48minutes.net

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

In 18 months as an NBA player, Marco Belinelli’s stock has gone through more roles than a TV character actor: Summer League star, Jason Richardson replacement, defensive sieve, bench ornament, unhappy camper, trade bait.

So is Belinelli’s latest turn — reborn playmaker — just another phase, destined to vanish like the next full moon?

It’s still too early to tell for certain, but in the 13 games since Don Nelson refocused the Warriors’ attack, Belinelli has already weathered one dip and ridden it out. I figured that after back-to-back poor performances in Florida — combined 7-for-24 shooting with four turnovers against five assists in Orlando and Miami — Belinelli’s run was at an end, and that he would go back to being a pumpkin, metaphorically speaking.

Instead, he had one of his two best games of the season in the Warriors’ 117-111 win over Toronto on Monday: 23 points, 6-12 FG, 5-8 3FG, 6-6 FT, 6 AST, 2 TO.

After that game, Warriors coach Don Nelson said Belinelli was succeeding in the team’s revamped, Euro-style offense — 47.5 FG, 40.0 3FG, 16.0 PPG, 3.3 APG — because “he’s a much better shooter on the move than he is stationary.”

I disagree. Belinelli has tamed the wild leg kick that used to punctuate his shooting motion, but he still often twists his lower body to the left when he fires while moving, both off the dribble and situations where he catches and shoots on a cut.

In the Toronto game, for example, Belinelli was 1-for-6 off dribble-drives, 1-for-2 while catching on the move, and 4-for-4 (three of those from deep) on standing shots. All three of those treys came on plays that began with Stephen Jackson driving and drawing multiple defenders, then kicking out, either directly to Belinelli or through an intermediary.

The bigger surprise on offense has been Belinelli’s emergence as a passer. He’s never going to be a straight point guard in the NBA, not unless he significantly upgrades his open-court ballhandling, but as a half-court initiator, he’s just a half-step behind Jackson and Jamal Crawford in terms of finding open shooters.

The style of Belinelli’s passing makes it seem as though he’s cavalierly throwing the ball around. Just as many Italians would find speech without the punctuation provided by their hand gestures to be unacceptably bland, Belinelli seems to use a two-handed chest pass only as a means of last resort. Witness Belinelli’s behind-the-back dish in the lane to Brandan Wright on the left baseline [1, 6:45] (there was no assist because Wright allowed Chris Bosh to erase the shot), or his one-handed whip pass to Andris Biedrins for a layup [3, 6:07]. That dish was zipped into a tiny opening created when Andrea Bargnani briefly lost eye contact with the ball and couldn’t quite recover in time.

At the defensive end, Belinelli is much improved from last year, when he looked timid on many occasions and, even more often, just befuddled. Belinelli is best utilized against a bigger player, rather than chasing a quicker man, although he did a credible job shadowing Rajon Rondo for some time in the Warriors’ win against Boston.

The one thing he’s doing spectacularly well at the defensive end is eliciting offensive fouls from players who don’t have the energy or willingness to deal with his peskiness.

Against Boston, he drew six offensive fouls:

1, 3:45: Tony Allen tries to come up from the right block while Leon Powe shuttles down from the elbow to switch places. Belinelli, who had been playing Allen on the high side, gets his right arm around Allen to prevent him from going wide, then falls over backwards as Allen extends his arms to get free, directly in front of referee Greg Willard. FOUL OR FLOP? Flop. Belinelli was moving backwards, not set, while impeding Allen’s movement.

3, 8:37: Ray Allen initiates from the top of the key with a pass to Kevin Garnett in the high right post, then loops left around a Powe pick. Belinelli does not slow in the slightest and caroms wildly off Powe to the ground, doing a 180 spin in midair. As before, this whole minidrama plays out practically in the lap of an official — this time, Leon Wood — who adjudicates in favor of Belinelli. FOUL OR FLOP? It may not be an outright flop, but it ain’t much of a foul, either. Belinelli made little attempt to avoid a pretty well-established screen. This probably should have been a no-call, but those (idiotically) no longer exist in this league.

