Enough About Portland, How About The Future of The Warriors

[HarlemHeat37]

Bellinelli, Randolph, Wright? wow, that's mediocre as ****..

the Warriors will make the playoffs as a 7th or 8th seed a few times..nothing more..

[SabasRevenge!]

The Bulls
The Grizzlies
The Blazers
The Hornets
The Sonics

???

If we're looking at an under 25 core, the Hornets and Jazz can't be in the conversation.

[Rasho Brezec]

I would like to see them play some defense before I would consider them future contenders.

[Don Draper]

The Bulls
The Grizzlies
The Blazers
The Hornets
The Sonics

???

If we're looking at an under 25 core, the Hornets and Jazz can't be in the conversation.

Chris Paul and Deron Williams alone make them in the conversation.

[KyleCleric]

The Warriors have good potential in their players. They could become dominating someday. Portland has the potential to not only be dominating in the future, but to make a playoff push right now.

I also really like the young core groups of Memphis and Minnesota. Mike Conley, OJ Mayo, Rudy Gay are a trio that can play well right now. The question marks are with the inside players. Can Marc Gasol, Darko Milicic, Darrell Arthur, Hakim Warrick, Antoine Walker, and whoever else they have for the positions be able to handle the best inside tandems in the league? That's my biggest question for them. In the future, they probably can, but right now they can't. That's still probably good enough though to get in the late 30's for wins or even 40's and sneaking into the playoffs. Minnesota has the opposite problem to Memphis. The duo of Love and Jefferson seems very solid. Even Mike Miller gives them another reliable starter. I question whether Foye can really play point guard or whether he should be shooting guard. He is a player, IMO, that is a starter in this league for any team, whether lottery bound or a championship contender. The last starting position also gives me worries for this team. McCants, Telfair, Brewer, I'm not sure any of them can start in this league. Depth for them doesn't concern me. They seem to have fairly solid bench players.

[dockingsched]

no, the warriors don't have the potential to become dominating someday. thats just silly. if anything, they're going to be regressing a lot faster than they'll be improving.

[SabasRevenge!]

It'll be interesting to see what happens with Baron, Jackson, and Harrington. I think the Warriors and Pistons are in similar positions, except the Warriors have better young players and the Pistons have better vets. Bellinelli, Wright, and especially Randolph have a lot to prove. GS is probably at least 3-4 years away from that being an effective lineup. They may be better served dumping Al, Baron, and Jax because the Lakers will own that division for at least the next few years. A few more lotto picks wouldn't hurt them.

Chris Paul and Deron Williams alone make them in the conversation.

They're both excellent young franchise point guards to build around and the case could be made that the Jazz are relatively young, but outside of Paul, the Hornets don't have a young core.

[farzi]

no, the warriors don't have the potential to become dominating someday. thats just silly. if anything, they're going to be regressing a lot faster than they'll be improving.

I agree. If they want to look to the future, they're going to need to trade Baron and or SJax for quality picks or young talent. As it stands now, as soon as those guys are gone, and the keys are turned over to the youngsters, they're going to get abused by anyone with a little meat on them.

They could theoretically put up a **** ton of points, but they'd be terrible defensively.

[SupaFly78]

I can't wait to see you guys eat your words 3 years from now.... And to those who say the team I listed is undersized.....are you on drugs? They're thin yes, but will be faster then just about any team in the league.

Pg: Ellis 6'3
Sg: Bellinelli 6'5
Sf: Randolph 6'10
Pf: Wright 6'10
C: Biedrins 7'0

[Abyss Impact]

Don't forget Patrick O'Bryant. He is pretty good and is only 23 years old. He just doesn't get playing time because Don Nelson is (Please Use More Appropriate Word) like that.

[NUNBETTA]

This thread is pre-mature. Not enough of those guys have proven anything worth bragging about; only Biedriens and Ellis are currently worth being excited over. Bellinelli might become something, but he hasn't gotten enough minutes yet to warrant this type of thread; the same is true of Wright, though he's shown flashes of the physical potential that the Warriors were intrigued by. Anthony Randolph is still a blank slate.

[RapsBulls4evr]

Pg: Ellis
Sg: Bellinelli
Sf: Randolph
Pf: Wright
C: Biedrins

If the Warriors keep that team together, they'll be major contenders in the coming years.

LOL.

[Yangsing]

Major contenders? I'd be worried about making the playoffs first.

[Serpo]

With that team i'd be worried about defense and outside shooting ...

[carrottop12]

I can't wait to see you guys eat your words 3 years from now.... And to those who say the team I listed is undersized.....are you on drugs? They're thin yes, but will be faster then just about any team in the league.

Pg: Ellis 6'3
Sg: Bellinelli 6'5
Sf: Randolph 6'10
Pf: Wright 6'10
C: Biedrins 7'0

Yeah, because really fast teams who can't put a body on anyone win the championship 9 times out of 10.

[SupaFly78]

I can't wait to see you guys eat your words 3 years from now.... And to those who say the team I listed is undersized.....are you on drugs? They're thin yes, but will be faster then just about any team in the league.

Pg: Ellis 6'3
Sg: Bellinelli 6'5
Sf: Randolph 6'10
Pf: Wright 6'10
C: Biedrins 7'0

Yeah, because really fast teams who can't put a body on anyone win the championship 9 times out of 10.

Apparently you've never seen a Warriors game....both Biedrins and Wright are excellent shotblockers, and Randolph had really good defensive skills in college averaging 2.3 blocks per game as a small forward.

[microfib4thewin]

You can't say much about the Warriors future when you don't even know if Nellie and Baron will stick around. Baron could be gone this year for all anyone knows, and without him it's impossible to run since Ellis isn't ready to run the point position. The frontcourt as others mentioned only have height, without any weight to resist any post scorers GSW is not going to be any different from this season.

[Serpo]

Whos going to get you easy points when you can't run in a possesion ? Who's your zone buster ?

Whos going to defend a big guy like Greg Oden ?

[Ballings7]

Too flawed and questionable of a group to be labeled future "major contenders"

Lacking a significant, consistent play-maker for others, and more than one - Ellis isn't enough here yet, and may well not be much more than he is. Randolph should be a factor here, probably B. Wright off of double teams and from the high post. Belinelli something maybe? Questionable how diverse of a set-up group they'll be.

A good low post presence - Wright should probably be this (as far as in isolations), being more of a face-up player than back to basket.

Size up at PF/C, relating to having good enough rebounding and defense - mass, not height and length, that's plenty there with Biedrins/Wright. But the former is the main missing factor to having the above, and there just is a below-average amount of it. There is much more to interior defense than blocking shots, which ultimately isn't as important. Especially if you're lacking discipline in going for them.

Lack of floor spacing - Does Randolph become enough of a 3PT threat? Wasn't one in college at all. Ellis may not need/choose to, and that's fine because of what else he can do. Belinelli. But, you need at least a couple relatively legit 3PT threats in the starting line-up to spread the floor.

Portland, with their main group, would just be a better basketball team on both ends of the court. Maybe even superior if things don't go as well for the Warriors.

[Warspite]

With Ellis, Randolph and Wright the Warriors will have at least 10 more lottery picks to put with them before they retire. The Warriors have been rebuilding for as long as I have been alive I dont expect the Warriors to get off there 40 yr rebuilding program with they are right on track.