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

OAKLAND — Warriors coach Don Nelson knew what other teams thought when they came into Oracle Arena.

“Not being able to win and not being able to do what we want in the fourth quarter . . . good teams figure they can beat us,” Nelson said.

With Stephen Jackson back, that no longer can be considered a safe assumption for Warriors opponents. Just ask the Boston Celtics after Jackson dropped 15 of his game-high 28 points on them in the fourth quarter of Golden State’s 99-89 win on Friday.

As mentioned in the live thread, this was the perfect setup for an underdog to knock off the Celtics: Not only was it the second half of an all-road back-to-back for Boston, but the Warriors also had 72 hours between games.

What tipped the scales, however, was Jackson’s return from a four-game absence to allow his sprained left hand — an injury that coincided with a brutal 26.9 percent shooting stretch (21-for-78) — to finally heal.

More specifically, it was Jackson’s fourth-quarter presence that made the difference. After a first-quarter individual showdown with Paul Pierce that ended in pretty much a draw (Jackson had 11 points, Pierce 13), Jackson disappeared in the second and third periods, shooting a combined 1-for-5 and committing five turnovers.

But there were signs of a recovery in the third. Jackson didn’t cough the ball up once in the final 17:45 of the second half. His one make came with the shot clock in single digits and against some tight defense from Pierce [3, 3:19]. And his specialty, the touch pass, led to an open 3-pointer for Marco Belinelli [3, 0:55.7].

When Jackson launched an ill-conceived drive down the lane, was blocked by Leon Powe and unleashed a frustration foul on Brian Scalabrine in the scramble for the rebound [4, 9:15], it seemed like Friday’s top storyline would be how the captain was still not fit for duty.

A layup off a crisp entry pass from Anthony Morrow got Jackson rolling [4, 8:42], and he didn’t stop the rest of the way.

The Warriors trailed by five before that bucket; they led by nine a little less than 4 1/2 minutes later, with Jackson scoring 13 of Golden State’s 18 points and assisting on three more — a trey from Kelenna Azubuike [4, 7:46].

Jackson drained a pair of 3-pointers of his own in that stretch, one with Pierce’s hand in his face on the left wing [4, 7:03], the other after getting sprung from a nice back pick by Belinelli [4, 5:32]. He undoubtedly got lucky when he rolled in a 10-foot fadeaway over Kevin Garnett to give the Warriors their first lead since less than 3 minutes into the game [4, 6:03], but Jackson is a guy who, frankly, makes his own luck sometimes.

I’d be fascinated to see what Jackson’s shooting percentage is on attempts where the Warriors are within five points of the opposition (either ahead or behind) in the second half. Anecdotally, I think it would be far higher than the 38.5 percent he’s put up as a whole this season.

The Lineup Project
Catching up after the Christmas holiday, we have three games’ worth of data and some new year-to-date numbers:

12/22/08: Magic 113, Warriors 81

12/23/08: Heat 96, Warriors 88

12/26/08: Warriors 99, Celtics 89

Year-to-date through 31 games (per 48 minutes)

Let’s give credit where it’s due: Without the performance of the Small group against Boston on Friday, the Warriors don’t even come close to mounting that comeback. Golden State was helped by Doc Rivers’ insistence on sticking with his own small group, despite the obvious fact that they were dog-tired and thus unable to hang with the hosts’ unit, but that shouldn’t detract from the quality of Warriors’ smallball-driven comeback.

With the blowout in Orlando and two other subpar performances, the Medium lineup (two bigs, not including any Turiaf-Biedrins pairings, plus three wings) has come back to Earth and the Smalls have gotten somewhat closer to the team totals (Golden State is averaging 103.7 ppg while giving up 109.5 for a delta of minus-5.8).

Monta’s return a month off?
Don Nelson said Friday that he didn’t expect injured guard Monta Ellis to play — or possibly even practice — for at least a month. I’ve heard Jan. 15 knocked around by members of the organization as a potential return time, but that’s been a very fluid date from the get-go.

