By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

OAKLAND — Warriors coach Don Nelson used his maximum allotment of 12 practices over the first six days of training camp. But even that back-breaking workload still hasn’t been enough to get one of the NBA’s youngest rosters up to speed.

“We’re going slow. I’m dragging my feet. I want to put more in, but I think my young players are swamped right now,” Nelson said after Thursday’s morning practice. “We did put another (offensive) set in today, but we’ll probably go into the season without everything in. Ninety percent of our camp has been defense, and I think they all know their jobs defensively. It’s just that they don’t all do it all the time.”

Unfortunately for the Warriors, time is running out to change the situation. Teams can only have six days’ worth of double-days, so Golden State will go to just one practice a day from here on out. And they’ll be on a week-long road trip to China later on this month to stage a pair of preseason games against Milwaukee.

“I love China,” Nelson said. “But you don’t want to go to China during preseason, if you can help it. You want to stay here and tend to business. It just takes a chunk of the training camp away. . . .

“Now, a year ago, when I had a veteran team, and after five days of training camp, I had everything in, it would have been enjoyable. But this young team, they need to be right here in two-a-days as long as they can.”

Captain Stephen Jackson thinks “it’ll be a great experience” to visit China, but would rather stop about 40 percent of the way there for the rest of training camp.

“I think everybody would love be in Hawaii right now, like we were last year,” Jackson said. “The more practice the better, because we’ve got a lot of guys that are trying to get used to the game, get used to the defensive schemes. If you look at practice yesterday, if the referees were calling three seconds in the lane, we would have been at the free-throw line a million times.”

Taking a peek
It’s been hard to come by independent analysis of the Warriors so far, since the team’s evening scrimmage sessions have been closed to the media. But reporters were welcomed to Thursday’s run, and here’s some quick hits on guys who stood out, be it for good or bad:

Marco Belinelli – Strangely passive, even when playing on a team with two rookies (Anthony Randolph, Dion Dowell) and two journeymen (Dan Dickau, Justin Williams). A lot of lurking at the 3-point line without much to show for it.

Andris Biedrins – Flashed a nice pass out of a double team while posting up on the low block. No sign of the “Riga Rainmaker” jump shot, unfortunately.

Dan Dickau – Looked like a guy working on his third practice while everyone else was on their 12th.

Al Harrington – In a word, dominant. Active hands on defense (he stripped Dickau clean at the top of the key on a pick-roll switch), good defense on Randolph, drained shots from all over the place.

Stephen Jackson – Didn’t do much in his short stint at point guard to suggest he’s the permanent answer as to who should fill in for Monta Ellis. Looked fine otherwise.

Corey Maggette – Especially impressive in the lane. Had a nice acrobatic sequence where he leapt to catch a wild pass in the lane, landed and went up immediately, twisted back into position to shoot, hit the 6-foot leaner off the glass and picked up the foul as well.

DeMarcus Nelson – Tough night. Airballs from the 3-point line are bad enough. Whiffing on a 10-foot floater? Yikes.

Anthony Randolph – They talk about his confidence, and he certainly believes in his own shot. Looked fantastic against players of lesser physical skills, but wasn’t able to get much going against the likes of Harrington and Jackson, which could be a bit of a concern.

Notes
Kelenna Azubuike and Ronny Turiaf were given the day off as veterans, but other players did not participate in the evening scrimmage due to injury. Richard Hendrix (strained left thigh) was working out on the stationary bike, along with Brandan Wright (sprained right big toe). C.J. Watson was held out of action as well. . . . Random compliment of the day, courtesy of Jackson: “C.J.’s playing like he’s been in the league five years.”