By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Your daily guided tour through the national and local media coverage of the always-entertaining Golden State Warriors.

WEB MEDIA

CBSSports.com (Ken Berger): The big winner of the day in the “Destined-To-Be-The-Most-Talked-About-Warriors-Story” sweepstakes. Now, a couple of points:

1) I don’t necessarily put a huge amount of stock into “a high-level coaching source” — the one that said Nelson could become a consultant, with Keith Smart taking over as head coach “by next week” — because there’s no indication of how connected this person is with what’s going on at 1011 Broadway. Kicking Nelson upstairs would mean kicking away roughly $10 million, and it’s hard to believe that Chris Cohan and Bobby Rowell are willing to eat that slice of humble pie. I will say that it’s been well known for a long time that Nelson wants to live out his days with such a consultancy in his pocket, to be the retired Don Corleone figure to some organization. It’s what he planned for in Dallas, before the fallout with Mark Cuban, and what he wants in Golden State.

2) I put a lot more stock into the anonymous source Berger quotes as saying “(Nelson) wants Monta out.” You can’t put guys on the block in this league without word getting around, and quickly. So I definitely can see heat to that fire.

3) “Rowell tries to be their friend, and they laugh at him.” No explanation necessary.

Read the rest of this entry…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Your daily guided tour through the national and local media coverage of the always-entertaining Golden State Warriors.

PRINT MEDIA

San Francisco Chronicle (Rusty Simmons): Not much different than his earlier blog post immediately after the Ellis-Nelson confrontation. Apparently, Ellis didn’t get his ankles taped at the hotel, and therefore missed the start of practice, drawing Nelson’s ire. Or some such thing.

Contra Costa Times (Marcus Thompson II): More from the RSC. The money quote for me is the last one, where Nelson tries to absolve himself of all blame: “If you want to be any good, you’ve got to have good chemistry. … The coach can help when the players are willing.”

New York Post (Peter Vecsey): Mostly, it’s a column about Byron Scott’s ouster in New Orleans, but it includes this hilarious quote from Al Harrington: “Had I stayed with the Warriors any longer I felt for sure (Nelson) would have ended my NBA career.” Yikes.

(A Byron Scott aside: Did you see Baron Davis’ Tweet about the coach he battled with repeatedly before finally getting traded to Golden State? “B. Scott got fired… Sad to see that happen! Good Coach!” Talk about your BS for B.S.)

Read the rest of this entry…

I didn’t want this to get lost in the Morning Report shuffle. On the heels of Adrian Wojnarowski’s complete evisceration of Chris Cohan on Yahoo! Sports earlier this week, Tim Kawakami provides the second must-read piece for every Warrior fan:

Robert Rowell’s 25 fire-able offenses as Warriors colossus

– Geoff

PRINT MEDIA

Contra Costa Times (Marcus Thompson II): Stephen Jackson breaks his silence. “I’ve got no choice but to go out there,” Jackson said. “I’m just going to do my job. I don’t want to be fake. I’m just going to go and play basketball and handle my business.”

We’ll see how that turns out.

San Francisco Chronicle (Ray Ratto): Chris Cohan will sell someday. But not just yet.

San Francisco Chronicle (Rusty Simmons): A brief summary.

WEB MEDIA

ESPN.com (Marc Stein): A distinct lack of good news on the trade front: “… no deal appears close in an economy where teams are overwhelmingly reluctant to take on players in their 30s possessing long-term contracts.”

Read the rest of this entry…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

When is Chris Cohan going to sell the Warriors?

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that question after I started covering the team, I might have earned enough cash to buy Cohan out by myself.

The idea of Golden State changing hands has been on the front burner again since reports surfaced in July that Cohan was seriously looking to jettison his 80 percent stake in the Warriors, and the flame was turned up Monday when Yahoo! Sports said there is a new group of bidders interested in the team. According to Adrian Wojnarowski, a “well-moneyed and politically connected” group wants to pay off Cohan and move the W’s to a privately funded arena in downtown San Francisco.

Unfortunately for those fans who feel — and I can’t say that I disagree with this viewpoint — that Cohan’s tenure is the root cause for why the franchise has been mired in an endless cavalcade of losing seasons, disgruntled stars, unemployed coaches and disaffected season-ticket holders, there is no Mikhail Prokhorov in the wings, set to swoop in on a tidal wave of rubles.

The people who are looking to buy from Cohan — a list which includes Oracle’s Larry Ellison — are willing to spend hundreds of millions, but rightly not willing to overpay for the privilege of owning a team that won 29 games last season and has a loose cannon with an untradeable contract willing to sink the ship if he’s not moved out.

Read the rest of this entry…