The changing of the guard is playing out in real time, the fresh
displacing the outdated, with energy projecting through the TV
screen. Watching these NBA playoffs has been a treat, unless you’re
a team like the Warriors, who aspire to this level next season.
These playoffs have to be a grim sight for the Warriors and even
their most deluded fans. The signs in the Western Conference are
ominous, ubiquitous and highly visible.
The changing of the guard is playing out in real time, the fresh displacing the outdated, with energy projecting through the TV screen.
Watching these NBA playoffs has been a treat, unless you’re a team like the Warriors, who aspire to this level next season.
These playoffs have to be a grim sight for the Warriors and even their most deluded fans. The signs in the Western Conference are ominous, ubiquitous and highly visible.
They’ve seen superior clubs such as the Spurs, Trail Blazers and Nuggets brushed aside in the first round, overmatched and unable to threaten advancement.
They’ve seen the Lakers, who usually crush them, swept out in the second round.
They’ve seen a deep Grizzlies team bring not one but two skilled low-post options, posing two problems for which the Warriors and many others have no solution.
And they’re seeing a young and deep Thunder team in the conference finals, running like thoroughbreds and defending at the rim and following Kevin Durant, who at 22 is primed to spend the next decade as the league’s best scorer.
What the Warriors and their fans are seeing, really, is just how absurdly far they are from competing with the better teams in the league. They’re being clobbered with reminders of how much rebuilding and spending and teaching is needed to make a serious challenge for the next postseason, much less contend for a championship anytime soon.
That they finished the season 10 games out of the eighth and final spot in the West only hints at the improbability of achieving their stated goal of reaching the playoffs in 2012. And, yes, that’s the same goal as was stated for 2011.
It was a little more than one year ago that general manager Larry Riley conceded the Warriors needed to get bigger to improve their chances. He was right. And he backed up his words, trading for 6-foot-9 power forward David Lee, drafting 6-10 power forward Ekpe Udoh and signing 6-9 free-agent forward-center Lou Amundsen.
After all that maneuvering and renovating of the roster, here’s what Riley said, with a perfectly straight face, last month: “We need to get bigger.”
Larry’s succinct evaluation is on point. He has, for the second consecutive offseason, identified the most visible of the team’s multiple glaring weaknesses. Bravo.
What the Warriors really need, if ever they are to reach the third tier, are better big people — “bigs” with the capacity to impact the game on both ends of the court.
Neither of their starters, Lee and center Andris Biedrins, whose combined contracts are worth $134 million, would be assured of starting for any of the eight playoff teams in the conference.
Anyone who tries to make a case for Lee, clearly better than Biedrins, has not been watching these playoffs. Lee couldn’t unseat Tim Duncan, even with Duncan in decline. He couldn’t beat out Pau Gasol or Zach Randolph or LaMarcus Aldridge. The Thunder couldn’t play as they do without the interior presence of Serge Ibaka. As for Dirk Nowitzki, can we concede he might be the most versatile offensive 7-footer ever?
The only power forwards who might be in danger are Kenyon Martin, if Nuggets coach George Karl could stomach Lee’s porous defense, and the Hornets’ David West, who missed the playoffs while recovering from knee surgery.
There are teams built to compete in the playoffs, and there are teams like the Warriors. The action of the past month vividly illustrates the vast difference.
You see teams with at least one defensive difference-maker on the wing, whether it’s the Grizzlies’ Tony Allen and Shane Battier, the Blazers’ Gerald Wallace or the Thunder’s Thabo Sefolosha.
You don’t see that with the Warriors.
You see teams with three to five guys who can come off the bench and apply pressure at both ends. The Thunder’s bench, for example, comes in waves, from James Harden and Eric Maynor and Nick Collison and Daequan Cook. Nate Robinson, who started in New York and was in Boston’s eight-man rotation, is the 11th man in OKC.
You don’t see that depth with the Warriors, haven’t seen it since 1976.
And that brings us back to the playoffs, where seeing the Spurs and Lakers become vulnerable might provide a bit of optimism — only to find it nullified by the rise of the Thunder and the Grizzlies and the amazing consistency of the Mavericks, who own 11 straight 50-win seasons, under three different coaches.
Riley and assistant GM Bob Myers, speaking for new CEO Joe Lacob, say 2012 is a pass/fail season. They say anything short of the playoffs constitutes failure.
As they glance at their roster, then watch these playoffs, then re-examine their roster, can anyone else imagine them hoping to be rescued by a lockout?
— Column by Monte Poole, The Oakland Tribune
