GoldenSTWarriors

[Dr. Spaceman]

I could easily say the same thing about how many games you've actually watched that season. If Baron Davis didn't come back along with Stephen Jackson, with Ellis as the starting point guard..this team wouldn't of made the playoffs. So, would you call him a key player? I do concur that he was a key to their 48 win season, but was he the best player on that team even though he scored 20 points a game? Nope he wasn't and it can be argued if he was even the second best player next to Baron Davis. Yes, this is a team sport. Is Ellis really a team player? If you've watched as many games as you say you did, then you would see that is also debatable. Using Nellie's coaching plan as an excuse to his lack of defense isn't going to cut it either. I'm sure Nellie didn't tell him to not play defense or to force shots over 3 or 4 defenders. I guess we'll all have to see how he plays under a coach like Mark Jackson.

Ok so because Monta, J-Rich (the number 1 option in that period), Harrington and Biedrins weren't carrying the team that means none were key players to the We Believe roster? Only Baron and S-Jax mattered according to this form of analysis. A team like that is what I would equate most closely to this years Nuggets. No superstars, but dependent on a rotation of 7-8 athletic guys who all made a solid impact in their system. If their 2 key cogs in that went down, they would hit a rough patch. When everyone was healthy and we could run out 7-8 guys, we won something like 12 of the final 14 to make the playoffs.

That year of the We Believe Warriors is an interesting one. Monta was by far our most efficient scorer (besides Biedrins). Jackson and Baron scored as many points, but both were guilty of pounding the ball into the floor and chucking. Baron was the distributor and could go out and defend SGs. He also brought leadership and swag. Jackson was much like Baron. He was a fearless leader who made big plays and usually would defend the opposing teams' best player. However, the 2nd half of that year, both Jackson and Baron's stats started going down, and one of the only reasons we were able to contend for a playoff spot so late in the year was because Monta being such an efficient 20-25 PPG a night. He may not have been our most versatile player, but as far as performing, Monta was our best player at times that season.

Are you saying that playing for Don Nelson doesn't make a players defensive stats look worse? Of course they do. It's a defensive system based completely on gambling in order to create fast break opportunities. Also, because besides an often-injured Turiaf and Udoh, we have had no one who can defend the post for years or protect the paint. Guards like Curry and Monta are forced to abandon their mean and double the post any time they feed it. Nelson also loved running lineups of Monta, Curry and CJ out there where Ellis would have to guard SFs. Sorry, but Nelson's lineup patterns and overall defensive philosophy (Keith Smart was the person who coached this in Nelson's years and again himself as HC) ARE responsible for making their players look like bad defenders.

However, you are right in that is not a great excuse. What I attribute more to his poor effort defense is minutes. I don't know how much basketball you've played in your life, but if you are playing 40 of the possible 48 minutes of full- court basketball, and your teammates are constantly looking for you to bail them out on offense or create their shots for them, you are probably going to take some possessions off on defense and get burned a lot on defense. Even if you're a professional athlete. And it's not like it's just SGs we get abused by. How many frontcourt matchups does our team win? How many and 1's does Curry give the other team with stupid reach fouls on the fast break? If you don't hold others responsible (especially when they are more responsible for our overall TEAM defense) then you are just being a Monta hater.

And forcing shots over 3-4 defenders? What are you watching? If anything, what Monta needs to cut out is his heat check 20 footers he tries to take off the dribble. When he gets into the paint (The only time an NBA team would commit 3-4 players to one guy) he's actually the most efficient guard (maybe it was top 3 I forget) in the NBA at scoring, despite being straight up robbed of multiple foul calls per night.

[rockyBeli]

Baron played like a superstar for the We Believe years, completely robbed from all star games....much of the credit for the W's success should go to him. he was a mismatch for other pg's to guard and the go-to guy and dynamic playmaker who got everyone involved (including the Oracle crowd).


here's the thing.....this whole thing has hit an impasse and the Warriors are kind've at the point where they need to make a decision or at the very least explore that route.

Monta cannot play with Steph Curry. Monta (like Iverson or Barrea or Jason Terry) must be paired with a big guard (like Kidd, like Baron - which is why it worked with Baron), to be successful.
The We Believe years worked because we had Baron to cover Monta's shortcomings, Barnes who is good defender, Harrington who had some inside-out game and sometimes a mismatch, and Biedrins playing well because Baron got him involved.


I must be not watching the same games because after 7 yrs, I don't expect Monta to magically grow taller or magically grow some defensive instincts. I'm not talking about stamina, I'm talking about his instincts and IQ which have nothing to do with playing heavy minutes. he seriously might be one of the worst defenders in the league because his negative combination of lack of size, lack of effort, and lack of IQ and instincts on the defensive side of the ball. if he's so tired, why is he able to muster up the energy to play offense and dribble around everywhere?

fact 1 - Curry, Monta & Lee = the worst or one of the worst defensive trios in the league
fact 2 - Curry, Monta & Lee just happen to be the "building blocks"


so who goes? to say "don't trade Ellis" in a way is advocating to trade Curry or Lee if you ever want to not suck at D. but I doubt we'd get enough quality value back with Lee's contract, and it would be dumb to trade Curry.

