By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Before Cleveland shipped Larry Hughes out of town last season as part of an 11-player, three-team trade, one disgruntled Cavaliers fan was so moved by Hughes’ continuing legacy of inaccuracy that he started a Web site with the following address: heylarryhughespleasestoptakingsomanybadshots.com.

Friday, the Warriors wanted Hughes to stop shooting, but for a very different reason: The ex-Warrior hit five of his seven 3-point attempts en route to a team-high 26 points in the Chicago Bulls’ 115-110 victory.

Though their first 10 games, the Warriors were doing pretty well at defending the 3-pointer. This week, that’s all changed. Thanks to a combined 22-for-45 performance on treys by the Trail Blazers on Tuesday and the Bulls on Friday, Golden State has gone from a top-five spot in the league (31.1 percent) to 15th-best (34.9).

To see Portland, the league’s best 3-point shooting team, have success at the arc is understandable.

But to be battered outside by the Bulls, who are strictly middle-of-the-road when it comes to that discipline (35.0 percent, 16th in the league), demands some further investigation. Especially when you consider that Hughes, Thabo Sefolosha and Lindsey Hunter, who hit for nine treys against the Warriors, came into the game having shot a combined 2-for-19 in that zone.

The details:

10:07 remaining, first quarter, Sefolosha, left wing: This one wasn’t quite cricket, as the Brits would say; Chicago took advantage of the fact that Corey Maggette fell down while scoring on the Warriors’ previous possession and Sefolosha took his time before draining the shot.

6:31, first, Sefolosha, right corner: The possession started to break down for the Warriors (as so often was the case Friday) when point guard wunderkind Derrick Rose blew past his man (in this case, C.J. Watson). When Andris Biedrins slid over to provide help, Rose fed the ball to Biedrins’ man, Drew Gooden. Gooden steamed down the lane, and when Maggette left Sefolosha to stop penetration, Gooden found him for the open look.

2:33, first, Hughes, left wing: Anthony Morrow, Hughes’ defender, stumbled trying to avoid crashing into Maggette while the play was developing. Sefolosha swung the ball to Hughes, who immediately pulled the trigger.

11:18, second, Hughes, top key right: Maggette, who is covering Hughes at this point, gets sucked into the lane when Hunter misses a long 2. Andres Nocioni grabs the offensive rebound and kicks the ball out to Hughes.

5:48, second, Hughes, top key left: Stephen Jackson stands at the free-throw line and watches while Hunter…

[EDIT at 3:30 p.m.: I looked up and then forgot to list the team offensive efficiency stats from John Hollinger. The Warriors are 21st so far this season, averaging 85.0 points per 100 possessions. A year ago, they were third, at 96.6. Just another sign they need another facilitator to move the ball in the short term.]

It’s been a week now since Al Harrington put on his impassioned Elvis impersonation, and the Warriors seem no closer to moving their forward to happier climes.

In fact, I’m beginning to get convinced that Harrington and the Warriors might be stuck with each at least until Monta Ellis returns from his ankle surgery.

That fact was put into stark relief Monday when Joe Dumars struck almost without warning, collecting Allen Iverson from the Denver Nuggets in exchange for three players, most notably point guard Chauncey Billups.

Pulling the trigger on that deal was almost comically easy for Dumars, since it represents a victory in both the short and long views — the immediate effect is an upgrade from Billups to Iverson and a desired shakeup in the team’s culture, while the two-year plan is the opening of a slot for rising guard Rodney Stuckey.

For the Warriors, however, there do not appear to be any such no-brainer trades lurking out there by which Harrington can be set free.

That’s because Golden State’s short- and long-term goals cannot be easily resolved by any one player.

In the short term, it’s indisputable that the Warriors need help at the point guard position. DeMarcus Nelson, while a find as an undrafted rookie, is a raw, unfinished combo guard who’s not yet ready to be the primary playmaker on an NBA team. C.J. Watson is a score-first guy with flashes of occasional passing creativity, but not enough consistent ability to get past his man on the dribble. Stephen Jackson is too turnover-prone to be a full-time initiator. Marcus Williams has, for better or worse, been banished to irrelevancy.

But the whole point of signing Ellis to a six-year, $66 million deal was to make him the Warriors point guard of the future. (Admittedly, the timetable had to be moved up on that transformation once Baron Davis opted out, but Don Nelson has said consistently and pretty much from the moment he got here that Ellis would need to be a point guard to attain greatness in the NBA.)

So while someone such as Kirk Hinrich…