No offense to Larry Riley, who seems like a nice enough guy, but all today’s press conference announcing Riley as the new Warriors’ GM did was announce to the world how ineffectual, how impotent this team is from the top.
Say what you will about the leaders of our fine Bay Area professional sporting franchises, but at least the rest of the local teams have some sort of front office identity.
The Sharks are run by a bunch of intelligent Canadians who stockpile great (regular season) talent year after year. The Giants have a bunch of classy, dapper gents who take fly their homemade hot air balloons from Pacific Heights to AT&T Park. The A’s are Billy Beane. The 49ers have Jed York doing his best “Young Eddie D” impression, trying to counteract the years of damage his parents did. The Raiders have Al Davis — don’t laugh, even with all his faults you have to admit you’re intrigued.
The Warriors are owned by Chris Cohan, who may or may not actually exist, and Robert Rowell, who seemed to go through today’s press conference with the sole purpose of letting everyone know the Warriors aren’t happy with losing (well, that’s a relief) while trying to send daggers at Tim Kawakami and Monte Poole via his death-stare. Rowell acts tough, and thinks he stuck it to the press by refusing to announce whether or not Riley actually has any strength in terms of personnel decisions (which means he doesn’t), or let everyone know who else the Warriors were considering for the GM job. A job that, in reality, was taken away from Chris Mullin months ago and handed to Don Nelson’s drinking and smoking buddy.
(I know Nellie likes a good cigar, but I’m pretty sure Riley LOVES cigars. He looks and sounds like he hangs out a lot in designated smoking rooms at airports, like Kramer in that Seinfeld episode when he turned his apartment into a smoking lounge and ended up looking like he just climbed down a chimney.)
Instead of a tough, fiscally responsible exec, Rowell looks like just an over-his-head assclown (can you tell I watched Office Space recently?) who got hoodwinked by Nellie. Riley admitted not only that he’s friends with Nelson, but that they pretty much never disagree. Nelson didn’t even have to fly in from Maui for today’s press conference, even though everyone knows he was instrumental in forcing Mullin out of power and installing his buddy and kindred spirit as the team’s chief player personnel guy. Talk about getting in bed with someone, Rowell’s trapped inside Nellie’s mattress (which would probably be pretty painful). Even worse, Rowell has already dismantled what looked to be a fairly decent team and let Mullin go in the weeniest way possible.
Listening to Rowell hurts my brain. He’s arrogant, he has an awful voice and has passive-aggressively placed all the blame for the Warriors’ shortcomings on Mullin (nice Stack extension, Bobby). Put all that together and Rowell’s the worst figurehead/face-of-the-franchise/spokesperson around here. That’s saying something. None of the franchises in the Bay Area are as successful as we’d like them to be, but none of them are led by a guy who’s such a sniveling little weasel.
It’s times like these I’m glad I’m not a diehard Warriors fan (I know, shocker). I enjoy the Warriors and root for them to succeed (especially Tony Randolph), but I grew up with Magic Johnson and James Worthy, not Sleepy Floyd and Mullin. I can’t say the Warriors have the best fanbase in American professional sports, because there are a lot of great fans all over the country. But no other franchise has a group so loyal after taking so much punishment over the past 30 years. With Cohan nonexistent, Rowell so impotent and annoying, and Nellie/Riley getting a free pass to continue and build a defense-free team full of incongruous swingmen, it’s tough to imagine a worse situation in Oakland.
OK, yes I can: if Nellie/Riley trades Randolph.
