Goodbyes

Before we give Mr. Lee a closer look, let's take one sorrowful glance at the fellas we just gave up.

I vividly remember Kelenna Azubuike's first game... he was hastily called up the day of the DunMurphy Dump, as the not-yet-Steve-and-Al'ed Warriors needed warm bodies to fill out the bench (they also called up the comically overmatched Renaldo Major, whose only NBA game was one to forget). 'Buike played all forty-eight minutes, scored twenty-eight points and grabbed seven rebounds, and forged a stable career for himself on the spot. With a (large-nostriled) nose for the rim, a three-point shot that ranged between good and great, and a willingness to mix it up on defense and on the boards, 'Buike was a consistently solid player throughout his Warriors tenure, and a hot start to the '09-'10 season suggested he had the potential to be more than solid. A freak knee injury during Brandon Jennings's 55-point outburst changed all that... Azubuike won't be ready in November, and there's no guarantee that he'll ever recover the explosiveness that made him effective. But he gave this franchise 205 games of good lunchpail basketball (career per 36: 15.0 points, 6.0 rebounds, 55.7 TS%), and should be remembered as a good Warrior.

It won't be at all difficult to remember Ronny Turiaf. While he only played 2,568 minutes in a Warrior uniform, less than many players log in a single season, Ronny endeared himself to fans and teammates with some fierce rim protection, nifty passing, empassioned towel-waving and impressive hobo-bearding. One of the nicest and most likeable players in the league, Ronny at times risked getting more credit than he deserved for his Warriors efforts... his middling rebounding totals prevented him from being a huge asset. But an asset he was, as the Dubs performed better with him than without him in each of his two seasons in Oakland. The Knicks just got a fabulous bench piece and a ray of Martinique sunshine. Here's hoping they treat him well.

The previous gentlemen may have been my favorite two Warriors. Nevertheless, it is much more painful to say goodbye to Anthony Randolph than to either of them. Neither 'Buike nor Ronny was long for the Bay Area; conversely, the Warriors had control over Randolph for three more seasons, with a strong chance of retaining him for longer than that. 'Buike and Turiaf were fun to watch, but Randolph was downright magnetic: whether he was soaring or crashing, he was a spectacle that commanded your attention. Most importantly, while the former two were complementary pieces, AR was a lottery ticket, the Warrior with the greatest potential of all. Two comparisons will suffice.

Disaster Strikes

UGH.

Okay. Look.

The Warriors' big trade today -- Randolph, Turiaf and Azubuike (plus possibly others?!) for David Lee -- has the contours of a trade that makes sense. If you have a bunch of middling players, the best possible outcome is to trade several of them for a pretty good player. Azubuike and Turiaf, as fond as we Worriers are of them, are the exact kind of short-contract spare parts that should be moved for value. And while we'd personally love to cradle Anthony Randolph to our misery-wracked chests until the end of time, there is an argument for trading a high-upside, high-risk guy for a known commodity.

The problem is, the known commodity that is David Lee is known to... how do we put this politely... not help NBA teams win basketball games.

The 2009-10 New York Knicks were outscored by 4.1 points per 48 minutes when David Lee was on the court, and by 2.8 points per 48 minutes when he wasn't. To reiterate: this year's Knicks team played better without David Lee. The previous year? Same deal: the '08-'09 Knicks were outscored by 3.4 per 48 with Lee, and by only 0.7 per 48 without him. In the two years before that, Lee's net plus-minus was positive, but considering he was subbing for a gravy-addled Eddy Curry, that ain't saying all that much.

The more grizzled Warriors fans among you may remember a gentleman by the name of Troy Murphy. By many production-based metrics, Mr. Murphy is a borderline superstar: Dave Berri's Wins Produced, for example, rate him as one of the league's twenty best players. This, of course, is ridiculous, for Troy Murphy's teams are always bad, especially so when he plays... his gaudy rebounding totals stem from the fact that he selfishly pads his own stats, to the detriment of the Pacers' D and even the team's rebounding.

Well, David Lee is better than Troy Murphy. But the two share the same category: both guys boast gaudy counting stats that exemplify weaknesses as much as strengths. When Lee took the floor for the Knicks in the last couple seasons, they rebounded worse as a team and defended much worse. His individual stats suggest he's a borderline All-Star; his team results suggest that the Knicks might've improved upon their 29-53 record if he'd simply stayed home.

This is the exact type of player that the Warriors don't need. In fact, this is the exact type of player that the Warriors just dumped for Charlie Bell and Dan Gadzuric. On a shitty roster with only one healthy three and several high-upside young fours, why, exactly, would you dump $30 million worth of Corey Maggette and then trade real talent for $80 million of David Lee?