3, 7:39: Ray Allen comes top-key right and faces the basket as Rondo initiates, with Belinelli standing chest-to-chest. As Allen tries to make a cut to his right without the ball, he uses his left arm to hook Belinelli in an attempt to create separation. FOUL OR FLOP? Foul, and an especially galling mistake given that Allen had a Kevin Garnett screen looming in the near future to rub out Belinelli.

4, 9:29: Tony Allen tries to ball-handle around a Paul Pierce screen at the left elbow. Pierce leans hard to his right to deliver the shoulder block to Belinelli, who once again ricochets hard in the opposite direction after contact. FOUL OR FLOP? Foul, because Pierce is leaning at about a 30-degree angle to deliver the shot. If he’d stayed vertical, it probably would have been a clean screen.

4, 5:29: A pure frustration foul on the part of Ray Allen, who is clearly bothered by Belinelli’s body contact while attempting to establish position on the left wing and flails with both arms to incur the whistle. FOUL OR FLOP? Foul.

4, 4:39: Kevin Garnett clocks Belinelli with another frustration reaction, although this one at least merits a whistle. FOUL OR FLOP? Foul. (Three minutes later, apparently unsatisfied, Garnett bodychecks Belinelli, a move that did not get called but pretty clearly should have been.)

Against the Lakers, Belinelli goaded Luke Walton into pushing off to create space. Against the Raptors, he just flat-out flopped for calls against Bargnani (attempting to post up Belinelli on a switch) and Bosh (trying to screen for Jason Kapono).

There have been plenty of comparisons drawn between Belinelli and Manu Ginobili, but aside from prominent noses, Italian heritage and one common move — driving down and across the lane from the right elbow with two giant steps to set up a floater from the left block — I don’t see it.

Ginobili is much more of a driver (his career FTA-per-minute rate is nearly three times that of Belinelli) and a far superior rebounder to Belinelli, who, in turn, is a more natural 3-point shooter (it took Ginobili five years to crack the 39-percent barrier on treys in the NBA; Belinelli shot 39.0 last season and is at 39.5 this year).

I would argue Belinelli is more in the mold of a Bruce Bowen or Derek Fisher, at least defensively: Someone who can get very handsy, willing to try to drive an opponent crazy, and then taking advantage by embellishing on the ensuing contact to draw offensive fouls.

I’m still not convinced that, once Monta Ellis gets healthy, Belinelli’s playing time won’t shrink. But he’s got the better part of another month, most likely, to prove me wrong.

The Lineup Project
It’s a triumphant return for smallball, which has finally passed up the “traditional” lineup in terms of YTD effectiveness. (The Small group is now minus-7.1 per 48 minutes; the Medium group is minus-8.1.)

Programming note
I’m going to a New Year’s Eve celebration, so there won’t be a live take on the Thunder game. I’ll check it out on tape and get back to you.

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Warriors center Ronny Turiaf has an easy fix for Golden State’s problems when it comes to securing defensive rebounds:

“Plain and simple, go get the ball,” Turiaf said. “That’s it.”

Except that hasn’t been it, of course. Not by a long shot.

Including last night’s horrific 20-offensive rebound performance for the Indiana Pacers in their 127-210 victory, Golden State has chalked up a defensive rebound rate (DRR) of just 67.0 percent through its first 26 games.

The DRR — a team’s defensive boards divided by the sum of a team’s defensive boards and the opponents’ offensive rebounds — is a rough ratio of how many defensive rebounds a team gets (it doesn’t include team boards, so it’s not as exact as you would want).

At 67.0, Golden State ranks last in the NBA by a wide, wide margin. There’s a chart to illustrate that point below, but here’s some specifics as well: The Kings are 29th in the league at 70.5 percent and the league average is 73.1. The top-ranked Spurs are at 77.8.

Consider: Even if the Warriors closed half the gap between their DRR and the league average . . . they’d still be the league’s worst, at 70.05. So the data begs the question:

How bad are the Warriors, historically speaking?

Well, how about this: They’re the second-worst defensive rebounding team this century.

OK, I realize the 21st century is only in its ninth year, but still, the last time a team posted a DRR lower than 67.0 was in 1999-2000, when the Dallas Mavericks — put together and coached by familiar, white-haired adherent of small ball by the name of Don Nelson — pulled down 66.1 percent of their opportunities.

