48 Comments
Jan 8·edited Jan 8

Nm

Expand full comment

I would have loved to see Iguodala on Luka full time in this series, all of Doncic slow touring around the perimeter and leisurely drives to the basket would be a feast for a defender like Iguodala who plays man defense in a similar style lulling the ball handler into a false sense of security before striking, hopefully he’s healthy enough that we get to see at least some of that one last time

Expand full comment

Really fun and funny conversation! I was at the game where Joe Lacob was booed and was truly astonished that people were booing him. I was ecstatic about the trade since it freed Stephen Curry giving him the keys to the car, moved Klay Thompson into the starting lineup and got us Andrew Bogut. (I was one of those who saw the huge gap between Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis in plus minus and on court off court, despite the big empty calorie scoring numbers for Ellis.) In the worst take department, I was furious when they fired Mark Jackson and briefly considered giving up my season tickets which I had just gotten when they made the playoffs against Denver. Obviously a very wrong take in retrospect.

Expand full comment
Mar 10, 2020Liked by Eric Apricot, Duby Dub Dubs, Daniel Hardee

With all these “Worst takes” it got me thinking, in light of our year long sabbatical, maybe we could offer a fan confessional. It has been weighing in me for years but my confession would be that even though I grew up sitting in the concrete rafter seats at the Oakland -Alameda County Coliseum with Nellie fish ties, Sarunas tye-dyed Lithuania jerseys and Warriors assistant coach Popovich, there was a time I strayed during college.

I was living in the city and commuting to Warriors games in San Jose. It was hard to watch.

Then came the opportunity to move to a cheaper school in a farm town to the north east. They had a basketball team worse than the one in Oakland, but they had just traded for a malcontent from Washington whose own dad had to convince him to report to the team, drafted a tattooed West Virginian redneck, and were about to receive a young kid from Serbia to pair with an older Serbian center.

This team once assembled would eventually prove to be the greatest show on court. I was smitten. I had always loved basketball, but being a Warriors fan it rarely loved me back. Now I got to watch a team with incredible passing and joy. It was too much. I cheated on the Warriors. It didn’t help that a family member gave me free season tickets in the 5th row. I saw Jordan up close, a young Kobe take over, I saw TMac halfass his way through games (that was incredible for a professional athlete of his caliber), plus I saw Lebron’s first NBA game. I watched good basketball for quite a few years.

But then I came home. The Warriors had traded for a point guard from New Orleans and they eventually became We Believe. I fell back in love.

Only to be heartbroken again soon after. I have never admitted my fling I had in my college years to my beloved Warriors, but the opportunity was too good to pass up.

When the Warriors drafted Steph I new we were different, when we got a legitimate center in Bogut I could see changes happening. I had faith, even though deep inside I knew I was unfaithful.

Even though my love for the team drifted for a few years, my love for the game never faltered. It only grew stronger. When I eventually saw Kerr’s system in place I saw true basketball in it’s purest sense again, only this time with better shooting and defense.

I have been true since then, but I had to get it off my chest.

Expand full comment

What's amazing about the Monta/Bogut trade is the Warriors offered Steph for Bogut, but the Bucks medical staff didn't think his ankles would hold up and asked for Monta instead. What would the team have looked like with a Monta/Klay/Draymond/Bogut lineup? And Steph with Giannis in Milwaukee...oh boy.

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2020Liked by Eric Apricot, Daniel Hardee

Another good one in this series.

Personally, I probably haven't been paying attention to Warriors basketball long enough to have any bad takes on this level, but arguably that alone is worth sharing.

I was raised a football fan, with occasional peeks into other sports. Baseball is kind of boring, hockey is hard to follow. I played and refereed some soccer, but it never fully grabbed me. Basketball was cool once in a while; the Jordan Bulls were just unbelievable to watch; later on, Jason Kidd's ability to get baskets despite his size was amazing; and throughout it all our local Warriors team was a running joke. The extent of my paying attention to Warriors basketball was occasionally checking scores to see just how badly they had lost (without fail, pretty badly).

Then, suddenly, they were in the championship. Whaaaat? I mean, I guess Cleveland was injured and the playoffs had been close, but, wow, that's cool. Close games are exciting. But whatever, I had other things to care about.

