Warriors Offseason 2010, What Could Have Been

The Golden State Warriors: 

A summer of dreams

The revisionists history of the Golden State Warriors. What could have been...

Just bear with me here, imagine the warriors front office did everything right. Imagine they resigned Baron Davis after winning 48 games and missing the playoffs. Imagine they never gave Stephen Jackson that ridiculous contract extension and also pretend for a second that they never talked themselves into Corey Magette for 30 million dollars. 

The current Warriors could have very easily looked like this:


Big Three starting guards- Baron Davis, Monta Ellis, Stephen Jackson
Frontline Rotation- Andris Biedrins, Ronny Turiaf, Anthony Randolph
First Three off the Bench- Wright, Azabuike, Morrow, Matt Barnes


Assuming this was the roster that the warriors ended the 2010 season with, they would be players in this years free agency period. They would have 30 million committed to Davis, Ellis and Biedrins; 13 million commited to Wright, Turiaf, Randolph, Buike and Barnes, with Morrow and Jackson coming off of the books this offseason. 


In this scenario the dubs would have about 12 million dollars to work with this off-season. Ouch. Thats Rudy Gay kind of money. Thats Amare Stoudamire or Carlos Boozer kind of money. 


It pains me to revisit the past, but it shows how crucial it is in the NBA to ONLY sign superstar players to superstar contracts. The consistently good teams in the league, aka the spurs, lakers and celtics have their money invested in three SUPER STAR players. The remainder of the roster is filled out with bargain veterans and young players on rookie contracts. 


Teams like the Warriors, and most recently the Grizzlies (topic for a future post) are consistently stuck in mediocrioty because they invest superstar money in non-superstar players. See Gay, Rudy or Ellis, Monta. 


Your top three players MUST be definitively elite players to have any chance of competing for a Finals ring.