This is pointless. This is counterproductive. This is ridiculous. This team is now paying $33 million -- about 57% of the salary cap -- for Monta, Biedrins and Lee, three players whose teams failed to win 30 games last year. This is not how you build a team, nor how you sell one. If the Warriors' next owner looks at a trade like this and smiles, then run for the hills, people... a new day will not be dawning anytime soon. This shit is downright shameful.

Tomorrow, we will take one last look at Anthony Randolph, a player who possesses more upside than any current Warrior (yes, Curry too). Next week, we will embark on the ugly process of examining this newly Lee'd and freshly directionless franchise.

Worrying doesn't even begin to cover it at this point. Is www.goldenstatemourners.com available?

Disaster Looms

Do not do this, Warriors. Just don't do it. Do not fucking trade Anthony Randolph, Kelenna Azubuike and Ronny Turiaf for David Lee and then sign David Lee to an $80-million deal.

People: call your friends and neighbors, your local representatives, your mail carriers, your travel agents. Sound the alarms... let hell roll through the streets of northern California. May the very skies shudder as we bellow these three truths:

1) The proper move after dumping an overpaid, no-D scorer is not to acquire an even more overpaid no-D scorer.

2) Now is no time to swell the payroll.

3) Rebuilding teams should not punt on Anthony Randolphs.

We're at the edge of a cliff here, folks. Here's hoping LeBron accidentally announces he's joining the Knicks, because this has Webber Dump: The Sequel written all over it.

Stay tuned.

Anthony Randolph, Examined

The prognosis is in: Anthony Randolph's ankle injury will keep him out of action for at least two months, and could (considering this team's recent track record, probably should) end his '09-'10 campaign. Bad, sad, depressing stuff. This will be a worse team, and a much less interesting one, without him.

But if we step back from our current miseries, the view is not nearly so grim. We have ourselves a pretty damn intriguing player here, one who's made real strides in his second season. Let's take a look at his production -- what he's done, where he's improved, where he could improve going forward.

Conventional Stats

We checked in on these recently, but let's give 'em another gander... Randolph's first two seasons, per 36 minutes:

Season FG FGA FG% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS

2008-09 6.3 13.7 .462 3.2 4.5 .716 4.1 7.5 11.6 1.6 1.3 2.4 2.6 4.5 15.9

2009-10 6.6 14.9 .443 5.2 6.5 .801 3.5 6.8 10.3 2.0 1.3 2.5 2.4 4.4 18.5

Randolph's rookie numbers were already pretty good. His FG% never quite recovered from a wretched first two months of play, and like many raw big men, he passed poorly and fouled a lot. But he scored with decent frequency, rebounded excellently, and blocked a lot of shots and picked off a lot of passes. His freshman line depicts a guy whose strong board work and defensive activity made up for a number of mistakes, which sounds about right.

His sophomore campaign has seen a number of shifts, most good, one disappointing. He has scored a good bit more often. His FG% is down, but he's gotten to the line much more often and upped his efficiency from there; we'll look at his exact scoring efficiency later, but suffice it to say that this has been a worthwhile trade. His passing numbers have improved a good amount -- you'd be hard-pressed to call them "good", but they're within an acceptable range for a big man. (Randolph's 0.86 assist/turnover ratio actually ties him with Chris Bosh, one of the many stars to whom he's been compared.) His rates in steals, blocks and fouls have barely changed; he still rates as a chaotic and overall helpful force on D.

A Historic Game. (Well, Technically Two.)

It's been a while since we had some silly fun with Basketball Reference's Play Index...

In our last two games, Anthony Randolph has played a total of 39 minutes. His combined line:

21 points (9-16 FG), 17 rebounds, 6 assists, 6 blocks, 3 steals, 1 turnover, 5 fouls

That'd make a pretty salty one-night performance. How many guys have had nights like that?

In the twenty-four seasons for which BBR has sortable game data... one. Since 1986, only one player has recorded 21 or more points, 17 or more rebounds, 6 or more assists, 6 or more blocks, 3 or more steals and one or zero turnovers in a single game. It was Hakeem Olajuwon, in his famed quadruple-double game, against (naturally) us. That's the only time on record that a player did in one game what Randolph just did in halves of two.

Not bad, Anthony! If you keep this up, maybe you'll earn consistent playing time on the fucking third-worst team in basketball!

No West, Young Man

A brief note on the recent rumblings that the Warriors are interested in acquiring David West. Many fans have praised the idea of going after him, arguing that West is the exact kind of skilled power forward we need to get to the next level.

