Don Nelson has brought me some of the best basketball moments I've seen. The 'We Believe' Warriors, with Baron Davis dunking so hard on AK-47 that he was crying in practice to Jerry Sloan next season. The old highlights and NBATV classics with Mullin, Richmond and Hardaway or Nash, Finley and Nowitzki that would confuse and cause mismatches all over. Best of all, his innovative plays and tactics that have changed the game and paved the way for some of the new-age coaches like D'Antoni and Stan Van Gundy.
Yet even with all of this, I still never really felt that the guy was a great coach recently. All of the turmoil with players, all of those losses and the constant stories of him just not giving a shit anymore. The guy is actually approaching 70 years old right now and is in the same age group of the coaches like Jerry Sloan and Phil Jackson, who are fighting the clock in the wrong direction. And I've always felt he's stunting the growth of Anthony Randolph.
That's why when I saw Tim Kawakimi's post on Talking Points I agreed with it completely. It fed the fire and I kept thinking that Don Nelson wasn't fit to coach anyone anymore, let alone this mix-match group the Warriors are now.
Later in that day I saw this post on Golden State of Mind (GSOM), a rebuttal of sorts to the post on Talking Points. I read through it and I couldn't help but be slightly persuaded by a lot of the points.
The main point that was debated was that Don Nelson is past his time, especially for this team. Kawakimi argued that the teams of the past suited Nelson better, and that this roster does not fit the needs of the franchise right now. GSOM says that Don Nelson made this roster, for his system and no other coach would be able to get as many wins out of it.
I tend to agree with the idea that this team could only really be played by Nelson (or maybe D'Antoni). The team has a littany of guards and forwards who really only have three attributes - speed, shooting and passing. It would be nice for the team to have more stability and a more balanced roster, but that just wouldn't work for Nelson. The best thing Cohan can do is let Nelson finish out his contract and give him a chance with a fully equipped and healthy roster - if that time ever comes.
Thanks for making this possible, Mr. Nelson
In all honesty, after watching the games, not many teams run or compete much harder than the Warriors, despite not even having twenty wins. Of course they look like they are lost on defense constantly, but I would chalk that more up to Nelson's system rather than the individual effort of the players. They all run the floor hard and you can see them sweat buckets all game long. So I don't really buy the idea that Nelson has lost the ear of the team. Chalk the hustle up to the fun system, or the fact that it seems half the team didn't even have an NBA job last year, but either way this team is working hard.
Nelson has shown in the past he can win with this system. He has always had a skilled, diverse forward (Nowitzki, Mullin, Jackson) and a set of quick, skill-based guards who are experts at causing mismatches and headaches for opposing coaches (Nash and Finley, Richmond and Hardaway, Baron and Ellis.) What's stopping this system coming up again with this line-up, highlighted by Curry, Ellis and Randolph? Curry and Ellis have the scoring and passing skills to attack off the pick and roll ruthlessly, and Randolph has the skills to excel in this system if he continues to improve his shooting and basketball knowledge.
Recently, I have noticed more and more Ellis and Curry utilizing the pick and roll to rack up some gaudy assist totals, such as 13 for Ellis against the Hornets on the 17th, 11 for Ellis against the Lakers on the 15th and ten for Curry against Toronto on the 13th. This comes as the team is turning the ball over less and less, while causing lots of turnovers for the opposing team. Remember that game against the Lakers recently? The Lakers had a ridiculous 24 turnovers, over ten past their season average of 13.5, while the Warriors only had 5 turnovers. They did lose the game... but that's not the point here. All of the best Don Nelson teams have attacked one major facet of the game - you guessed it - turnovers.
The 2002-03 Nash-Nowitzki-Finley team that won 60 games? Opponents averaged 16 turnovers, as these Mavs averaged under 12.
Those 'We Believe' Warriors? Opponents tripped up almost 17 times per game against them, while they managed to keep their turnovers to just over 13. Nelson was able to keep this differential while using three of the most turnover prone players I can think of currently (Ellis, Baron, SJack) in the league.
So, with the right players and some luck and a bit of health, I feel like this roster could help correct the direction the Warriors are heading. If you look at the list of the wins from the Mavs and Warriors teams that Don Nelson coached, you can notice one thing. The win totals are erratic and jump year to year, and he is definitely prone to having a big improvement with what seems like a small change. I think Nelson has earned the chance to once again show that he is one of the most innovative basketball minds that we have seen in a long time and I would love to see him work his magic all over again, even if it has the chance of blowing up in a few young players faces.
Before reading all of this I thought that Don Nelson was just messing around to his whims, picking players who could only shoot and pass and not giving a damn about any other skills.
But now, a small part of me starts to think that this current 19-win team is only a few players (i.e. an improved Randolph, a healthy Biedrins) away from giving this team a substantial jump in the Western Conference standings. Just a few tweaks from causing those same mismatches that won Don Nelson Coach of the Year those 5 times. Just a small part of me.
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