The Warriors Signs Two Players...
...and prove Stephen Jackson's point.
The News: A couple of days after Jax undressed the Warriors front office and exposed their money-first, winning-second strategy, GM-in-training Larry Riley announced more roster fine tuning with the signings yesterday of Mikki Moore and CJ Watson.
Moore agreed to a veteran minimum deal of $1.3 million for one year and, although restricted free agent CJ hasn't officially signed, he tweeted (on Twitter, that is) his personal fans that the 1 year, $1 million qualifying offer is a done deal; when someone tweeds, its now a fact, right?
The Real Deal: We all know CJ's resume: solid offensive player, good mid-range jumper, can create his own offense, does well under pressure, decent ball handler, OK passer, 3s range only in the short corners. And, to show Watson bleeds true orange&blue Warriors blood, what passes for point guard matador defense is the occasional steal that ignites a fast break.
Mikki Moore is an active, athletic, lean 6'11" forward/center who plays mostly in the paint on both ends. Mikki is quick for his size and is tough enough to board in traffic, occasionally cleaning up around the rim. He is, at times, too aggressive, not super smooth on offense, and is no outside threat what so ever. On the this team, he will see time and add on-court value.
The Devil In The Details: Both are good signings, value for the price. More so though if you were, say, San Antonio or Cleveland, trying to shore up the end of your bench for a title run. The problem, is that unlike the 5-7 minutes/game each would see with the Spurs or the Cavs, these two will see 12-18 minutes a game with the Ws. And when not in the Nellie doghouse and shooting well, they might get as much as 30 minutes in the occasional game.
So the Dubs are filling up their #8-10 guys with minimum wage-ish guys. No surprise there. The Warriors recipe works like this: start with significantly over market price salaries for guys 1-6 (read: Maguette, Biedrins, Ellis, Jackson), add in a tight wallet overall, mix in a zero tolerance policy for luxury tax, and what do you get? Not much left for the rest...
How Does Cap'n Jax Fit Into This? Stephen Jackson spoke about wanting to play on a title contending team and while Moore and Watson are serviceable guys, neither would get crunch time minutes on a serious contender (which, ahem, the Ws are not, in spite of Riley's lip service yesterday. By the way, how did he keep a straight face yesterday as he said " we are working towards a championship"?).
The proof in the pudding: Moore averaged 6 minutes a game with the KG-less Celtics during last year's playoffs; he only saw garbage time, despite 40 power forward minutes per game in street clothes throughout the entire playoffs.
The Amusement (The one thing you can always count on with the Warriors): Rowell always has a clever angle, and his genius here is in assembling a team of first name spelling mistakes. Its the close-but-no-cigar-players-
Ahhh, how Warriors fans find entertainment where they can...
P.S.: Tim Kawakami is reporting that there is not much of a market for Stephen Jackson. Between his 4 yr, $36MM contract and his past on-court behavior problems, there's no surprise there...
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As always, Go Ws!
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