In an attempt to solve that team’s failings — both on the floor and at the ticket office — Nelson and new Mavericks owner Mark Cuban brought in a 38-year-old Dennis Rodman. Though the Worm helped somewhat — Dallas’ DRR in 12 games with him was about 3.5 points better than in the 70 without — it wasn’t enough to make it worth dealing with his particular brand of crazy.

I’m sure that Rodman would be game to pull down more NBA coin, but let’s assume for the moment that a washed-up, 47-year-old ex-husband to Carmen Electra isn’t the answer for Nelson & Co. this time around.

What can the Warriors do to solve this problem, which keeps biting them at critical junctures (such as the possession Wednesday where Jeff Foster simply bulled over Jamal Crawford, collected his own miss and allowed Stephen Graham to give the Pacers a second-chance layup for a five-point lead)?

“Well, it’s a very complicated thing,” Nelson said last week. “It’s not just one thing. There’s lots of different coverages, there’s lots of different assignments. It takes a while before it’s a natural thing for young players.”

It’s interesting to look at the Warriors’ individual DRR numbers this season compared to last season, when Golden State still ranked last but had a 70.3 mark that was at least within hailing distance of the rest of the league.

In 2007-08:

In 2008-09:

A few things that stand out: Harrington’s dramatic slide (-5.2) reiterates just how little he cared to toil in a Warriors uniform this season.

That was just one piece of the across-the-board decrease for returning players, such as Wright (-2.7), Azubuike (-2.3) and Jackson (-1.1).

Turiaf attributes some of the team’s problem to a habit of standing around and watching Biedrins (third in the league at 12.0 rpg): “Because Goose gets so many of them, sometimes we’re like, ‘OK, Goose, just go get it.’ We become somewhat complacent; ‘You average 13 a game, so we’ll just box out for you.’”

Yet even Biedrins is down 1.3 percent.

It’s been fun to watch the Phoenix Suns play this season and witness, even as they’re disintegrating because of Steve Nash’s disenchantment with new coach Terry Porter, Matt Barnes having a career year. Much like Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi,” where you “don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone,” Barnes’ tenacity on the glass has become so much more noticeable now that it’s not here, replaced by the pale imitation that has been Corey Maggette’s work as a “power” forward.

Watson deserves praise for his concentrated effort on rebounding, which has been rewarded with greater numbers, and so to a lesser extent does Belinelli. And, not to beat on a dead horse, while Randolph may have his problems in making the transition from teen-ager to NBA pro, going up and securing loose balls is not one of them.

But Crawford is as bad as he was advertised to be. And Turiaf, the Warriors’ alleged answer to such bangers as Utah’s Paul Millsap (20.4 career DRR) and Dallas’ Brandon Bass (17.4), is at a career-low number, continuing a slide that has not stopped since his rookie year: from 19.0 to 18.3 to 15.4 to 13.6.

There are a number of factors that lead back to different causes. That Golden State’s guards are doing a remarkably poor job at keeping opposing ball-handlers from turning the corner seemingly at will means that Turiaf and Biedrins are constantly pulled out of prime rebounding position to provide last-line-of-defense help around the rim. Nor is it helping that wings are supposed to be heading downcourt, seeking out early offense in Nelson’s system, rather than dealing with the heavy lifting of defensive rebounding.

Turiaf claims it’s all mental, and doesn’t blame even the Warriors’ near obsession with a small-ball setup that the coach keeps saying didn’t work because the opponent’s small squad was just flat-out better.

“It has nothing to do with not being strong enough, being small, blah-blah-blah,” Turiaf said. “It has nothing to do with that. . . . Regardless of what happens, just go get the ball. I’d rather have a turnover — I don’t think coach is going to agree with me on that one — but I’d rather have a turnover with two guys going to get the ball than not getting it. That’s pretty much it.

“Just go get it.”

Hendrix goes, Williams stays
The Warriors couldn’t bring themselves to pay Marcus Williams almost $1 million not to show up for the rest of this season, so they cut rookie forward Richard Hendrix instead to make room for Monta Ellis’ move off the suspended list. The decision saved the team costs the team roughly $600,000 less than losing Williams and makes sense from one perspective: There is no way Don Nelson was going to use either of those two players the rest of the way, so the team simply chose the option that represents less wasted money.

