now this is from an article but thought it could generate some interesting discussion

http://www.realgm.com/src_feature_piece ... homa_city/

Golden State played two games in one week against the Oklahoma City Thunder, which provided a great opportunity to compare the two franchises. The astonishingly fast rebuilding job that Sam Presti and company have done in recent years provides a few particularly relevant and salient lessons that the Warriors’ brass should pay attention to, as well as some they have done a decent job of handling already.

1. Know when to sell: One element of OKC’s turnaround that is frequently missed is that this team was the Northwest Division champions and 3rd seed in the Western Conference during the 2004-05 season. Less than two years later, Sam Presti took control of management and knew that he had assets that were valued by the league. Though he wanted to go into a different direction, he still got Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak, and the newly-drafted Jeff Green in exchange for selling off Ray Allen and his contract that finally will be expire at the end of the current season.

While some derided this return as below expectations, each piece brought something that his team could use: Wally and Delonte ended up being moved to Cleveland for further salary relief while Jeff Green has been a solid starter and valued contributor.

In recent years, Golden State has sold low far too many times, including Stephen Jackson to Charlotte, Jamal Crawford to Atlanta, and Marco Belinelli to Toronto for Devean George.

2. Take advantage of opportunities: The full story of Rashard Lewis from a personnel perspective is far more impressive than the abbreviated version. During the summer of 2007, Seattle’s other scoring star (Allen had been traded two weeks before) decided he was going to leave for Orlando. Ignoring the fact that Orlando GM Otis Smith negotiated against himself, raising Rashard’s price, Presti created an opportunity out of the loss by convincing the Magic to structure the deal as a sign-and-trade, with Orlando only giving up a conditional second round pick. This change gave the then-Sonics a massive $9 million trade exception.

Just eight days later, they acquired Phoenix’s 2008 and 2010 first round picks to take on Kurt Thomas’ contract. The first of those picks resulted in Serge Ibaka and the second will come this season and is unprotected.

From there, Presti waited seven months and traded Thomas to the Spurs for another first round pick (which became BJ Mullens).

All in all, management turned a player leaving in free agency into three first round picks, spending about $5 million on Kurt for that portion of a season while getting 7.5 points and 8.8 boards in the interim.

More recently, OKC has been the team that effectively used its cap space to acquire talent, prying Eric Maynor from the Jazz so they could unload Matt Harpring and get under the luxury tax. Again, an asset was used to its fullest and yielded a young, cheap rotation player.

In recent years, the Warriors have done a poor job handling situations like this. They were sitting on what could have been a wealth of 2010 expiring contracts in Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington, but chose to overpay Jackson with his extension and trade Harrington. Instead of being able to get real talent from contenders and/or cap space going into this off-season, the Warriors brass spent that space on Jackson and Corey Maggette while ending up converting Al Harrington into other less valuable 2010-expiring contracts.

One of those players was Speedy Claxton, who was just cut two weeks before the deadline. I wrote at length about this in a separate article and will let that speak for itself, which you can read here. When a team is provided leverage and an opportunity to make the talent better, younger, or cheaper, they must take advantage of that in today’s NBA. Oklahoma City has and Golden State largely has not.

3. Get lucky: Today, Portland and OKC stand as the two teams with particularly large amounts of young talent. Each of them has gotten extremely lucky, particularly in the draft. Portland got Brandon Roy for Randy Foye and also LaMarcus Aldridge for Tyrus Thomas in 2006, Nicolas Batum late in the first, and getting the #1 pick with the seventh-most ping pong balls in 2007.

The Thunder benefited from moving from #5 to #2 in the 2007 draft, selecting the best player taken at that slot in at least the last decade in the form of Kevin Durant, as well as the aforementioned trade exception from Orlando. On this point, the Warriors have done pretty well when it comes to the draft, with Stephen Curry falling to #8 this past season and Anthony Randolph to #14 in 2008.

