Last night’s game against the Phoenix Suns was yet another indication that this Warriors team is too flawed, top to bottom (including the coach…maybe especially the coach), to make anything out of the seldom witnessed win. Giving credit to this team is an exercise in futility spawned from the re-births of inspired off-season hopes.
Joe Lacob might be smartly evaluating this team with patience and VC-savvy, but meanwhile, his investment is going to shit. He’s certainly leaning on what Chris Cohan has leaned on all these years: a loyal, naïve, and turn-the-other-cheek type of fans that have haplessly herded themselves into Oracle Arena looking for a great time out, or something.
But will he have the same Cohan-luck, where ticket sales stabilize what is the proverbial rudderless ship through failure? New ownership has the burden of making a difference and that will play negatively into their decision making as the current team struggles; it’s much easier to make smart decisions when your company is doing good, or to put it another way, no matter what you do, you’ll receive a harsher form of criticism if you’re a team defined by mediocrity.
Something tells me that he and Peter Guber have grander plans that would–that should–catapult ticket, merchandise, and food sales upwards but the plan needed execution like, yesterday. I would think that Mr. Hollywood would have a say in their TV contract, getting more national exposure, better ratings, and more advertisers that matter in the grand scheme of the NBA. All of these little things impact how and when management decides to make changes. You can be patient, but patience has its consequences, especially when it’s applied towards an already tired fan base (although I was sorely disappointed that there weren’t enough boos last night at Oracle).
While smart fans can fully support smart decisions that aren’t for the sake of making a change, I don’t know how much longer they can take this torture. Not the SF Giants kind of good torture, the bad kind where you’re sub-.500, losing badly against a team you need to beat to gain ground in the standings.
This current team isn’t going to make the playoffs, as Matt Steinmetz implores to fans. Therefore, to make anything out of whatever success this team finds in its current state is frankly a big waste of time. The only thing this team has done successfully is cultivate and nurture a desperate group of rosterbators that have the ESPN NBA Trade Machine set as their internet browser homepage. I’ve never read “it works in the trade machine” more than I have this season.
Changes need to happen, but the changes have to be calculated so it actually improves the team so they can win more than they lose. The question is: do they have the chips to make that happen? Does management have the skill to make it happen? And if the answer is no to either: is Joe Lacob & Co. the answer? If you happen to answer “no” to the last question, then please visit this blog for all your answers.