The the new season started out with the Warriors winning a bunch of games in a row. And they kept winning. And winning. The games were on everywhere I went. And when I looked up, I saw something completely different. This wasn't the bland, gritty, free-throw-laden slog of the Shaq/Kobe-era NBA that I had been expecting to see. The ball positively sang around the court, whipping left and right like a chaotic dance that always seemed to end in a beautiful arc through the net. I couldn't take my eyes off it. I started watching seeking out more highlights, watching whole games when I had the chance, seeking out blogs to help me make sense of the wonderful madness that was Warriors basketball.

I found GSOM, and Explain One Play, and suddenly I was able to appreciate so much more of what was happening on the court. The triple loops, the elevator doors, and the brilliance of what the team was doing was all the more beautiful for understanding more of it. Since partway through that fateful 73-win season, I've missed barely a handful of games, and GSOM / LGW have been one of my top-visited sites since.

Thanks.

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2020Liked by Duby Dub Dubs, Daniel Hardee

This was my worst take as well, with a bit more emphasis on being skeptical about the health of Steph's ankles at the time. I even once wrote a GSOM fanpost about how Curry could be part of a package for Dwight Howard (puke) that I'm really glad isn't searchable on my profile here haha

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2020Liked by Duby Dub Dubs, Daniel Hardee

First: Oh, Daniel...I think I'd been vaguely paying attention to the NBA again for about 6 weeks* when Monta was traded and even I was in favor of it.

I knew FA about Bogut, but I had a glimmer of what Steph, the Golden Child, the Baby-Faced Assassin, the Unanimous could be in his 2015 season (note: I did *not* foresee him becoming, well, Steph.)

But I forgive you. Your writing is just too entertaining.

Second, I appreciate your bravery in saying this to the world. It must be liberating.

Third, can we FF to next season?

*Basically, I rage-quit post We Believe. I had been so, *so hyped* about us grabbing the 8th-seed brthpz that I attended a game vs. the Mavericks when I truly couldn't afford it. I lived on ramen and Mexican-or-Chinese grocery discounted vegetables for a month afterward to pay for it.

My thinking: we needed defense and grit inside more than we needed a 25/0/0/0/0 3 PF 5 TO shooting guard who wouldn't put the team first.

I love Nellie, he could never, ever manage to instill defensive grit.

Nor could Cohan the Desotryer buy, draft, trade for, entice, steal, con, or otherwise sucker gritty defensive talent to come to GS...and if they did, the players would lose the grit and, I'm guessing, the will to live just by being in GS for a half-season.

So though I didn't know much about Bogut then, I was like...a defensive-minded 7'0" center who can pass, screen, and average ore assists than Monta!?! Hell. Yes. Steph just looked so much better in everything but athleticism and sturdiness than Monta.

Anyway, I have made many bad calls, too, but I hope my worst take will be screaming about Bob, Joe, and Peter throwing away a prime asset in D'Lo for *only* Ender Wiggins and Minnesot'a pick in the double-draft. I hope it's so bad I'll tell my Grandshildren about it with reverse pride, showing them Dynasty 2.0 and then 3.0 compilations that feature Wiggins.

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2020Liked by Duby Dub Dubs

My Worst Take: liking Thunder until he dissed me in full costume outside of UCSF. That was before he yelled “this is a stickup” in a bank.

Expand full comment
author

That Steph episode of All the Smoke is fantastic

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2020Liked by Duby Dub Dubs, Daniel Hardee

Monta Ellis have it all!

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2020Liked by Duby Dub Dubs, Daniel Hardee

Now there's a real worst take!

On a random note, I love listening to Don Nelson talk basketball. Dude is a basketball genius, and doesn't get his due because he never won a championship. But listen to him talk and it's easy to understand that he isn't a guy that ignores defense, that he gets what winning is...he just worked with what he had, and he never had a team that should have won a championship. Of course, he did screw up the Chris Webber thing pretty bad...

Back to Monta - to me Monta is a sad case of how player development can go wrong. Dude was a monster off the ball, but his ballhandling never got to the point where it needed to be for him to be a primary creator...but because of his size that was what he was asked to do post-We Believe for the rest of his career...and it just wasn't his strength. He could have been a much more effective offensive weapon in the right role, especially as his shot developed....but we never got to see it.

Expand full comment