David West's '09-'10 stats, per 36:

17.6 points on 15.4 shots, 7.6 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 2.2 turnovers, 0.7 blocks, 0.7 steals, 2.7 fouls

Anthony Randolph's December '09 stats, per 36:

17.2 points on 13.7 shots, 9.4 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 2.1 turnovers, 2.8 blocks, 1.0 steals, 3.9 fouls

Trading for David West would be a mistake for a number of reasons, but the biggest one is this: he's not as good as our current power forward. Right now, Anthony Randolph is not only better than David West, he's better than David West at just about everything.

Sophomore Sunday: A Tale Of Two Anthonys

Douglas ably covered last night's dazzler, and we've got plenty of time to anticipate being re-Biedrinsed tomorrow night. Let's take a quick breather and check in with our second-year men, who have seemingly been heading in different directions of late. How are the Anthonys doing, and how can they improve from here? Fill us in, clumsily-pastiched screenshots:

On a per-minute basis, Morrow's second season has not been wildly different from his first; he's passing a bit worse, picking off a few more passes, actually scoring a bit more efficiently (he's still 24th in the league in TS%, despite his recent struggles). The main differences: he's shooting fewer twos, getting to the line even less often, and grabbing offensive rebounds only half as often.

The Dubs fan CW is that Morrow hasn't been getting enough open looks from beyond the arc. And there's something to that -- it'd be good if he, Nellie, Monta and Curry could figure out a way to get him a few more threes. But part of the story here is that Morrow's not doing anything *else*... he's shooting midrange jumpers, driving and drawing fouls even less often than last year. It's possible that he's just too targeted of a weapon this year, and that he'll get more open threes if he can convince his opponents that he might try to hurt them in some other way.

Randolph has gone in the opposite direction... his FG% is even weaker than it was last year, but thanks to increased aggression and improved accuracy at the line, he's more of a scoring asset than he was a season ago. That's not to say that he's a big scoring asset -- his TS%, though improved, is still a tad below league average. But the combo of improved efficiency and increased usage is a heartening thing, as is the jump in Randolph's passing numbers; he still creates a bunch of positive defensive plays, and his foul rate, though high, is still normal for a young big. The only bad news here is a dip in his rebounding totals. This may have to do with his increased passing duties on offense and his tighter man assignments on D. It may also be that last year's numbers were a bit fluky high. At any rate, ten rebounds per 36 is no tragedy.

The easiest way for Randolph to improve? Rediscovering his solid touch near the basket; he's gotten blocked and spooked a ton down there, and a pump fake or two would do wonders. But it's worth noting that Randolph *doesn't* need to fix anything to be effective. His current warty approach is enough to make him a very good player; any meaningful improvements will make this Anthony an All-Star.

SAS @ GSW 12/16/09: PreThoughts

No bullet points tonight, no statistical angles, no Spurs player to watch. Tonight, it does not matter if we win (we won't) or lose (we will). Even Nellie's return is peripheral at this point. This game is about one guy and one guy only, the guy whose path back to a well-deserved starting spot opened up the same day his agent publicly acknowledged his openness to a trade. This game is all about Anthony Randolph.

It shouldn't be like this. It's not fair to cast a kid under a microscope this intense, even if he and his agent are partly complicit in aiming it. It doesn't actually matter how he plays tonight; a good game will not negate the mistakes he still frequently makes, and a poor game will not erase the strong overall production he's been providing for the past ten months. Anthony Randolph is, though flawed, a genuinely good young player, no matter what happens tonight.

But once the opening whistle blows, none of us -- the organization, the media, the fans -- will fully remember that. In the benighted world of the Golden State Warriors, time will stop, and all eyes and expectations will fall on the shoulders of the sixth-youngest player in the league. Tonight, there is enormous pressure on Anthony Randolph to play well, against one of the beefiest and most intelligent teams in basketball, and the unfairness of that pressure doesn't make it any less real. Here's hoping the kid has a good night... for his sake, even more than for ours.

Mikki Getting Surgery, Out Indefinitely

Per Steinmetz.

Let's start with this: Mikki has been playing hard, and playing hurt, to help a miserably bad team. That he has been terrible is no criticism of his character. He seems like a very nice guy and a good teammate. Mikki is deserving of the description "warrior", and in the classical sense, not the tawdry Cohanian sense. Best of luck to him on his surgery... here's hoping he comes out of it more able to help us, or whatever team he plays for next.

In a cold-hearted basketball sense, there is no question that this will make us dramatically better. As I just finished typing, Mikki has been the least effective NBA player to receive significant minutes... crossing a guy like that off of your lineup sheet is an unequivocal positive in terms of winning games. Be not fooled by the media suggestions that his loss makes us even smaller; Mikki was playing very, very small.

