To Playyyyyyy

By Kalen Patrick

Fans of the 1970's Cult Classic "The Warriors" will get this reference

While I do love the movie, I am of course talking about the Golden State Warriors. This offseason has been incredibly busy and exciting for Golden State. Bring in Jerry West, MarkN Jackson, Klay Thompson and Jeremy Tyler.

Klay Thompson and Jeremy Tyler are 2 of the 3 draft picks made by the Warriors in the recent NBA Draft. Thompson the 11th overall pick is a 6'7 mixture of a SG and SF. I don't see him playing too much initially but as the season goes on (if there is a season) I expect his minutes to add up and for him to effective off the bench. As for Tyler, this is a guy the Warriors just paid straight up money for to get. He is a major boom or bust prospect at the Center position. I expect the Warriors to take is very slow with him, don't expect to see him at all unless the Warriors get crushed with injuries.

WARRIORS DRAFT SELECTIONS

Rumors are the Warriors are very interested and serious about wanting to bring in Nene, a free agent who has played in Denver. I expect the Warriors would only do this if they can somehow dump the majority of Andris Biedrins contract. Nene would be a solid fit in GS. He would play beside PF David Lee and they would be very effective on the offensive end. If Mark Jackson can get them playing better defense then it could be a real nice duo in the paint.

As much as I love Monta, I'm still in favor of trading him for Andre Iguodala, time for the Warriors to put out a more typical NBA starting 5 out on the court. Sure we all love watching Monta, but do we love watching the team love 45+ games a season too?

Lots of changes in Warrior Land but I expect them to be ready to "come out to play" in the upcoming season.

NBA Off-Season - Golden State Warriors

The Golden State Warriors, where do we start? This team has been one of the most dysfunctional of all the teams in the NBA. Countless trades gone wrong, bad contract after bad contract and worst of all, this is a team which is bad BUT they are just good enough to always put themselves out of position to get a top 3 pick. In recent years the Warriors just seem to always pick between 7th and 11th. Granted they were able to get Point Guard Steph Curry 8th but still. This is a team that in the last 3 years just seems as if its been stuck in transition and just staying in that position.

Is Mark Jackson the right guy to resurrect the Warriors? 

So lets take a look at whats happened this team so far this offseason. They bring in Jerry West (credible NBA guy), they hire Mark Jackson (Boom or Bust type hire) and they get Mike Malone (X's and O's guy to help Jackson). I like bringing in Jerry West, smart move by Joe Lacob to bring some more credibility to the franchise as a whole. I'm not sure how I feel about the Mark Jackson hire, I try to look at the positives: Well known and popular among NBA players which could help bring in potential Free Agents, played the PG position which is essentially the coach on the floor and he has a great Assistant in Mike Malone to help him out with strategy and game planning. This is all good and well, but then I keep coming back to the fact that he has ZERO coaching experience. Nada. Who knows how he will react, if the Warriors are in playoff contention, big game and he has to make big decisions, can he inspire the team? So many question marks. Granted it worked with the Celtics and Doc Rivers, but did you notice Rivers suddenly became a whole lot smarter when they added Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Rajon Rondo emerged? Hmmmm.

Andre Iguodalas presence would make perfect sense for a Warriors team severely lacking defense

So lets look at some of the things the Warriors can do this offseason to put themselves in good position going forward. Biggest question is what to do with Monta Ellis? Trade him or keep him? I love Monta, I love watching him play but I just don't think the Warriors can win with Ellis and Curry. It's time for the Warriors become a more conventional team (weird idea right?). Make the trade for Andre Iguodala and you can maybe get a pick or role player on top of Iggy. You add Iggy to drastically improve your defense, he is also decent on the offensive end, now that he realizes he should not take many 3's. That is the main trade that the Warriors do.

Nene would be a 'BIG' addition to GS. See what I did there?

In Free Agency I want the Warriors to make a big splash and the main targets won't be travelling far. I want them to pursue both Aaron Afflalo and Nene from Denver. Afflalo is very good on the offensive end and an underrated defender. Nene along with Marc Gasol are the prized Free Agent Centers. I see ZERO chance of Gasol getting away from Memphis. Nene is an active big body in both the defense an offensive ends. The Warriors current Center Andris Biedrins has become soft to the point that he is afraid of contact because of how bad his free throw shooting is. I do think his career can be salvaged, and I do think the Warriors can and will trade him, even if they will be eating up some of his contract. If Gilbert Arenas, Corey Magette, Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard lewis can get traded, so can Biedrins.



These moves give the Warriors a much more balanced and conventional starting 5, along with having some real nice depth too. Starting 5 of:
PG - Steph Curry
SG - Aaron Afflalo
SF - Andre Iguodala
PF - David Lee
C - Nene

With role players including: Excellent 3-point shooter Dorrell Wright, good young defender in Ekpe Udoh, solid role player in Reggie Williams. Plus the Warriors have the 11th overall pick and can maybe select another big guy to help out on defense. I do think the Western Conference is gonna be weaker in coming years. Spurs are old, Mavs are old, who knows how Lakers do without Phil Jackson. I think the 7th and 8th seeds are absolutely attainable with solid moves including the ones I made in this mock offseason.

