| Playing Better Elsewhere? Authored by Christopher Reina - December 18, 2008 - 5:54 pm
| Current Featured Columns | | Merry Christmas, Raptors Fans The Raptors might not be playing good basketball right now, but there are plenty of things for Toronto fans to be thankful for this holiday season.
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"That wasn't possible out there," Dunleavy told the San Francisco Chronicle this week with the Warriors in town when asked about his success with the Pacers. "It's no coincidence so many guys who come from Golden State go elsewhere and succeed. The proof is in the pudding. I take responsibility for certain things. You look at guys who went elsewhere after leaving Golden State, they found a way. Whatever that means or says, you could read it through."
What does that pudding look like and more importantly, who is in it?
Historically that has always seemed to be the case for the Warriors, but is it true for the players that played with Dunleavy?
- Gilbert Arenas signed with Washington after the 2002-03 season in which he was named the NBA's Most Improved Player. During that first season with the Wizards, his offensive rating dropped from 108 to 98, while his shooting percentage and assist rate dropped.
But over the next three seasons he became an All-Star and one of the NBA's best perimeter scorers.
- Troy Murphy put up better numbers with the Warriors than the Pacers after the trade in 2007, but the 07-8 season was a career year in which his true shooting percentage reached a career high of 57.3% while he wasn't counted on to carry such a huge load on the glass.
- Antawn Jamison hasn't been asked to be a team's primary scorer since leaving the Warriors and he became an All-Star because of that. He became a more efficient scorer and was able to play his unique style at the power forward position mostly unfettered.
- Speedy Claxton played 106 games with the Warriors and was at his best during that time. He kind of had a mirage of a great season with the Hornets in 05-06 as Chris Paul's backup, which led to a big contract from Atlanta.
- Jason Richardson had his best scoring season in 07-08 with Charlotte, but his overall numbers were slightly better during the 04-05 and 05-06 years with the Warriors.
- Erick Dampier had the finest season of his career in 2003-04, which was when the Warriors attempted to hand over the franchise to Dunleavy. Dampier averaged a career best 13.7 points and 13.3 rebounds per 36 minutes that season. Dampier was initially a disappointment in Dallas during his first two seasons, but has been increasingly effective since 06-07.
- It is still too early to judge, but I can't see how the nascent of Baron Davis' career being anything other than the 06-07 and 07-08 seasons with the Warriors.
- Judging Mickael Pietrus in Orlando versus Golden State is also too premature, but he was desperate to get out of there a whole season ago when he was forced to remain as a RFA.
- Ike Diogu, Sarunas Jasikevicius and Patrick O'Bryant won't be members of any GSW fan club either, but two of them are barely in the NBA and the other went back to Europe. Marco Belinelli and Marcus Williams are on their way to joining that group.
Who is responsible for the apparent bitterness from Dunleavy?
He and Chris Mullin always seemed to get along swimmingly, Mike Montgomery is too insignificant to mention and it has only become a recent phenomenon of Robert Rowell involving himself with basketball operations.
Which clearly leave Don Nelson, who irks many young players and is beloved in rare, special instances.
He also has a history of players parting ways with him to go on to bigger success, with Chris Webber, John Starks, Steve Nash and probably most prominent on his mind Al Harrington, being the biggest examples, but any coach who has over 2000 games on the books is going to have these kinds of instances on his resume.
Dunleavy hasn't played at all this season because of injury and good for him that he finally delivered on some of that promise which made him the third overall pick in the 2002 NBA Draft.
It's not his fault that he wasn't Larry Bird, Grant Hill or even Chris Mullin while with the Warriors. Amare Stoudemire, Yao Ming, Caron Butler and Carlos Boozer are the only All-Stars to come out of the draft and if you were to redraft, those four plus Tayshaun Prince are the only players you would take over Dunleavy (though maybe Nene as well considering how well he's played this year finally).
But it's also not the Warriors' fault that Stephen Jackson was a better fit for Nelson's system and that kind of blanket statement against Don Nelson and the Warriors isn't fair and isn't wholly true.
- Christopher Reina is the executive editor of RealGM |