Until Biedrins and/or Turiaf comes back, this guarantees larger roles for both Anthony Randolph and Chris Hunter -- not even Nellie can smallball his way around them at this point. Again, those are unequivocal positives. Randolph has been our most effective player thus far, and his return to the starting lineup is weeks overdue. Hunter may be an NBA-calibre player or a D-league scrub who's in over his head, but seeing as he's a dirt-cheap 25-year-old and the season is already lost, it's very much worth our while to find out which. Vlad may also wring a few more extra minutes out of this, and that wouldn't be a good thing. Still and all, the sum effect on the lineup is positive, and significantly so.

Between our return to Oracle, Nellie's re-taking the reins (in whatever nominal sense), various rising tensions and a merciless opponent, tonight's game had been feeling like one that would yield some news. It turns out the news has preceded the game. A good man has gone down; as a result, a bad team may get better.

Make The Top 20 And Maybe We'll Talk, Asshole

Per BP, the 25 best NBA players so far by individual winning percentage (min 30% of their teams' minutes):

1. Chris Paul, .817

2. LeBron James, .799

3. Tim Duncan, .788

4. Dwight Howard, .762

5. Josh Smith, .741

6. Greg Oden, .731

7. Chris Bosh, .723

8. Dwayne Wade, .719

9. Kobe Bryant, .710

10. Marcus Camby, .695

11. Rajon Rondo, .694

12. Steve Nash, .687

13. Dirk Nowitzki, .681

14. Kevin Durant, .664

15. Carmelo Anthony, .649

16. Manu Ginobili, .645

17. Carlos Boozer, .639

18. Nene, .638

19. Kevin Garnett, .636

20. Carl Landry, .631

21. Andrew Bynum, .624

22. Marc Gasol, .619

23. Chris Andersen, .619

24. Al Horford, .617

25. (tie) Mikki Moore's Backup/David Lee, .616

While we're here, the winning percentages of the rest of the Dubs we've seen lately:

Corey Maggette, .540 (shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention, as he's having a strong year)

C.J. Watson, .521 (underrated as always, though I'd expect his defensive numbers to go down a bit)

Monta Ellis, .471 (below-average offensive accuracy and leads the world in turnovers; this doesn't surprise me)

Anthony Morrow, .447 (this one does, as we do well when he plays; still, he's not shooting often and not doing much else)

Stephen Curry, .423 (their system doesn't love his defense, but who does; as with Morrow, it thinks he should shoot more)

Mikki Moore, .416 (higher than I would've expected, thanks largely to a very efficient week of play; still not great)

Chris Hunter, .410 (small sample size, of course, but it's not seeing much in him so far)

Vladimir Radmanovic, .355 (YIKES; includes his Charlotte stats, but he has been about this bad in both places)

This does not of course mean that we'd be assured of a playoff berth with a CJ/Monta/Morrow/Maggette/Randolph lineup; the fit of a lineup matters, and Win% is certainly not the last word on player value. But it's a pretty good metric. And its extreme prescriptions -- use a lot more Randolph, use a lot less Vlad -- are pretty hard to argue with. Unless, of course, if you work for this turkey of a franchise.

A Really Bad Argument For A Really Good Player

We have heard two defenses of Anthony Randolph's continued reserve status. One is that he can not compete against first-string NBA centers. The other is that playing time is earned, not granted; he can only (re-)acquire a starting job by playing well. With Randolph's performance last night, both arguments jumped the shark once and for all. Randolph outplayed Brook Lopez during their time on the floor together, and played the best all-around game of any Warrior or Net. Randolph has been playing with intelligence and focus for awhile now. In fact, by several metrics, PER and BP's Win % among them, Randolph has been our best player so far this year. There is no reasonable argument for leaving him on the bench; there are dozens of good arguments for starting him.

I'm not here to give a good argument for starting him. I'm here to give a silly, terrible, indefensible argument for starting him. Let's have some fun and misuse some numbers. Let's say that last night's game alone proves Randolph needs to start.

Last night, Anthony Randolph scored 11 points and grabbed 9 rebounds; he blocked three shots; he had four assists and didn't turn it over once. He did a lot of things well, which is an impressive feat for a young player. It'd be an impressive game for a 22-year-old, let alone a 20-year-old. How impressive? Let's use Basketball Reference's highly addictive Player Game Finder to find out: since 1986, how many 11+ point, 9+ rebound, 3+ block, 4+ assist, 0-turnover games have been recorded by guys who were 22 or younger at the time?