Whenever Ellis does come back, it will be interesting to see how the Warriors’ standing in the standings factors into the decision.

As of today, it looks like a nine-team race for eight playoff spots in the West, with the Warriors already 9 games behind two teams tied for seventh: Dallas (17-12) and Utah (18-13).

On the other hand, Golden State is already 5 1/2 games behind Oklahoma City in the race for the other extreme — the worst record and corresponding highest concentration of pingpong balls in the 2009 draft lottery.

Twenty years ago, back when fantasy sports involved buying USA Today every Tuesday and crunching your own stats on a Mac SE (with a 30-meg hard drive!), one of the originators of the field — Dan Okrent, who would go on to become the New York Times’ first ombudsman, among other accomplishments in journalism — described a place he dubbed “The Fenokee Triangle,” where you’re never quite good enough to compete for the top spot, yet never bad enough to want to tear things down entirely.

It feels like the Warriors are at risk of once again taking up residence in the NBA’s version of that spot, winning too many games to grab an impact player, but not enough to be anything more than first-round fodder for the Lakers, Spurs or Hornets.

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

My take hasn’t changed from what I wrote several weeks ago on the subject of Stephen Jackson’s extension with the Warriors, which after weeks in the works was finally signed Monday.

In terms of pure production, Jackson deserves to be the highest-paid player on this team (or perhaps second-highest, if Monta Ellis had kept himself healthy). It’s almost an insult that he’s slated to pull down the fifth-highest salary this season behind Ellis, Al Harrington, Andris Biedrins and Corey Maggette.

But by extending Jackson now, the Warriors are tossing aside their previously iron-clad rules of dealing with a player only when the team has used up all of its possible leverage. I’ll be fascinated to hear the explanation for this exception, if any is forthcoming on the matter.

One interesting note: Jackson told me a couple weeks back that he wasn’t asking for the max, but the reported numbers — three years for $28 million — don’t reflect any money left on the table. The most the Warriors are allowed to give Jackson under the Collective Bargaining Agreement is $27.8 million — $8.45 million in 2010-11, $9.26 million in 2011-12 and $10.06 million in 2012-13.

Outside of the reasoning for why the Warriors would break with their own philosophy, here’s the biggest question: How will the signing impact the Warriors in the summer of 2010, when a whole raft of top-notch free agents is scheduled to flood the market?

There is no real hope that a player with the stature of LeBron James will be willing to come to Oakland when the lights of New York are beckoning to him. But having maneuverability in that timeframe — when teams will potentially be looking to offload players in order to make a run at UFAs such as Paul Pierce, Jason Richardson, Josh Howard, Dirk Nowitzki, Tayshaun Prince, Yao Ming, Kobe Bryant, Michael Redd, Amare Stoudemire, Tony Parker, Chris Bosh or Caron Butler — would afford a franchise the opportunity to recast its core, if that was deemed necessary.

With Jackson in the fold, the Warriors are set to spend $51.5 million in 2010-11 for an eight-man core of Jackson, Ellis, Biedrins, Maggette, Kelenna Azubuike, Ronny Turiaf, Brandan Wright and Anthony Randolph.

Based on the trend line of the last few years, my guesstimate of the 2010-11 cap number would be roughly $64 million. (That’s assuming the league’s revenue total continues to ramp up, which is probably on the optimistic side of things, given the economy’s disastrous free fall).

That sounds like a fair amount of room, but it’s really not. To start with, it doesn’t include several other possible expenditures, such as C.J. Watson (RFA in ’09), Anthony Morrow (RFA ’10), Marco Belinelli (potential team option for ’10-’11), Biedrins’ incentives, and a No. 1 pick from the ’09 draft (unless it goes to the Nets as payment for Marcus Williams).

Even if the Warriors cut all those extraneous guys loose and just went with their eight-man core, they still would need to spend probably $5 million filling out the remainder of the roster, leaving themselves $7.5 million, tops, under the cap.

Without Jackson, that figure would be $16 million or so.

