Rowell speaks ... and speaks and speaks

This is the best info I've read on the whole Rowell situation. Janny Hu does a great job of asking tough questions and being persistent. At one point, it seems Rowell got a little annoyed, but good for Janny. In my opinion, Rowell pulled a Sarah Palin and deflected a lot of the tough questions, but his answers were thorough enough for me to hope the Warriors will do the right thing and keep Mully and Nellie around past this year.

Read on: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/warriors/detail?&entry_id=31399

 

If Rowell is going to throw a little tantrum about the media, then why does he agree to do the interview? Either answer the questions or don't do the interview. He talks about reality, yet he doesn't give one REAL answer to any of the questions. Just a bunch of empty rhetoric like this one:

"...We have a lot of work to do in this organization. We've got a lot of work to do with this team to get it to where it needs to get. We're going to evaluate everything. We're going to make the appropriate personnel decisions at the appropriate times.."



Oh, really? So you're saying you have to do work, evaluate everything, and make the appropriate decisions at the appropriate times. Wow. That's so interesting.

I think Rowell just wants face time. I care about seeing good basketball. Frankly I'm not interested in hearing Robert Rowell speak publicly. Chris Mullin and Don Nelson are the ones who are important to this organization. Not Robert Rowell.

Rowell needs to let the people who REALLY KNOW about basketball -- Mullin & Nelson -- to do the thinking here. All Rowell needs to do is write the checks and stay out of the way.

 

Idiotic... Really... Rowell stripped Davis from Mullin and Nelson, and now he asks them to prove it? Why don't you just set up traps in front of their offices? Mullin already showed what he could do for last few years, yet what he does this year will decide what he can/can't do? Nelson? Does he still need to prove anything? I mean, exactly what did Rowell prove in last 6 years? Jackson's extension? Does he realize that we may have a sizable caproom in 2010, if we let both Harrington and Jackson's contracts expire? Do you care to look at FA list in 2010? Rowell should have realized that his popularity is as bad as Cohan's or even worse, and how Warriors fans will react if he becomes a face of this organization. But if he keep insisting what he is doing right now, he may be a huge egomaniac, just an idiot, or both...

 

I'm not jumping on the Rowell Hatewagon just yet. I think vetoing Baron's extension was the RIGHT thing to do and I think signing Jax to an extension is the RIGHT thing to do, regardless of Mullin's involvement or lack thereof. I still think we'll have plenty of cap room to sign a decent FA and re-sign anyone of our current prospects presuming they turn into valuable players (e.g. Randolph, Wright, Belli).

 

This is a great interview by Ralph & Tomo with Ray Ratto on the 49ers + York and the Warriors + Rowell.

http://media.knbr.com/knbr/1021ratto.mp3



.

 

Whether Davis' deal was right or not really doesn't matter in here. Mullin and Nelson wanted to keep Davis, and Rowell vetoed it. Then, Rowell wanted to evaluate both Mullin and Nelson now? That's like somebody took queen and rook away in chess game and says "I will evaluate your chess skill by how you play". I mean, what do you expect? Without Davis, we will not make PO in this season even with healthy Monta. Now that Monta is injured, we are looking at sub 40 winning club. It's pretty clear that Rowell is building an excuse to let Nelson/Mullin go, saying "They did not meet the expectation" or such. To me, that's pretty slimy way to deal with people.

I mentioned in another post if we sign/don't sign Jackson's extension. But anyway... if we give Jackson an extension like 9 mils per year, we will not have a caproom bigger than MLE (or slightly bigger, but not big enough to resign big name FAs). If we don't resign Jackson and keep our caproom for 2010, this is what we are looking at.

Unrestricted FAs:

Pierce
Richardson
James
Nowitzki
Prince
Yao
Bryant
Gasol
Wade
Jefferson
Stoudmire
Redd
Chandler
Parker
Bosh
Kirilenko
Butler

Restricted FAs

Horford
Stuckey
Wright
Thornton
Conley
Yi
Durant
T. Young
Oden

As you can see, 2010 is really packed with big name FAs, and teams like New Jersery is doing their best to clear caproom for 2010. Right now...

1. We have money to spend in 2010 FA market.
2. Our current roster is not enough to even make PO (Unless Wright or Randolph becomes superstar).
3. We saw how a star can transform this club for last two years.
4. There is no reason to extend Jackson and his contract when he has two years remaining.

