Golden State Warriors Roundtable: A Reflection On The Young 2008-2009 Season

The Golden State Warriors entered the 2008-2009 campaign with some major losses to their line-up.

The Warriors have lost Baron Davis, Matt Barnes, and Mikael Pietrus to the free agency realm this past summer. Oh, and you might have heard: Monta Ellis is probably out until January 2009. To assess this season’s slow start for the youngest team in the NBA, Dave Nemetz, Nuck Chorris, Yama Hazheer, Steve Resnick, and myself are participating in the first ever Bleacher Report Golden State Warriors Rountable. Here are our main focus questions:

• ­How do you feel about how Don Nelson has handled the young and inexperienced core? Even though the fans (including myself) call for more playing time for the youngsters, we don't expect a sub-par performance. But when they do hit us with a mediocre performance, we are confused. What are your thoughts on that?
• What is the best scenario for Al Harrington now with the Warriors? If you were in the shoes of Chris Mullin at the moment and had to trade Al, who would you trade for? What specific positions would you focus on?

Nuck Chorris

Temporarily abandoning the "do what it takes to win" attitude to focus on team growth surprised me at first.  It would seem the loss of Corey Maggette and the situation with Harrington put Nelson in experimental mode.  Nelson knows that he will have to be creative with his rotations throughout the year.  The absence of Monta Ellis, Al Harrington, and Maggette means more experimentation across the board, as we've seen with Nelson playing both tall and small in the same game. Nelson has done a good job of putting bench players in the right situations to develop more quickly. Nelson is watching Randolph, Wright and even Rob Kurz to see who can give Andris Biedrins some weak side defense without fouling, as uncontested layups and fouls seem to be a problem. By mid December, Nelson should have a refined Monta-less rotation that is more comfortable playing together. 

The growing pains will probably make your eyes bleed for the next month, but there really is no better time than now.  Better now than down the stretch when that extra chemistry is really going to matter in crunch time. 
 

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