Nelly strikes again

The Golden State Warriors are a mess again. The trouble started when they did not re-sign Baron Davis last off-season and got worse when Nelly stopped coaching or caring sometime during last year. Not that he is a great coach to begin with, but if he doesn't have top talent and is not interested in putting in the work, you got no shot. I didn't have a big problem with them letting boom-dizzle walk. He is injury prone and can go south on you both mentally and physically anytime. So I kinda saw the W's point in not paying top dollars over too many years. But the problem was, he took them to the playoffs for the first time in 13 years and the Warriors probably needed him more than any other team. In any case, Baron is gone now and Nelly doesn't have a top point guard in his roster.

Nelly is a very different type of coach. He definitely makes the game fun by playing a high-scoring style. Thats his strength. He brings a fun, attractive brand of basketball to town. But he does not quite run a specific system. His offense is very different from Mike D'Antoni's run and gun for instance. Nelly lets them run and shoot the 3, but in the half court, he pretty much lets his guys play one-on-one. He does not run many plays or draw up creative stuff. He basically relies on great talent or he tries to exploit mismatches - both are different forms of one-on-one basketball. So without talent, he is useless. When Baron left, the W's lost their prime talent and the leader on the court. Nelly over the last decade has basically been relying on Nash and Baron Davis and Dirk Nowitzki. He doesn't have that kinda talent right now. Nelly also doesn't trust young players. And he is pretty erratic with substitutions. You can see all these issues with the current Warriors and the impact of all these issues on a young team is not a pretty.

So Nelly doesn't have the talent and is not interested in putting in the work. The Warriors season really went south when Stephen Jackson went Jacko on the W's. Captain Jack had to be demoted and eventually traded to Charlotte - seems like you can dump anybody on MJ the executive. But apparently thats not the last or the only Warriors issue. Now there are rumors that Monta Ellis is unhappy and he complained to Nelly that he keeps blaming him for all problems. There are rumors that Anthony Randolph is not that happy either since he doesn't play much. If the Warriors are forced to trade either Monta or Randolph, it would be an amazing case of history repeating itself. Nelly would have the distinction of destroying the same franchise twice within a span of 15 years. He traded Chris Webber, his best player back then and now he will be trading Monta or Randolph, his best player on the current roster.

Warrior fans are too scared to even think of this scenario. They are very upset at Nelly and want him out. There' an amazing consensus that the coach got to go and the fans think he should take the GM and the owner out with him as well. It is an horribly run franchise top to bottom and Nelly is of absolutely no help. But who is going to fire him given that he hired the GM and not the other way around. It's pretty sad for the Warrior fans who are one of the most loyal fans in the league. Even now, more fans show up at the Warrior games than even some playoff teams in the league. I heard that the commish D-Stern is concerned about the Warriors (mis)management. It's basically a mess all around in the Bay.

Speaking of the Bay Area, the Raiders are also in the news for all the wrong reasons. The league's worst QB has been benched finally. Stephen Gostkowski has replaced JaMarcus Russell as the Raider's starting QB. The Raiders will be slightly better now, but nobody will notice anyways. Who cares if you lose 23-7 or 23-13. There was a Thursday night game tonight between Carolina and Miami. NFL needs to stop this Thursday game nonsense. Not many people are watching this and is messing up the fantasy games too. Back to the NBA. The Suns lost an easy one today at New Orleans who were without Chris Paul. The Suns dropped the ball on this one. May be they were still hung over from the big Houston win. Pau Gasol is back for the Lakers and is in mid-season form already. He had a 24-13 night today and this Lakers team looks scary good!