Exactly, what's the point of extending Jackson right now? If Rowell extends Jackson's contract, he will also make a horrible basketball decision for Warriors. I mean, we saw this type of movement before. We locked up number of players early just make them feel good, when it's pretty clear that those players will not lead this team even to PO. Fisher (6), Richardson (12), Dunleavy (9), Murphy (9), Foyle (8)... Those contracts (Total 44 mils) killed our financial flexibility, and without miracle salary dumping trade, we could have been in the bottom for a long, long time. Right now, we just locked Monta (11), Biedrins (9), Maggette (10), and Turiaf (4) for 4+ years. If we give Jackson another long term contract like 9 mils per year, we kill our finaicial flexibility for next 4-5 years with another 43 mils per year. As much as I like those five players far better than previous five ones, they are not leading this club to championship and even PO is stretching. And, we will be in the same situation before Davis arrives. One certain way to improve this club is by jumping into 2010 FA market and grab somebody. But, by resigning Jackson, we lose that chance. Rowell is making the same mistake as Mullin ver. 1 made before, and it will take another miracle trade to clear the mess once again...

 

Actually, Davis not signing an extension with the Warriors does matter. If we signed him, we wouldn't have cap space to sign one of those big FA you just listed. Secondly, we don't even know the numbers being thrown out for the Jax extension. Maybe it's within reason and it'll still allow the Warriors to go after a FA in 2010. I would say that Jax is a solid starting SG in the league. Locking that up at a reasonable price doesn't seem too far-fetched to me. But, I AGREE that the timing of this is a little off and if Rowell was able to take a hard nosed approach to saying NO to Baron, why can't he tell Jax to wait until next season? Who knows what's really going on or what really went on, but it should be interesting to see how it pans out. I think everyone is bracing for the worst, but until it comes, I'll stay optimistic. I think the media has done a decent job of driving fear into Warrior fans.

 

What I am saying is the whole Rowell's attitude toward Mullin and Nelson. Whether it was a right move or not, Rowell denied Davis' extension, then ask Nelson and Mullin to succeed. To me, it's a trap to get rid of Nelson and Mullin, and that's why I said Rowell's decision doesn't matter, because he still is a slimy one, who wants to control Warriors after 09 season. Of course, resigning Davis would change everything in terms of financial future.

For Jackson, the rumor is that he will get paid around 9 mils per year. It's a reasonable amount for his situation, and I seriously doubt that he will receive something significantly less. If he gets 9 mils per year or anything close to it, we will most likely have a caproom in 2010 bit bigger than MLE, and clearly not big enough to lure a superstar.

There is no question that Jackson is a solid player. And, I like him quite a bit. But, that doesn't mean we are keeping him regardless of the situation. If we have a chance to get a greater goods by not resigning Jackson, shouldn't we pursue that goal instead? Jefferson was traded from Nets despite being an All-Star. That's also because they want a chance to have a better player than Jefferson, so despite getting a crappy package in return, Nets took it. In our case, we don't even have to trade Jackson away, and just because we didn't extend Jackson, that doesn't mean we definitively lost a chance to keep him after 2010 either. After all, we have a bird right, and can pay him the most $. The only thing we are risking is that Jackson will not be happy.

Teams like Nets are throwing everything to create as much of caproom possible to enter 2010 FA market. And, number of teams are not adding long contracts to be players in 2010. We can be one of the players, and why throw away that chance by resigning Jackson just to make him happy?

 

Good points all across. My response would be from the other thread. The problem with playing the FA game in TWO YEARS is that it's in TWO YEARS and a lot can happen between now and then. Plus, even if we have the cap room to sign a superstar player, it's no guarantee they will come play for us. When was the last time the Warriors signed a superstar FA? In my lifetime, NEVER! I don't expect them to change their fortunes because all of a sudden they have deeper pockets than before. What the Warriors have done well is develop young players like Timmy Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, Monta Ellis, etc. The closest thing the Warriors got to a big time FA was not a FA: Baron Davis. Unfortunately, I don't have a point to make on the last sentence

 

Seems like we are jumping this and that thread for some reason...

Yeah, that's my point as well. A lot can happen in next two years. So, what's the point of eliminating options? Isn't it better to be prepared for unknown future? By extending Jackson, we are seriously limiting ourselves in terms of financial flexibility. Also, just because we didn't get superstar via FA in past years, we should just give up? For one thing, we never had a caproom big enough to lure superstar to begin with. The biggest caproom we had is actually this offseason, and we were able to get Maggette and Turiaf. Also, as far as I remember, Philly and Clippers also never attracted big name FAs before like Warriors. However, they were able to lure Brand and Davis this year. If everything falls in right place, and with luck, anything can happen. But, it definitely won't happen if we don't prepare. And, I really think we have a better than minimal chance to lure stars. Once they are sure that they will be paid, they also want to be in a winning environment. That's why no superstar went Memphis this season. We have number of good and proven players, and some stars may consider joining Warriors instead of being in a team that has him and bunch of rookies. I don't think not many teams with caproom can top Monta-Maggette-Randolph-Wright-Biedrins foundation. Also, even though we weren't able to lure superstar, we can be a broker by taking a contract and receive good commission fees, such as young talents or draft picks. Caproom in 2010 will be very valuable, and we will get a pretty good fee fore taking some contract. If everything fails, we can also bring Jackson back with new contract in 2010.