[Dr. Spaceman]

here's the thing.....this whole thing has hit an impasse and the Warriors are kind've at the point where they need to make a decision or at the very least explore that route.

Monta cannot play with Steph Curry. Monta (like Iverson or Barrea or Jason Terry) must be paired with a big guard (like Kidd, like Baron - which is why it worked with Baron), to be successful.
The We Believe years worked because we had Baron to cover Monta's shortcomings, Barnes who is good defender, Harrington who had some inside-out game and sometimes a mismatch, and Biedrins playing well because Baron got him involved.


I must be not watching the same games because after 7 yrs, I don't expect Monta to magically grow taller or magically grow some defensive instincts. I'm not talking about stamina, I'm talking about his instincts and IQ which have nothing to do with playing heavy minutes. he seriously might be one of the worst defenders in the league because his negative combination of lack of size, lack of effort, and lack of IQ and instincts on the defensive side of the ball. if he's so tired, why is he able to muster up the energy to play offense and dribble around everywhere?

fact 1 - Curry, Monta & Lee = the worst or one of the worst defensive trios in the league
fact 2 - Curry, Monta & Lee just happen to be the "building blocks"


so who goes? to say "don't trade Ellis" in a way is advocating to trade Curry or Lee if you ever want to not suck at D. but I doubt we'd get enough quality value back with Lee's contract, and it would be dumb to trade Curry.

I don't think he's nearly as terrible as you're making him out to be. You aren't top 5 in the league in steals without some type of defensive instincts. Is he a good defender, no. But as the #1 option on offense for 82 games, he is supposed to get a pass for sometimes being lackadaisical on that end of the floor. Every superstar is like this. Lebron, Wade, Kobe all give less than 100% effort for most of the game until the closing stretch. They are expected to play as hard as they can down the stretch and Monta usually does this without being afforded the rest many of these guys get.

And if he needs a bigger PG next to him, maybe we should go back to that. At least for stretches of the night. Monta is better at guarding PGs than Curry. We're still not solving our problems by getting a solid defending SG. We will still be susceptible getting burned at 2 other perimeter spots. Teams will still be playing inside out against us, dominating our soft frontcourt, forcing our guards to double. And leaving their guards open for wide open jump shots. We will still be forced to play outside in with our only threat in the paint being our penetration by the guards. Trading Monta is unlikely to solve either of those problems. And for those who think we won't have a major dropoff without him, we have won something like 1 game against an above .500 team without him the last 2 years. I'm guessing that equates to a winning percentage of around .100 against these teams. I'm pretty sure he makes us better.

And we don't NEED to trade any of them yet. Will we win a championship with that backcourt? Probably not. But making the playoffs is a start. But that won't work with this core unless we get better production from the C position and get a good perimeter defender as Dorrell is not the one Riley had hoped for and Monta is currently our best perimeter defender. Because the truth is, we are undersized and poor defensively at every position. So of course the backcourt is going to look like a failure since Monta and Curry are our 2 best players and failed to get us to the playoffs. But it doesn't HAVE to be if we build around it well with complimentary players, which we have still failed to do. And yes the truth is we my not be able to do that TRULY for a while, as Lee's contract was a mistake. But this can still be a playoff team with minor additions, and when we can trade Lee, or if Monta can actually net us a big man, we can take that next step.

I'd rather not trade either Monta or Curry, because our backcourt currently wins most matchups and if we can ACTUALLY address the frontcourt so they don't offset this advantage, we can actually be a winning team.

[Dr. Spaceman]

So I didn't know what thread to post this in, but it is a pretty interesting thing, and has to do with Monta :

Too bad Dwight wasn't a free agent 3-4 years ago. We'd have 3 of the 5 players he'd most like to play with. Still, we should seriously consider trading Curry, Udoh and future 1sts for Paul (get an actual PG rather than a combo guard who can throw flashy passes), trade Andris for anything expiring and we'd definitely be front-runners for Dwight.

[GSW Hoops Fan]

So I didn't know what thread to post this in, but it is a pretty interesting thing, and has to do with Monta :

Too bad Dwight wasn't a free agent 3-4 years ago. We'd have 3 of the 5 players he'd most like to play with. Still, we should seriously consider trading Curry, Udoh and future 1sts for Paul (get an actual PG rather than a combo guard who can throw flashy passes), trade Andris for anything expiring and we'd definitely be front-runners for Dwight.

Monta Ellis + Dwight Howard combo would be sick! We could give them our 2014 first round + 2016 First round + 2018 First round + 2020 first round picks and Curry + Udoh + Beadrins..... they might go for that....