In one of my many “the Warriors should get something for Monta Ellis while they can” posts I’ve written over the last six months, I threw out the idea that the Warriors should call Danny Ainge and see if they could unload Monta’s and Maggette’s contracts for Ray Allen’s expiring deal. You know, because back then I lived in a fantasy world where the Warriors could actually lure a free agent star who’s better than anybody they have right now. And on the moon orbiting my fantasy world, Chris Cohan would spend the money on a superstar free agent.
What I didn’t know was if I was writing for a Comcast website, people would have taken my hypothetical trade ramblings as actual full-fledged rumors. Sounds crazy, but that’s what happened, and the Bay was sent into a tizzy this afternoon.
While it’s tough to imagine the Warriors waiving the white flag and risking the fallout at the box office midway through the season, and it’s similarly tough to imagine the Celtics giving up on their current core this season just to get Monta, there’s some good news with all these rumors.
Rumorssss, you say? Yes, we had more Amare Stoudemire talk! Which is awesome because we all know how much Stoudemire wanted to play for the Warriors last summer — he’d be beyond stoked to play with Cartier Martin, Anthony Tolliver, Lamond Murray and Diamon Simpson.
Still, there’s good news here for Warriors fans.
Bear with me.
If the Warriors don’t trade Monta or Maggette, it means the rest of this season will be more entertaining than it would be if they traded for a disgruntled Jesus Shuttlesworth or the man Phoenix Suns fans call “Stat.” We’d get to see Monta Ellis make more exciting plays with a few dumb ones sprinkled in, and Maggette will continue to thrive in his own little pressure-free nirvana.
If the Warriors make a salary dump trade, we know that the Warriors aren’t going to sign anybody to any extensions, and they aren’t going to spend the summer sending Larry Riley across the country to court Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh or LeB… OK, I can’t even type his full name without laughing. I think you know where I’m going with this. A salary dump is a straight salary dump with Cohan. It doesn’t mean a new plan for the future, but it actually means something much, much, MUCH better: it means Cohan is looking to sell.
Larry Ellison is a constant presence at Oracle Arena, and that would be true lately even if the building the Warriors call home didn’t share the same name as his company. I’m not going to go into financial specifics, but in terms of net wealth, Larry David might say that Ellison is doing “pret-ty…pret-ty…pret-ty…pretty good.” Ellison didn’t get to be this rich by making stupid acquisitions. Buying the Warriors as is, when they’re already about $5M over a soon-to-be-shrinking salary cap, would hardly be the shrewdest purchase.
So to summarize, Warriors fans either get to watch this team do what they’ve been doing, or live through a 3-to-15-month garage sale before welcoming Mr. Ellison with open arms.
Of course what’s probably going to happen is absolutely nothing on the Monta/Maggette front, or on the Cohan-selling-to-Ellison front either. Nope, what’ll probably happen is Nellie will freak out in a week or two about the increasing likelihood that he won’t break the all-time wins record this year, and at the end of some blowout loss he’ll look at Brandan Wright at the end of the bench and get angry. Then immediately after the game he’ll blow through an entire bottle of Black Label and trade Wright for some mediocre 2-guard with a longer deal than Wright, like Dahntay Jones.
Yep, all this talk about blockbusters, and I end this post with Wright-4-Dahntay. How’s that for a good trade rumor, Comcast? Beat that!
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BASG–
Is there really a man named Jesus Shuttleworth?
And is it Gee-Zuss or “Hay–Soose”?
–BB
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Hey Bill,
Only in Spike Lee’s imagination. And it’s Gee-Zuss, like “Big Baby Jesus” (if you’re into the Wu-Tang).
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There is never a bad time to drop a Wu-Tang reference. Love it.
Come to think about it, maybe the RZA would be interested in expanding his resume; future coach of your Golden State Wu-Warriors?
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I’d make RZA the GM (since he’s better at sourcing the talent) and I’d make Inspektah Deck the coach due to his attention to detail.
GZA could be the assistant who handles all the x’s and o’s, Method Man can provide the team’s illegal supplements and Raekwon could be the team’s chef (for obvious reasons).
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The amazing thing is, you have either thought of that scenario at length…”What if the WuTang Clan Bought The Warriors?” or it just suddenly came to you because it was oddly obvious.
“Can it be that it was all so simple…”
Also: could they become the Golden State ODB’s so that no one is left out?
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Maybe their mascot can be a dunking brick of welfare cheese.
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The Lakers are good, BASG….But the Warriors are for the children!!!
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Snatchin’ Mikki Moore up by the hair, then cut his head off…
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[...] when it comes to the Warriors’ future, nothing’s off the table. A firesale could come shortly, the Warriors could soon turn worse than you’ve ever imagined. And if it means Ellison [...]
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We need to trade for Iguodala and Speights.
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Not bad, but the Warriors are looking to dump salary. Plus, it still leaves them without a bonafide star. I love Iggy as much as the next fantasy junkie, but he can barely lead a team to the playoffs in the East.
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[...] couple days ago, David commented on the Ray Allen/Amare Stoudemire/Monta Ellis post from a couple days ago that perhaps the RZA could take over as coach for the Warriors, which led to [...]
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