Again, a lot can happen in next two years including 2010 offseason, and we have some fighting chance to lure a star, or at least better player than Jackson. And, downside is Jackson being angry. When upside is very high and downside is rather small, shouldn't we take that chance?

 

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So, I guess NOT signing Jax to an extension is one step in preparing to create cap room for 2010, but it is not the only step to take. Or, would not signing Jax be the only step in creating the needed cap room to lure a superstar FA? It's hard to say since we won't know what the cap room will be in two years.

 

If Jax were as good as he was and was a true PG, then it's a no brainer. Because we are desperate for that position. But being a tweener forward with a past history of hot & cold, hit & miss, he is not essential to the team. He's still a very good player, and definitely the leader of this team. But I would say let him play out the contract, and that's that. No need to go beyond the call for him as if he were Dwight Howard or LeBron James. His current deal is a good deal for GS, but at the same time it's not a slap in the face to Jax. He should be happy with what he has, especially considering how Mullin basically saved his career by rescuing him from the dark depths of Indiana.

 

This whole Rowell thing smells a lot like when he called out Eric Musselman by trading away Jamison for junk and failing to re-sign Arenas due to cap restrictions caused by his previous GMs. After that season was over, he basically blames Musselman for "underachieving".

Seriously... Underachieving my ass, that was overachieving. That was possibly the best warriors team basketball I've seen done with old-timers and training-camp scrubs. Amazingly what kept that whole mess alive was that we had a top-flight defensive power forward, a defensive center that could score at least a dozen and rebound a dozen and block shots. We were 3 point guards deep. We had good midrange shooters. The thing we really lacked was consistency, 3 point shooting, and dribble drive penetration from any other position besides point guard. We actually had some halfcourt-inside scoring that year because Dampier decided to play up to his potential (earning potential that is). We had playoff experience to actually finish off close regular season games (except for the two point 4th quarter against Toronto which was ridiculous coaching on Musselman's part IMO).

Eric Musselman did pretty well overall considering his year-long, star players were Clif Robinson, Jrich, and Erick Dampier. How sad is that? That year they could have been close to .500 or at least higher than mid 40's had their point guards stayed healthy (which were quality floor leaders IMO) If they added pre-injury Troy Murphy/Foyle off the bench, gave Pietrus more playing time, who knows what could have happened. I must say that Dunleavy Jr. wasn't that crappy of a shooter as the years following his rookie scale contract. He even started the season scoring more than 30 points (I believe this was 2003-2004 season where Jrich was suspended a few games. I thought Jrich had missed the opening games against Dallas, Sixers, and others because of the nba-mandated girlfriend-beating suspension).

But yeah the Warriors are awesome. I love them. It's just unfortunate that Rowell and Cohan suck nuts right out of the tin. The Warriors will never get far if their attitude is to just suck all the time and either hire guys that don't know how to win or hire good guys that they won't listen to.

But in all fairness, I do believe that Mags + Turiaf is better than 1 injury prone, egotistical Baron who can't shoot worth a lick. I believe that suspension against Monta was fair enough because they're suspending him for games that he'll miss anyway. Plus the 2 million or so fine was justice IMO because how close were the events of him signing that contract and then going out and doing something he wasn't supposed to do? That's like cheating on your wife a month after getting married. Fck man, at least wait a year or so if you're going to be an a-hole.

So I can't find much fault with Rowell and Cohan, but if they set up Mullin and Nelson to take the blame, they deserve to be blamed for putting Mullin/Nelson is a losing situation by losing Baron for nothing and having too high expectations of this season. (maybe this can't be helped, but still...) It just feels like Cohan and Rowell might do something to Nelson/Mullin like the last GM/Coach (Garry St. Jean/Musselman). The Warriors brass can't expect this season to be a winning one no matter who is running basketball operations. I like Mags/Jax swingman tandem, but without your star 4,5 and a good 1, we're plain mediocre.

 

Speaking of Muss...

http://emuss.blogspot.com/

Great articles and blogs, but I think Muss is sitting in front of the computer bit too much ...

 

I agree. I've said several times that Rowell has not done anything bad yet. All this talk about upending Mullin in contract negotiations with Baron, Jax, etc. is just hearsay. The point is, no one has blatantly expressed being displeased with anyone. The other point is, we are still in a fortuitousness financial position. We may not be after extending Jax, but it's still not the end of the world.

Let's face it, when it comes to being the face of the franchise, Mullin and Nelson are perfect. When it comes to making financial decisions, I would trust Rowell over Mullin. But, that doesn't mean I like Rowell over Mullin. I think his recent media appearances were unnecessary and unprofessional.

Signs point to Rowell/Cohan using Mullin/Nelson as the scapegoat (or maybe just Mullin), but who knows. It is all speculation. Interesting times.