4. Find the right coach/scheme and get players to fit it: Simply put, Scott Brooks is a perfect fit for what Oklahoma City is trying to do. Talking to him after the game, he has exactly the right amount of intensity and dedication to mold this team. His focus on team accomplishments has rubbed off on his players, as both he and Kevin Durant brushed off mentions of his current 25+ point games streak. Russell Westbrook talked about how important it was to “get in there” on the boards, and Brooks has made having rebounding guards a priority (“we have to rebound as a team and our guards do a great job”) with strong success.

Furthermore, Sam Presti and company have done an excellent job getting players who buy into the team-oriented nature and fit together well. Seeing the camaraderie of Durant, Westbrook, Green, and James Harden on and off the court was fascinating. They all seem to enjoy playing with one another and it is also present in guys making the extra pass to a more open teammate.

The Warriors are picking some of this up and Stephen Curry’s unselfishness is having an effect when he is in the game, but there are still too many times down the court where players rush or force a shot, often with limited success. One of the major decisions the Warriors will have to make in the near future is whether Stephen Curry and Monta are their backcourt of the future, and having a clear vision in mind in terms of the rest of the roster and what the end-game roster for the team should look like would help a great deal.

Oklahoma City stands as an example of what can happen when a team gets opportunities and makes the most of them. They are not done making big decisions and still need to lock up Kevin Durant long-term, but they are on their way.

Hopefully Golden State can become bolder, smarter, and more creative down the line to both maximize their current talent and build a team that can compete




A good read. Thoughts?

OKC did well in getting those role players and maybe they are a big difference in that team this season being a playoff bound one, I don't know as I haven't followed the nba as much this season really. I applaud the way that management used leverage and got something for players that they got rid of, as that's what I think you should always do, use your assets to try to build something better, not just let them go and risk getting nothing.

Truth is though that OKC is a good team now because of their recent draft picks and i'm talking about Durant, Westbrook and Green. Harden has been quite good also. Those players are the one mostly responsible for the oncourt success that team has had lately. Ofcourse, you have to know how to use those players, nurture tham, teach them, encourage their development, and that usually has alot to do with the atmosphere the coach has. That ofcourse is the main reason why the Warriors haven't had success. The coach is not proer, we've covered that quite a bit, management isn't either, we've seen that as well, but the recent draft picks have been very good ones, just not used proerly and the atmosphere there is not one for growing.

As for the trading of SJack and Crawford, I like it. Talent and performance wise, the team could have got much more for those two players, but that's not all that dictates the situation. The team was crumbling and the atmosphere was negative, as well as being publicised and well known to other teams. That means you will not get equal value in any way and to get expiring contracts the way the team did was a great move, it's just using those contracts to get players that contribute to winning, which hasn't happened and won't happem.

Organisation and proper smarts is everything

Can't hurt that they landed the #2 pick and the franchise in front of them retardedly chose Oden [everyone knew Durant was more Jordan and Oden was more Bowie].

I got laughed at when I said the Thunder would make the playoffs this year, on these here boards

yer thats right, don't think Ive forgotten:P

Quazza wrote:I got laughed at when I said the Thunder would make the playoffs this year, on these here boards

yer thats right, don't think Ive forgotten:P

Just like I got laughed at when I said the Warriors should draft Curry. I also got laughed at when I said Lasme and the other 2nd round power forward wpuld never make the team.

The Coooach wrote:

Quazza wrote:I got laughed at when I said the Thunder would make the playoffs this year, on these here boards

yer thats right, don't think Ive forgotten:P

Just like I got laughed at when I said the Warriors should draft Curry. I also got laughed at when I said Lasme and the other 2nd round power forward wpuld never make the team.

Just like I got laughed out when I said Coach Smart is dumb, and how S-Jax should have a show on VH1, man.

warriorsstepup wrote:

The Coooach wrote:

Quazza wrote:I got laughed at when I said the Thunder would make the playoffs this year, on these here boards

yer thats right, don't think Ive forgotten:P

Just like I got laughed at when I said the Warriors should draft Curry. I also got laughed at when I said Lasme and the other 2nd round power forward wpuld never make the team.

