Golden State Warriors: Playoffs By 2012?

When the Golden State Warriors changed hands last week, I sent a Facebook message to a buddy of mine who’s the biggest Warriors fan I know. The Warriors were never in the running to get LeBron this summer, but for this beleaguered team, getting a new owner was nearly as good.

His words? “Playoffs by 2012 isn’t out of the question.”

They’ll for sure be better in the long run, by virtue of having a better owner. But this is a team that won 26 games last year, when it required 50 to make the playoffs in the Western Conference. A team that’s made the playoffs only one time since Ace of Base was topping the charts (that’d be 1994).

And yet, I agree. I don’t have a problem penciling them in for ‘12 (pronounced oh-twelve). The thing about these new owners, Peter Guber and Joe Lacob, is that they’re basketball guys. It’s been made clear that their purchasing the team is “not an investment… it’s a dream.” With that kind of mindset running the front office, it’s possible that the Warriors can turn the ship around. But there are several things they’ll need to figure out, and they all revolve around key people.

1. Don Nelson

It’s hard to not like Nellie. He’s the winningest coach of all time (he started coaching in 1976—before almost all current players were born), and he puts together team performances that are worth watching. It was that way in Dallas, when they won 60 games, and it’s been like that in the Bay too.

That all said, Nelson is first on the list—both figuratively, and literally here—of things that need to change for the Warriors. Nellie Ball is designed to score plenty of points, win a lot of games, and then fizzle in the playoffs. That strategy put together a lot of wins over the years, but with this Warriors incarnation unable to win even in the regular season the plan needs revising.

Change has to start at the top. As boring as it sounds, the Warriors need some taming. And Don Nelson isn’t going to do it.

2. Stephen Curry

Curry stays—don’t get confused. He’s clearly the cog that this team needs to be built around. But the reason he’s on this list is that he needs his foil. This team isn’t going anywhere until he’s got someone to play off of. He needs a Karl Malone.

The modern NBA is not a point guard’s league. Teams whose best player is a point guard are in trouble: Consider the New Orleans Hornets led by Chris Paul, the Utah Jazz and Deron Williams, and especially Steve Nash’s Phoenix Suns. Good teams, all three, but also teams that haven’t been able to get over the hump (the Phoenix Suns made the Western Conference Finals this year, but they didn’t rise and fall with Nash—instead with his go-to guy, Amare Stoudemire).

Steph Curry is the cog that will make this Warriors team go for years to come—but if they really want to compete they need him to play in the shadow of another star. Somebody who can score without needing the ball in his hands. Somebody Curry can set up, like good point guards do; somebody whose NBA life he can make much, much easier.

The Warriors need that guy. And let me be clear about who isn’t him.

3. Monta Ellis

Sigh. Get ready to either emphatically agree or furiously disagree. There’s no gray area on Monta. But the stark reality is that he’s a brick weighing the Warriors down to the bottom of the NBA ocean.

He’s the team’s leading scorer, and if they move Ellis the points will be hard to replace. But you can’t overlook Ellis’s tendency to stop the ball, and his teammates’ tendency to stand and watch when he does. Curry fans may point you to Stephen’s February triple-double, which came when both Ellis and Corey Maggette were off the floor. Without Ellis, the ball is in Curry’s hands. And the sooner that’s a permanent setup, the better.

Not with me yet? This is the guy who came in an appalling 10th on his team in Win Shares this season. His 1.3 Win Shares mean he was responsible for just 1.3 of the Warriors’ total wins. Want me to go one better? In +/- he was only able to muster 15th-best out of 20 total players that suited up for the Warriors last year. With Ellis on the court, team team went -7.2, with him off, they were +3.8: meaning they were about 11 points per game better without him. Despite leading the team in scoring, his Simple Rating was still a basement-dwelling -3.2.

That should be plenty of statistics. Feel free to argue as you feel necessary. I like Ellis as an off-the-bench scoring threat, in a Jamal Crawford-type role, but not as a team’s primary scoring threat. If the new owners are serious about making this team better, it’s going to mean shedding Monta Ellis.

4. Big Man X

The Warriors are thin everywhere. The most obvious lack, though, is defense, and they’re not going to move up much in the uber-competitive Western Conference until they play some. A menacing presence in the paint would be a big, big step toward not allowing 150 points per game (okay, really just 112.4. But that’s still worst in the league).

David Lee could conceivably be the second scorer to complement Curry, but he doesn’t have a defensive bone in his body. It’s not him.

Andris Biedrins could be the defensive post presence the Warriors need, but his 2009-2010 campaign goes down as one of the most horrifying seasons I’ve ever witnessed. A groin injury and subsequent abdominal surgery kept him to only 33 games. His 7.8 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game weren’t terrible (though down from 11.2 and 1.5 the year before), but his going 4-25 from the free throw line, a horrific 16%, is historically bad. The psychological effect made him frigid on offense as he was afraid to go to the line and waste a possession by missing two free throws (reminder: nobody guards you when you shoot those). He should be healthy this season, but we’ll see where his brain is.

New draft pick Ekpe Udoh could add some much-needed defense at the power forward position (3.7 blocks per game last year at Baylor!), but we won’t know for a while—a wrist injury is keeping him out for the first half of the season. He’s raw, but the Warriors took him at #6 based on being the best talent available.

5. The Rest of the West

The Warriors with a new coach, a scorer that’s not Monta Ellis, and a defensive presence in the paint sounds like a solid upgrade. But probably the biggest obstacle to Golden State making the playoffs in two years is simply the strength of all the other teams in the Western Conference.

Making the playoffs means squeezing another team out, and which of these teams is going to drop out of the top 8 by 2012: the LA Lakers, Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns (reinvented with Hedo Turkoglu and Josh Childress), Denver Nuggets, Utah Jazz (minus Carlos Boozer, but plus Al Jefferson), Portland Trail Blazers, Oklahoma City Thunder (getting better every year)? The Clippers are better, the Rockets have Yao Ming back, and the Hornets still have Chris Paul. The only team that shows imminent decline is the San Antonio Spurs, and yet they always find a way to compete (Tiago Splitter, anyone).

2012 might be a bit optimistic. It’s going to be a hard road for the Warriors to jump back into playoff contention. And yet they’ve already made the most important personnel move—the Warriors’ toned-down version of signing LeBron, Wade, and Bosh—by bringing in dedicated, motivated owners. The team has already shipped out six players this offseason, and if they’re going to elevate themselves to playoff contention, they’re not done yet.

But I’ve gotta give a shoutout to my Warrior-fan buddy. I can’t say they don’t have a shot for 2012.