The Lineup Project
I don’t want to give anyone a stroke, so I’ll just point out that the 7:15 in the Medium line encompassed Brandan Wright’s entire evening.

Without Monta. . .
So it’s 7-19, then. I thought I was being pretty good at tamping any optimism when I wrote that the Warriors would be 9-17 by the time Ellis’ suspension ended. Guess I was wrong.

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Like Goldilocks, the Warriors tried three different types of lineups Sunday. Only one was just right — but it wasn’t the one that ended up on the floor in the final minutes of Golden State’s 89-81 loss to the 76ers.

The small ball attack that Don Nelson has been favoring lately — starring Corey Maggette at power forward — fell behind by eight points in as many minutes. The group one step up, with either Ronny Turiaf or Anthony Randolph on the floor as a legitimate power forward, couldn’t keep the Warriors from falling 17 points back.

But when Nelson put together a frontcourt consisting of Turiaf at 5, Brandan Wright at 4 and Randolph at 3, with 1:49 remaining in the third quarter, he had finally found a group that was capable of putting together defensive stops in bunches. That trio — along with Stephen Jackson and (mostly) Anthony Morrow — took over what had been a 72-58 deficit and turned it into an 80-78 game with 4:26 left.

Even Maggette admitted it after the game: “I think we should have gone bigger earlier.”

The largest group made a difference through its defense; the 76ers, who were on pace to score 102 points before Golden State went tall, shot 3-for-18 during that stretch.

Turiaf’s ability to jump the pick-and-rolls that had been plaguing the Warriors earlier in the game was a huge benefit, as was the shot-blocking of Turiaf (who had two of his five in this stretch) and Wright (who had two but was only credited with one). And Randolph’s long arms turned Andre Iguodala’s jumpers into adventures.

“It’s good because we all have long arms, and we all like to box out and play defense,” Turiaf said. “I think the other guys know that. We’re trying to protect the paint.”

That the protection didn’t extend to the final stretch was due in part to the youngsters’ mistakes at the other end of the floor. Randolph and Wright combined for three turnovers in their last six possessions together. That included a wildly optimistic one-handed, 50-foot skip pass from Randolph that skittered out of bounds, and a travel on Wright with 4:26 remaining when he was caught by 76ers point guard Andre Miller and forced into a travel while trying to push the ball upcourt.

Nelson brought Kelenna Azubuike back in at that point, replacing Randolph. The 76ers went 3-for-5 the rest of the way for a 9-3 run that cemented the outcome.

In all, here are the numbers:

Lineup                                                                          Time on Floor                      Score
Small (Maggette at 4)                                                      13:50                                    26-21, PHI
Medium (Turiaf/Randolph/Wright at 4)                               21:15                                    50-36, PHI
Big (Randolph at 3, Wright at 4, Turiaf/Biedrins at 5)          12:55                                    24-13, GSW

** Jackson still looks like he’s pushing the envelope too hard at times as he tries to shoulder the burden of being the Warriors’ only playmaker; he had back-to-back possessions early in the third quarter where he unsuccessfully tried to jam home ill-advised passes.

First, he tried to thread a lead pass roughly 40 feet through two defenders to Azubuike in the frontcourt, leading to a steal for Thaddeus Young. On the next trip down, Jackson tried to fire the ball from the right elbow to Azubuike under the hoop, only to see Andre Miller get a hand on it and eventually take it away.

Helping to lessen that playmaking load needs to be No. 1 on Jamal Crawford’s to-do list come Tuesday.

** Little mistakes keep hurting the Warriors. Three examples:

1) The 76ers managed to force a turnover in the first quarter by applying a small bit of pressure as C.J. Watson was trying to inbound the ball from the sidelines. Jackson, the intended recipient, wound up touching the ball while Watson was still holding it out of bounds.

2) Watson simply stopped paying attention on defense while his cover, Willie Green, walked in and took a pass from Miller for an open layup.

3) With the Warriors down 80-78 in the fourth, a fresh-off-the-bench Azubuike stood and watched rather than putting a body on 76ers center Samuel Dalembert, who rammed home a putback jam to kick off a 9-3 run to finish the game.