Just like I got laughed out when I said Coach Smart is dumb, and how S-Jax should have a show on VH1, man.[/


Oh yeah, i remeber the other guy now, Richard Hendrix. Hey guys, how are those two guys NBA career working out?

The Coooach wrote:

warriorsstepup wrote:

The Coooach wrote:

Quazza wrote:I got laughed at when I said the Thunder would make the playoffs this year, on these here boards

yer thats right, don't think Ive forgotten:P

Just like I got laughed at when I said the Warriors should draft Curry. I also got laughed at when I said Lasme and the other 2nd round power forward wpuld never make the team.

Just like I got laughed out when I said Coach Smart is dumb, and how S-Jax should have a show on VH1, man.

Oh yeah, i remeber the other guy now, Richard Hendrix. Hey guys, how are those two guys NBA career working out?

About as well as you trying not to be a complete and utter self indulgent paranoid looney toon.

F*ck, Reg.............why do you always pull this sh*t? Just talk to us man, you were voted Most Knowledgeable poster here in the awards just gone................so you have the respect of people in-spite of these insane lone ranger impressions you do (they are insane because you ARE NOT the only one who says/said the things you always think you were the only one saying)

That was one of the many reasons I was glad Jackson was traded..............because you wouldnt be able to talk about him and pretend/ignore the fact that it wasnt just you that hated him.

Strange.

bigstrads wrote:

The Coooach wrote:

warriorsstepup wrote:

The Coooach wrote:

Quazza wrote:I got laughed at when I said the Thunder would make the playoffs this year, on these here boards

yer thats right, don't think Ive forgotten:P

Just like I got laughed at when I said the Warriors should draft Curry. I also got laughed at when I said Lasme and the other 2nd round power forward wpuld never make the team.

Just like I got laughed out when I said Coach Smart is dumb, and how S-Jax should have a show on VH1, man.

Oh yeah, i remeber the other guy now, Richard Hendrix. Hey guys, how are those two guys NBA career working out?

About as well as you trying not to be a complete and utter self indulgent paranoid looney toon.

F*ck, Reg.............why do you always pull this sh*t? Just talk to us man, you were voted Most Knowledgeable poster here in the awards just gone................so you have the respect of people in-spite of these insane lone ranger impressions you do (they are insane because you ARE NOT the only one who says/said the things you always think you were the only one saying)

That was one of the many reasons I was glad Jackson was traded..............because you wouldnt be able to talk about him and pretend/ignore the fact that it wasnt just you that hated him.

Strange.

????????

The Coooach wrote:

bigstrads wrote:

The Coooach wrote:

warriorsstepup wrote:

The Coooach wrote:

Quazza wrote:I got laughed at when I said the Thunder would make the playoffs this year, on these here boards

yer thats right, don't think Ive forgotten:P

Just like I got laughed at when I said the Warriors should draft Curry. I also got laughed at when I said Lasme and the other 2nd round power forward wpuld never make the team.

Just like I got laughed out when I said Coach Smart is dumb, and how S-Jax should have a show on VH1, man.

Oh yeah, i remeber the other guy now, Richard Hendrix. Hey guys, how are those two guys NBA career working out?

About as well as you trying not to be a complete and utter self indulgent paranoid looney toon.

F*ck, Reg.............why do you always pull this sh*t? Just talk to us man, you were voted Most Knowledgeable poster here in the awards just gone................so you have the respect of people in-spite of these insane lone ranger impressions you do (they are insane because you ARE NOT the only one who says/said the things you always think you were the only one saying)

That was one of the many reasons I was glad Jackson was traded..............because you wouldnt be able to talk about him and pretend/ignore the fact that it wasnt just you that hated him.

Strange.

????????

LOL!.............have no clue huh bud?

Dont worry man, Ive only said it to you about 248 times, aswell as others saying the same thing.

We still love ya Reg! ............just gets a little annoying sometimes with you pretending/thinking/believing that you are the only person who thinks a certain thing...........when clearly you are not.