By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

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

PRINT MEDIA

Contra Costa Times (Marcus Thompson II): So, I’m OK with a coach still getting credit for a win when he gets tossed midway through a contest. But if Don Nelson were to retire with 1,333 wins – just one more than Lenny Wilkens – you think people wouldn’t remember this game as “The One Nellie Won From Nearly 2,000 Miles Away, Watching On TV”?

Also: Vladimir Radmanovic makes more of a contribution than anyone has a right to expect.

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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.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

My first paying gig as a sportswriter, as an intern at the late, lamented Peninsula Times Tribune, found me covering the 1992-93 Warriors. I haven’t saved a lot of the press materials I’ve used over the years, but I kept the media guide from that season as a remembrance.

I pulled out that media guide this morning because of the cover, which features a stylized illustration from local artist and graphic designer Larry Hausen (who would later provide the Warriors with their current logo). In Hausen’s composition, you can see some of the tools of a journalists’ trade — the corner of an old Mac keyboard, an NBA press release, a Styrofoam cup of Diet Coke and a few of the blank notebooks the Warriors were giving out that year, featuring images of Chris Mullin, Tim Hardaway and Billy Owens on the cover.

There is a point to this whole shaggy-dog story, so just hold on. . . . Right in the center of the frame, one of the notebooks is flipped open, and you can read the reporter’s notes, presumably from Don Nelson’s latest postgame press conference. Here’s how it reads:

NELLIE: WHAT CAN I SAY ABOUT OUR EFFORT TONIGHT? OUR GUYS NEVER QUIT!

Our guys never quit. Heh.

If you watched either of the Warriors’ last two games — back-to-back thrashings at the hands of the Clippers (at home on Friday) and the Kings (in Arco on Sunday) — then you know why that fictitious quote stuck out in my mind.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

OAKLAND — In 568 career NBA games, Warriors guard Jamal Crawford has only gotten to five fouls on 16 occasions. He has not fouled out once.

Keith Smart, Golden State’s defensive coordinator, doesn’t see those facts in a positive light.

“If you don’t get in foul trouble, there’s a reason,” Smart said. “You’re probably not close enough to get a foul. So we’ve got to get him thinking about those things.”

Crawford is thinking about it. He’s an avid film watcher, and Smart has used those sessions to point out Crawford’s flaws on D since his arrival in November.

“I definitely could get better,” Crawford said when asked if he was playing up to his potential defensively. “I think my whole overall game could get better, though. I think that I could be a better player. And that’s the way I work, what I’m striving towards.”

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

The departure of assistant coach Sidney Moncrief — who took leave of the Warriors on Thursday so he could join the Beijing Ducks as a consultant — should prompt a second look at Golden State’s stats from the free-throw line, since Moncrief was in charge of raising them to seldom-reached heights this season.

Golden State is converting 76.0 percent of its foul shots through 37 games (823 of 1,083), a mark that, if it holds up, would be a 4.3 percent jump from last season and the team’s second-best free-throw figure in the last 11 years (the Warriors of 2002-03 knocked down 77.8 percent).

But a closer examination of the numbers shows the increase is due more to roster moves than anything else; adding Jamal Crawford (99-for-111, 89.2% this season, career 83.9%) and Corey Maggette (130-for-155, 83.9%, career 82.0%) while subtracting Baron Davis (318-for-424, 75.0% last season) and Mickael Pietrus (66-for-98, 67.3%) will provide a spike in any team’s success rate.

That’s not to say Moncrief did a poor job. Comparing the six players who have spent the last two seasons with the team, four of them have increased their FT% from 2007-08, although some of the sample sizes from last season are so small as to make the comparisons silly.

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