HoopsHype.com Columns

A golden opportunity lost
by Chad Finn / September 20, 2003

A season ago, the young, reckless and remarkably gifted Golden State Warriors sprinted, leaped and dunked their way to their most victories (38) in a decade.

Cajoled by innovative young coach Eric Musselman, they were exciting and improving, electric and intriguing. Sure, there were growing pains, but for the first time since the wild Run-TMC days, Bay Area basketball fans had reason for optimism.

A half-dozen months later, and so much for that optimism. After a summer's worth of transactions that defy any logical explanation, Golden State's current state is anything but golden.

Consider these offseason departures. Gone is affable 27-year-old forward Antawn Jamison, who took his career averages of 20.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game to the Dallas Mavericks in a lopsided nine-player swap.

Gone is acrobatic 21-year-old point guard Gilbert Arenas, the league's Most Improved Player a season ago, who signed a six-year, $65 million deal with the Washington Wizards.

Gone are capable role players Earl Boykins, Bob Sura and Danny Fortson, as well as promising but raw guard Jiri Welsch.

Gone, too, is the optimism and all of the hopeful adjectives. And what remains? Let's see, there's Jason Richardson, Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy, Mickael Pietrus. . . and, um, did we mention Jason Richardson already?

Seems the only thing more frustrating than the Warriors' summer will be their season.

So say goodbye to the promise of good times ahead, and say hello to the Weakened Warriors, whose "newcomers" have a decidedly weathered look.

Clifford Robinson, rickety-kneed at age 35, arrived from Detroit for Sura, purportedly to help replace Jamison up front. Calbert Cheaney came aboard as a free agent after one season in Utah.

Yep, they're just what every young team needs: An aging big guy and a shooter who can't.

Then there's the collection of Mark Cuban's discarded toys that arrived (along with Nick Van Exel) in the Jamison blockbuster. Evan Eschmeyer, Popeye Jones and Avery Johnson are equal parts salary-cap filler and roster fodder. They will be to the Warriors what they were to the Mavericks: well-compensated mannequins plunked down at the end of the bench.

Of all of the Warriors' summertime acquisitions, the most promising is ex-Spurs guard Speedy Claxton. Claxton earned himself a bushel of money -- $10 million over three seasons, to be precise -- by making the most of his
opportunities during San Antonio's run to the NBA championship. In Game 6 of the Finals, he contributed 13 points and six assists in place of ineffective starter Tony Parker.

Claxton's Finals performance might have been a clue that little Speedy is on the fast-track to stardom. Then again, it might be a clue that he is this year's Tyronn Lue.

Time will tell us if Claxton is part of the solution. History already has told us that Van Exel is not. The veteran guard is yet to report to the Warriors, and he has made it abundantly clear that they'll have to drag him kicking and screaming to Oakland. Should he eventually decide to show up, you can bet his primary motivation will be to collect $11 million he is due this year, and not to selflessly contribute to a winning cause.

You are familiar with the theory of addition by subtraction? This might be a case of subtraction by addition. Van Exel generally behaved himself in Dallas, but ask the folks in Denver and Los Angeles how petulant and divisive he can be when he is unhappy. One doesn't get a nickname such as Nick Van Expletive by being a team-first guy. If the Warriors develop a cancer in the locker room, chances are Van Exel will be the carcinogen.

It's apparent that the Warriors' golden age will remain fleeting, and this less-than-encouraging scouting report begs one question: Why in the Spaulding-shaped world did Garry St. Jean make these moves?

The answer: I'm not sure he knows for sure, and if he does, he's not telling. St. Jean attempted to put more spin on his deals than Chris Mullin put on his jump shot, claiming, in essence, that he was clearing salary-cap space for the future while adding talented players for the present.

It's a shrewd concept, excepting a couple of plainly obvious flaws. The Sura-for-Robinson deal actually is more costly against the cap. And, most glaringly, the players who are arriving can't carry the Nikes of the players who are departing.

Here is what St. Jean should have done, and it's pretty simple, really. He should have stood pat, played the cards he was dealt, and built his franchise around Jamison, Richardson and Dampier, Dunleavy and Welsch. If Arenas left, then he could have signed Claxton and given Welsch a chance to prove himself at the point. And he damn sure should have hung up the phone the minute Donnie Nelson breathed Van Exel's name.

So what if the pieces didn't fit quite perfectly before? Even if Jamison does have a burgeoning reputation as the Invisible Man in the clutch and Richardson likes to keep the ball to himself, at least they were pieces of a pretty compelling puzzle.

Now nothing seems to fit, and something about that is sad. Had they committed the requisite time and patience to his team, the Warriors might have grown into something special. For the first time in a long time, their
future appeared bright.

It's too bad their general manager had grown too comfortable with the clouds to notice.

Chad Finn is an award-winning sports columnist and a regular contributor to HoopsHype.com

Tell us what you think about this column. E-mail us at HoopsHype@HoopsHype.com