** The Warriors’ 13 blocks were their most since Nov. 29, 2006, when Golden State swatted 15 shots by the Pacers. (Baron Davis, Troy Murphy and Mickael Pietrus all had three to lead the way in that game.)

Nelson doesn’t normally like high numbers of blocked shots, because it often represents either an earlier breakdown along the perimeter that requires a shot-blocker’s help or leads to big men being pulled out of position, rebounding-wise.

But when your alternative is letting Young or Green or Louis Williams roll all the way to the rim, uncontested, 13 blocks has to be better.

** Not to knock 76ers diehards, but I can’t remember ever hearing as much court chatter caught on a broadcast as there was on the one out of Philadelphia on Sunday. The boxscore claimed 13,556 were in attendance; if that’s so, they were some of the quietest 13,556 folks in all of Pennsylvania.

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

OAKLAND — If 3-pointers represent the fast food of NBA offenses, then last season’s Warriors were, collectively speaking, a cholesterol-choked, fat-filled heart attack waiting to happen.

Golden State’s gunners jacked up 2,185 attempts from beyond the 3-point arc in 2007-08, establishing a new all-time NBA single-season record in the process. The total would have probably been even higher if they hadn’t made a draft-day deal that sent Jason Richardson to Charlotte — where he launched 599 treys for the Bobcats, tops in the league.

This season, the Warriors’ attack looks like it’s on a double-strength regimen of Lipitor. And it’s Dr. Don Nelson who’s writing that prescription.

“Hopefully, (the 3-pointer) won’t be as big a weapon,” Nelson said. “I thought we fell in love too much with the 3 last year occasionally. The guys that can shoot it, when they’re open, they have a green light when they have a rhythm shot, but we’re not going to set up plays for it.”

Golden State – which has led the NBA for two years running in 3-point attempts — ranked eighth among NBA teams in terms of 3-point shots taken during this year’s preseason, more than 50 percent behind the league-leading Knicks of Mike D’Antoni.

Where the ‘07-08 team counted six legitimate 3-point threats among its eight regular rotation players, this year’s edition has only five in the top nine. And that math is misleadingly close, because this year’s crop of shooters includes Al Harrington (who detested his niche as a 3-point-shooting big man last season), Corey Maggette (who said Monday that he would rather drive than hoist from distance), and C.J. Watson (who’s taken all of 26 treys in his NBA career).

That leaves just Stephen Jackson and Kelenna Azubuike to uphold the traditions of the NBA’s most prolific long-range squad, which lost Baron Davis (525 3-point attempts last season), Matt Barnes (181) and Mickael Pietrus (182) this summer.

“I’m not really thinking about it like, ‘We lost a bunch of (guys who shot) 3s, so I’ve got to get some more 3s up,’” Azubuike said. “I feel like we can score in different ways. I feel like I can score in different ways. I don’t have to shoot 3s all the time. . . . Make the right play, take the right shot. Don’t force a 3 because you feel we need to get some up.”

Having taken a big jump to a career high 38.4 percent shooting on 3-pointers last season with the Clippers, Maggette would seem to be a good choice to take up some of the slack, but the man who took the sixth-most free-throw attempts in the league last season has other things in mind.

“I’ll shoot 3s if I’m open . . . but that’s just not my game,” Maggette said. “I can do it, but I prefer getting into the paint and hitting some mid-range jump shots. That’s just my game.

“I think Jack and Al have the opportunity where if they can come down and they have an open shot, they’re going to shoot it.”

So what does this all mean for Nellieball as we know it?

“I think the style is going to be different from what you’re accustomed to in the last couple of years,” Maggette said. “It’s going to be pretty much the same as far as the way Nellie wants to play, but it won’t be as fast. It’s going to be a slower pace. I think we will get faster when we get Monta (Ellis) back, but right now it probably won’t be as fast as what you guys expect it to be.”

NOTES: Maggette (strained right hamstring) practiced Monday, his first full-speed workout since the Warriors’ final exhibition game on Oct. 21, but is not yet certain of being able to play in the Warriors’ regular-season opener on Wednesday. He was able to run without feeling any pulling from the hamstring, but the next hurdle is whether he’ll be able to explode to the rim. Maggette expects to test that Tuesday in practice. “I take today as an improvement, being able to run up and down the floor,” Maggette said. “I’m not going to rush it. Hamstrings are about patience. I’m not a patient person, but in these situations, I have to be.” . . . Tickets are still available for Opening Night against the New Orleans Hornets. Visit www.warriors.com or call 1-888-GSW-HOOP.

