Here at my first Warriors game of the year, and Larry Riley answered some questions pregame after explaining the Kwame Brown injury (Brown was optimistic that he’d play tonight until finding out the results of the MRI). Naturally the conversation turned to the healthy centers on the roster — particularly Andris Biedrins, who comes back from an ankle injury tonight to face Dwight Howard on national television.
This might trend toward cynicism (a first for this blog!), but Riley’s praise of Biedrins sounded almost more like an indictment of Biedrins’ mental state last year than anything extraordinarily positive going on right now. Riley mentioned how “alert” Biedrins has been this season three times in the video below, in response to questions about Biedrins’ quality of play before getting hurt and whether Riley thinks Biedrins can work up to playing 20-30 minutes per game this season.
Is it out of bounds to assume Riley didn’t think Biedrins was “alert” last year? Based on how he played, probably not.
Biedrins is currently playing 13.8 minutes per game. Against Howard, the Warriors surely hope Biedrins can provide more floor time before succumbing to foul trouble or a recurrence of that ankle injury. Riley did say that they’ll look to add a big man very soon.