By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

And so begins the great Stephen Jackson exodus from Warrior land.

How else to interpret the scene Friday night at the Forum during the first quarter of the Warriors’ 110-91 win over the Lakers, where Jackson allowed his physical battles with Kobe Bryant to turn into a five-foul, one-technical, banished-to-the-locker-room-by-the-coach, all-in-the-space-of-nine-minutes meltdown?

I’ve joked to a few people in the weeks since Jackson’s trade demand that no one’s going to be able to tell if he’s tanking it. After all, this is a guy who hoists up 3-pointers with 18 seconds left on the shot clock three or four times a game — and that’s when he’s playing at the TOP of his game.

But after last night . . . well, that’s certainly one way to make it clear you don’t want to be around.

The Warriors face a dilemma heading into tonight’s outdoor exhibition game against the Phoenix Suns: What to do in response to Jackson’s actions?

Simply ignoring the outburst runs the risk of giving Jackson carte blanche to run roughshod over the Warriors. It’s one thing to pout your way out of a meaningless exhibition game in a long-abandoned former NBA arena. It’s quite another to do that on Oct. 28 against Houston when the regular season begins.

Jilted fans who feel Jackson has stabbed them in the back with the very pen he used to ink his three-year, $28 million extension would love to see him suspended, but that would almost certainly turn this into an open war that makes the Al Harrington break-up look like an amicable divorce and rivals the insanity that was Stephon Marbury’s final season in New York.

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Light day in Warriorsland in advance of tomorrow night’s exhibition opener. I won’t be there, unfortunately, but I’ll be fascinated to see the descriptions of how the Curry/Ellis pairing performs together.

– Geoff

PRINT MEDIA
San Francisco Chronicle (Bruce Jenkins): Imagine if Minnesota had taken Stephen Curry instead of Ricky Rubio in this year’s draft. Now, I ripped David Kahn as much as anybody in the aftermath of the Timberwolves’ draft — but more for taking Jonny Flynn after taking Rubio. I saw Flynn on his summer tour of lottery teams, and I’ll admit that he has some dazzling charisma, but I’m fairly certain that doesn’t really make him the sixth-best option in this draft (especially with Curry still on the board). On the other hand, with Rubio staying in Spain, the T’wolves can see how Flynn develops and, assuming it goes well, be in a position of strength to deal either Flynn or Rubio after this season. Of course, if it goes poorly with Flynn at the controls, Kahn won’t ever live it down.
San Francisco Chronicle (Rusty Simmons): More Brandan Wright for you.

VIDEO
Warriors.com: Practice video from Friday and a brief interview with Kelenna Azubuike.