Is anybody else reading the Warriors story on Grantland!? Jesus Christ

Options
tru_m.a.c
tru_m.a.c Members Posts: 9,091 ✭✭✭✭
edited March 2012 in From the Cheap Seats
Its a 60 step break down on how bad the Warriors franchise is: I'm just going to put up the first 6

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7714701/how-annoy-fan-base-60-easy-steps

1. After stealing future Hall of Famer Robert Parish with the no. 8 pick of the 1976 draft, another loaded Warriors team underachieved (46 wins) before dropping a Game 7 to Kareem's Lakers in Round 2. That summer, the NBA started its first ever "free agency" period and the Warriors immediately lost their two young stars: Gus Williams and Jamaal Wilkes. Their compensation? The no. 5 pick in the 1978 draft (for Wilkes) and cash (for Williams). Cash? Williams and Wilkes ended up winning a combined four titles.

2. With that no. 5 pick in 1978, the Warriors picked Purvis Short. The next pick? Larry Joe Bird.

3. To nobody's surprise, Golden State's win total dropped from 43 to 38 to 24 in the first three seasons after Williams and Wilkes fled for greener pastures. Meanwhile, Houston signed Barry in the summer of 1978, giving up talented point guard John Lucas as compensation. Considered the future in Golden State, Lucas became The Future Of Drug Abuse for the NBA. He wouldn't conquer his addiction until late in his career … well after the Warriors dumped him for two no. 2 picks.

4. Right around here, the NBA draft decided to hit the Warriors over the head with a steel chair. No matter what the Warriors did — trade their picks, trade for picks, trade up, trade down, trade sideways, trade upside down while holding their breath — it was invariably the wrong move. They traded their no. 1 pick in 1979 for Boston's Jo Jo White, who played 120 more games before retiring.1 Right before the 1980 draft, they traded their starting center and their no. 3 overall pick to Boston for the no. 1 pick and the no. 13 pick. The Warriors picked Joe Barry Carroll and Rickey Brown. The Celtics ended up with Robert Parish and Kevin McHale. By the way, that was another bad sign for an NBA franchise: Red Auerbach going out of his way to trade with you.

5. During that same draft, the Warriors gave away the rights to future All-Star center Jeff Ruland for somebody named Sam Williams. They also traded Phil Smith and their 1984 no. 1 pick for the immortal World B. Free,2 as well as Wayne Cooper and a second-round pick for a troubled forward named Bernard King. King worked out his demons over the next two years before signing a 1982 offer sheet with the Knicks. As compensation, the Warriors received former All-Star Micheal Ray Richardson, who was so messed up by drugs at this point that NBA TV eventually made an entire documentary about it. Bernard hit the Big Apple and immediately became one of the league's best players. Micheal Ray hit the Bay Area and immediately did everything unsavory short of freebasing Alcatraz. He didn't last four months before the Warriors shipped him to New Jersey for rookie Sleepy Floyd. Hey, anytime you can turn a ? addict into someone named Sleepy, you have to do it.

6. Did you know the Warriors spent the sixth pick of the 1983 draft on a center from Purdue named Russell Cross? Yes, Clyde Drexler, Dale Ellis, Derek Harper and Jeff Malone were still on the board. Cross played 45 games in his career. Not 450. Forty-five.
· Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Comments

Categories