Let me know what you guys think and give me feedback and what not. Check back regularly for updates. SPREAD THE WORD

Reviewing the Day in Sports

What a busy Monday in Sports, you don't hear that too often, but today was jam-packed full of action. From the Stanley Cup Finals, NBA Head Coach  move and a bunch of Baseball, I'd say that is a great day. Lets get this started

NHL Stanley Cup Finals
The Boston Bruins were down 0-2 in the series to the Vancouver Canucks, I love hearing all the sports radio talk about how the series is over blah blah blah. Well guess what? Boston comes in today and kicks the Canucks ass 8-1. This game looked like it would be another nail-biter after the 1st period was scoreless, but then it was all Boston. By the end of the 2nd period the game was essentially over as the Bruins scored 4 goals. I was extremely glad to see the Bruins get back 1 game in this series. As I wrote in my post "NHL's Time to Shine" I really think Hockey needs an exciting 7 game series to get momentum going in to next year. I was glad also because I do have a soft spot for the Bruins, as much as people would say that all 7 games need to be close, I disagree, I think a blowout game like this can be great. It brings a lot of National attention when you hear a score of 8-1 in the Finals, people will come flocking to check it out when they hear these kind of scores.

Expect an action packed 7 game series between the Boston Bruins and Vancouver Canucks

Going forward in this series I do expect nothing less than an exciting 7 game series. I do think that the Bruins will eventually come back to win this series. Timmy Thomas looked great in goal tonight and can build on this and get hot, whereas Roberto Luongo, uhmm not so much. Hockey comes down to having a hot goalie and being able to eek out some goals. Boston to me has the advantage at goalie, while the Canucks have some great players in Kessler, and the Seguin twins, I think Boston will be able to get enough out of enforcer and talented Zdeno Chara, also guys like Mark Recchi and David Krejci are more than capable of getting the job done. Lace up your skates, put on pads, because the next 4 games are gonna be a heavy hitting, bumpy ride.

Mark Jackson lands with Golden State
The ESPN game announcer and former NBA Point Guard Mark Jackson has become the next Head Coach of the Golden State Warriors. Just when I thought the Warriors couldn't get any dumber, they go and TOTALLY REDEEM themselves. Well I don't know if I will go that far but I recently watched Dumb and Dumber and what to put that line in my blog somewhere. I really think this is a wait and see hire. You can look at the good and bad points to hiring a guy like Mark Jackson, he doesn't have any Head Coaching or Assistant Coaching experience in the NBA, however, he was able to play the PG position extremely well, which is essentially the coach on the court. One thing I did like hearing from the Warriors brass was that they are committed to surrounding Jackson with a great supporting cast.

     Does Mark Jackson have what it takes to be the Warriors Head Coach?

The Warriors seem determined to lure Mike Malone from the New Orleans Hornets to add to Jacksons staff. A guy the Lakers are reportedly very interested in and have already interviewed. Mark Jackson will do a great job with both Steph Curry and Monta Ellis (assuming neither are traded), and according to ESPN experts, expect the Warriors to play much better defense with an up-tempo offense. I like the sound of that. While I am a bigger Bulls fan, the Warriors being the local team are definitely my Western Conference Team. I want to see the Warriors be competitive, I want the Bay Area to have a winning Basketball team but changes not just to the coaching staff need to be made.

Look, I as much as anybody love watching the Curry - Ellis combo but I just don't know if it will ever work. This will be the first challenge of the owners and new coaching staff, what to do with these two players. Do you keep both and hope they can form a winning Guard tandem? Or try and build a more conventional team? I will touch on my opinions of this in a future post. Leave comments on what you guys would wanna do with the Warriors if you were in charge?

MLB
Here come the Detroit Tigers! The Cleveland Indians had a great great start to the season, and by all means are still having a good year being 8 games above .500 with a record of 33-25. However, their once huge lead in the AL Central is all but gone now that the Tigers have been playing excellent ball. The Tigers crushed the Rangers today 13-7 lead by Brennan Boesch who has 2 HR's, 5 RBI and went 5-6, to improve their record to 32-27. The Indians once had an 8 game advantage, it's now down to 1.5 games and this will be an exciting race all through the Summer. In other news the Milwaukee Brewers just completed a 4 game sweep of the Florida Marlins in Florida. Zack Greinke had an outstanding performance for a Milwaukee team which has been red hot as of late.

Tim Lincecum is a World Champion, 2 time Cy Young Winner and now has 1000 K's in less than 5 full seasons. Impressed?

Would like to end off by Congratulating Tim Lincecum by getting his 1000th career Strike Out today. The Freak joins some big company by getting his 1000th K, in only his 5th year in the Majors, and we all know he has a lot more of those to come, not only this year but for the foreseeable future. Matt Cain is only 31 K's away from reaching 1000 himself, next up for the Giants will be Jonathan Sanchez who will probably get there by the end of the 2012 season. That's all for now, I am out.

Thanks for reading, be sure to check in on the blog daily, vote on the polls, add comments, follow the blog and also spread the word. I appreciate all the help.