By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

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

BLOGOSPHERE

Talking Points/San Jose Mercury News (Tim Kawakami): Setting the stage for Thursday’s potential showdown between Jeff Fried, Monta Ellis’ agent, and Warriors brass.

(Perhaps the NBA can hold a special “non-expansion dispersal” draft next summer to help the Warriors out after they sell off everything of value.)

Inside The Warriors/Contra Costa Times (Marcus Thompson II): This was from Monday, before Tim’s post, but now serves to amplify the depths of Ellis’ frustration.

Plus: Wrapup from the Cavaliers game.

Fast Break/San Jose Mercury News (Adam Lauridsen): Taking Ellis to task for not being willing to fill the void left behind by Stephen Jackson’s departure.

I don’t share his optimism, but Adam likes what he saw from the Jackson-less Warriors against Cleveland on Tuesday.

Read the rest of this entry…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

[Ed. note: I realize this feature has not been as consistent or timely as I would like, so I’m going to try to slim it down from here on out so you can do your one-stop Warriors media shopping here every morning.]

PRINT MEDIA

Contra Costa Times (Marcus Thompson II): The lead lays it out in no uncertain terms: “Coach Don Nelson said before Wednesday’s game that the relationship between the Warriors and forward Stephen Jackson is irreconcilable and that his departure is imminent.”

For the sake of writing about something new, one can only hope.

San Francisco Chronicle (Rusty Simmons): I think “Do I look hurt?” needs to go down next to “I know it ain’t me” in the pantheon of great Stephen Jackson-as-a-Warrior quotes.

Conta Costa Times (Gary Peterson): Honestly, this is just plain mean to poor Warrior fans: A look ahead to all the ex-GSWs playing in the 2011 All-Star Game.

Indianapolis Star (Mike Wells): Mike got an inadvertent chuckle out of me when he discussed the fact that Jackson “thought he was going to be part of a playoff team every year after the eighth-seeded Warriors upset top seed Dallas in the first round of the playoffs in 2007. . . . It turns out that was the last time the Warriors made the playoffs.”

C’mon, now: Anyone who thinks playoff appearances for the Warriors will come more often than Halley’s Comet is just plain crazy.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

With tipoff hours away, I’m not going to do game-by-game predictions for how the 2009-10 Warriors will fare. Engaging in that kind of activity is almost as useless as waiting for the Bay Bridge to open.

Besides, I already went on the record last week on Comcast Bay Area’s “Chronicle Live” with my prediction for the Warriors: 34-48, picked not coincidentally because it matches Mike Montgomery’s record in both his seasons with Golden State.

(Isn’t it funny that Monty was brought in to teach the young kids, then Baron Davis was added to the mix, costing Monty his authority, and now that BD is gone, the Warriors, once again, are in need of someone to nurture youthful players? It’s the circle of GSW Life!)

I could see the Warriors pushing that to 36 or 37 wins, but I think the best they can do is to hold off the Clippers and Oklahoma City (sorry, Chuckles!) for the No. 9 spot in the Western Conference.

On the plus side: We’ll all get to celebrate Don Nelson amassing more coaching victories than Lenny Wilkens. Yay!

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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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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.”

Read the rest of this entry. . .