Plenty of things can change between Nov. 17, 2008 and July 1, 2010. The Warriors could remake themselves in the meantime through a trade similar to the eight-player blockbuster that first brought Jackson to the Bay Area.

But if they keep this core together for another 19 months, signing Jackson now will probably preclude the Warriors from making a big splash later.

NOTES: Jackson got poked in the left eye during the Clippers game on Saturday, but reported no damage. It’s the second time he’s been hit there this season; he also took a shot in the open practice three weeks ago.

“This eye’s been having a bad season so far,” Jackson said. “But as long as I can see out of it, I’m happy about it.”

So, you’re not going to go for a James Worthy goggle look?

“No goggles, no,” Jackson said, shaking his head to punctuate his point. “No-no-no-no. Never that, never that. No. I’m not going to be like Rip Hamilton, where my nose was broken eight years ago and I still wear a mask. I’m not going to do that. The only way I’ll wear a patch is if my eye’s closed and the doctors say (it’s necessary). I’m not going to no nothing. I’d rather stay with Captain Jack than Pirate Jack.”

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

OAKLAND — Warriors swingman Stephen Jackson has always seen himself as a do-it-all performer in the NBA, yet even for him, this season’s list of responsibilities is getting a little out of hand.

Lead defender. Twenty-points-per-game scorer. Point forward. Point guard, possibly. Captain responsible for providing veteran leadership to one of the youngest teams in the NBA.

Is any single player capable of filling all those roles?

“I have to be,” a resolute Jackson said last week. “I’m not going to say I’m not, I’m not going to say I am, but I’m going to go out and give my best effort.”

No one doubts that. But after watching Jackson sputter to a halt in the final weeks of last season — when he set career-high averages in scoring (20.1 ppg) and assists (4.1) but also logged the most minutes played (39.1) in his eight-year NBA career — it’s fair to wonder how on Earth he can be asked to do more without burning out in similar fashion.

“He thinks he can handle it,” said Warriors forward Al Harrington, who did an old-man shuffle to illustrate his next point. “The thing about Jack is, as much as he walks like he can’t do it, and all that type of stuff, he finds a way.”

This year, that way may involve taking a different path. After previously serving as the big-shot sidekick to Baron Davis and Monta Ellis and the pick-and-roll partner of Andris Biedrins, Jackson will be the focal point at either end of the floor for the Warriors this season.

Whether he plays a true point guard for the first time since high school or simply initiates the offense from the 2 or 3 spots, Jackson knows it’s incumbent on him to do more in the way of shot creation — even if it means allowing his own scoring to wilt during what could be a contract drive if talks about an extension break down.

“I don’t think I’m going to average 20 points this year,” Jackson said. “I think I’m going to have to take away some of my points to be more defensive and make more plays for other guys, because BD was a big part of guys getting open shots. So I’m going to have to be more of a playmaker now and just try to sacrifice myself for the other guys a little bit.”

With Davis gone, Jackson will shoulder the burden of guarding the opposition’s best scorer on an almost nightly basis, especially while Ellis recovers from surgery on his left ankle. Jackson was often tasked last season with taking the best 2, 3 or 4 — he once guarded the Knicks’ Zach Randolph and Stephon Marbury in the same game, then drew the Celtics’ Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce the next night — but Davis could fill that role for several minutes, freeing Jackson to either expend his energies elsewhere, or just catch a breather.

Finding another player to fill that role could be critical to keeping Jackson fresh and avoiding another April such as this past one, where his output tumbled to only 14.2 ppg on 33.9 percent shooting from the floor.

“A guy like Corey (Maggette), I think can ease his pain defensively,” Harrington said. “I just think as the season goes on, we need guys maturing in their roles so we can take more off him, so that he can get back to being a defensive guy and one of our top scorers.”

Said Maggette: “I think (Jackson) is going to be alright. You look on this team, he’s the only player with a championship. So he knows how to play. He knows how to win. He knows how to handle the ball. Plus, he’s a captain. So you put it on his shoulders and you see what he can do.”