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net

ANALYSIS

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

OAKLAND — It’s no secret that Stephen Jackson, the Warrior with the greatest responsibilities on the court but only the fifth-largest paycheck, is seeking an extension to his current deal. Acting as his own agent, Jackson has been in negotiations directly with team president Robert Rowell on a pact that could keep him in Oakland until age 35. Since Jackson is already under contract for two more seasons, at a total of $14.8 million, the most he can hope to get tacked on is three seasons worth $27.8 million.

Talks have been steadily progressing, and though this is just as an educated guess, I’d say it’s a better than 50-50 proposition that something gets done before the Warriors’ season opens Wednesday.

Does Jackson deserve to be paid an average of $9 million per year?

Absolutely. This is a guy who can score 20 points a game, can defend the opponent’s best player, almost regardless of position, and rarely misses time due to injury.

Does it fit into the team’s philosophy, as it’s been practiced over the last three years?

Absolutely not.

With Monta Ellis out, there is no question that Jackson is the Warriors’ most important player, and if they do make a return to the playoffs, it will undoubtedly be in large part because of Jackson dragging them there with a combination of scoring, playmaking and defending similar to what Baron Davis gave them down the stretch in 2006-07.

But if the Warriors choose to give Jackson an extension in the next week, then there will be some serious explaining for Rowell to do — because such a move would represent the antithesis of every salary-related choice the Warriors have made since Oct. 31, 2005.

That was the day the Warriors handed a five-year, $45 million extension to Mike Dunleavy, a forward with three middling seasons under his belt, to cap a spending and trading spree of more than $300 million in which Golden State netted long-term rights to the services of Dunleavy, Davis, Derek Fisher, Troy Murphy, Adonal Foyle and Jason Richardson.

However, after that well-compensated group led the franchise to another 38-44 season in 2005-06, Rowell ushered in a new era of fiscal responsibility. Underperforming players with oversized contracts — Fisher, Foyle, Murphy and Dunleavy — were traded or bought out. Richardson was dumped for draft pick Brandan Wright in part to help free up cash.

The idea was not just to stay under the luxury-tax threshold, but also to maintain maximum flexibility while doing it. No longer was the team willing to be locked into a bundle of long-term contracts that left it with no room to maneuver.

Free agents felt the squeeze as the team followed Rowell’s course: Mickael Pietrus and Matt Barnes were made to eat one-year deals before leaving for greener pastures. Andris Biedrins, who was signed to a six-year, $54 million deal this summer, had to wait a year to get his security after the Warriors tried to get him in 2007 for roughly $45 million over five years, according to sources at the time.

Most famously, Rowell was reportedly unwilling to commit a fully guaranteed $39 million to Davis for the three seasons after this one, prompting Davis to opt out of the final year of his deal and jump to the Clippers for a five-year, $65 million contract.

Basically, everyone had to earn their pay up until the moment they signed their deal. If Jackson gets three additional years while still having two on his current deal, that streak will be dead.

I asked Jackson earlier this week, why should you be the exception to the rule?

“Because I think I’ve proved myself since I’ve been here,” Jackson said. “For a perfect example: This team didn’t have a winning record until we got here. We didn’t make the playoffs in what, 12, 13 years? They didn’t have 48 wins in 13 years. So I think since I’ve been here, I helped turn this organization around. And I’m not saying I did it by myself, but I had a big part in it.

“I just think that I’m one of those guys that, if a guy deserves something, I think he should get it.”

Since arriving in Golden State, Jackson has rehabilitated his image, and in doing so, has become the Warriors’ ace in the hole, not just on the court, but from a public-relations perspective as well. Rowell is closer to Jackson than any other player in the locker room, and Jackson has more love for the Warriors — who provided support for Jackson’s recently opened charitable foundation — than he has had for any of his other NBA employers.

Maybe all those reasons, combined with Jackson’s play on the court, are important enough to convince the Warriors to set aside their guiding principle.

We’ll find out soon enough.

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net