By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

For more than a half century, the Serenity Prayer has been a cornerstone of the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

The Warriors accepted the things they cannot change about themselves Friday night, and in doing so become something greater than they previously had been.

By forcing Chris Paul to shoot, shoot and shoot some more, the Warriors were able to control the Hornets’ All-Star point guard in a 111-103 victory.

At first blush, the fact that Paul went off for 43 points and nine assists doesn’t look like a victory. But seven of Paul’s nine dimes went to David West, who finished with 31 points. That’s a nice number, but what the Hornets need from Paul is to get the rest of the roster involved with some spoon-fed buckets, especially since Peja Stojakovic is battling through a bad back and James Posey and Tyson Chandler are on the bench with injuries.

Instead, Hornets not named Paul or West shot 10-for-38 on Friday.

Read the rest of this entry…

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.

Read the rest of this entry…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

It’s looking more and more like the Warriors are going to, once again, end up disintegrating into a cloud of debris.

If, as ESPN’s Chris Broussard says, coach Don Nelson told rookie forward Anthony Randolph to have his agent explore potential trades, then things have come unglued to a point that would probably be unprecedented in franchise history . . . if only this franchise wasn’t the Warriors.

Is Broussard’s report accurate? I don’t know. Can I see Nelson saying something like that to Randolph? Absolutely. Without question. When Nellie gets down on a player — consistently down, not just for a two-week stretch of juggling the rotation or somesuch — it’s pretty much impossible to dig yourself out of that hole.

I had an interesting conversation recently with a Nelson confidant about the Warriors’ pick in this year’s draft. This person said that Nelson’s much-hyped interest in Jason Thompson — so well-hyped that it seemed it could only be a smokescreen — was very, very real. In fact, Nelson had to be talked down from Thompson and into Randolph by Chris Mullin and others in the days leading up to the draft.

In retrospect, I can see why Nelson was so much more interested in Thompson, who was taken by the Kings with the No. 12 selection. Thompson doesn’t have the 3-point range that Al Harrington offered, but he has a decent enough mid-range jumper and was ready to go after four years at Rider — meaning that having Thompson on board would have made it that much easier to trade Harrington before the season began.

It also helps to explain why Nelson — again, assuming Broussard’s reporting is correct — can so cavalierly toss aside the No. 14 pick in Randolph.

That being said, it’s one thing for the coach to decide he has no use for a player. But when that coach makes it so patently obvious to all other clubs, how you possibly get decent value? Nelson’s unbridled disdain for Marcus Williams has made it such that the Warriors can’t even sell him off for 50 cents on the dollar.

Given that fact, why shop Randolph now? Why not give him some playing time and showcase him this month before trying to dump him? Why not wait until the summer, let him put up some big numbers in Vegas and build back some stock? It just makes no sense.

I’ve said it…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

OAKLAND — Warrior fans were treated to a tantalizing glimpse of the future Friday — at least until a couple of deficiencies dredged up from the past blotted out the landscape.

The sight of second-year player Brandan Wright and rookie Anthony Randolph holding down the power forward slot in the absence of veteran Al Harrington (sore back) was a welcome one to fans who want to see the team build around those two potential stars.

But a 55-41 rebounding deficit and 13 missed free throws — hallmarks of Warriors losses from throughout the 2000s — cost Golden State in a 109-104 loss to Memphis.

“That’s a game we could have won,” guard Kelenna Azubuike said. “We’ve just got to take care of the little things down the stretch. We’ve got to knock down free throws, play defense. You can’t win like that. It’s that simple.”

Fourteen offensive rebounds and 11 second-chance points in the first half served as a lifeline for the Grizzlies, who shot 37.5 percent from the floor but still were down just 50-48.

That half nevertheless featured the first significant playing time for Randolph, who made his NBA debut Monday in Memphis with a meaningless 87 seconds. He came on with 4:24 left in the first quarter in place of Wright. He missed his first shot, a 19-foot jumper, and was called on the next possession for a foul trying to push Hakim Warrick off the block.

“I was over excited,” Randolph said. “I’m not even sure how to describe it. It was more than excited. . . . I was probably having a little panic attack.”

Randolph calmed down enough to collect eight points and seven rebounds in 17 minutes. After struggling with his outside shot for much of the exhibition season, it was gratifying for Randolph to gather all four of his buckets between 17 and 21 feet from the basket.

“I thought he looked pretty good tonight,” Warriors coach Don Nelson said. “He had some nice moments, and he definitely has a presence to his game. . . . He got some consistent minutes and made his presence felt a little bit.”

Wright, making the first of what’s expected to be many starts as the Warriors hand him the keys at power forward, finished with only six points, two rebounds and one chipped tooth in 21 minutes.

Nevertheless, the framework was laid in place for a Wright/Randolph partnership.

“I think once me…