The Western Wing: Warriors Offer Too Much Steak, No Sizzle

Basketball teams should look like a meal.

There’s the main dish – steak, chicken, eggplant, whatever you fancy – and then there’s the “other stuff.” Potatoes are always a good fit, veggies have their place and it wouldn’t hurt to have some type of French bread.

Unless you’re a member of the Warriors front office.

Don Nelson orders a Rib Eye (with eight Coronas) and asks for a side of tri-tip with pot roast as an appetizer.

The night, like the Warriors recent seasons, always ends up in the toilet.

Last season’s dish was the mystifying pairing of nearly identical undersized guards, Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry – two great cuts that simply don’t go together.

Ellis is 6-foot-3, 180 pounds; Curry is 6-foot-3, 185 pounds.

Ellis shot 45 percent from the field last season; Curry shot 46 percent.

Ellis averaged 5.3 assists; Curry dished out 5.9 assists.

The same player, with a slight edge to the younger Curry.

Ellis scored 25.5 points per game and Curry averaged 17.5 points in his rookie season. Clearly an explosive offensive tandem, critics pointed out defense as the obvious snag and the squad didn’t disappoint, allowing a league-worst 112.4 points per game.

Obviously it didn’t work and – made worse by a flow of injuries – the NBA D-League Warriors finished in the cellar.

To be fair, Ellis called it immediately.

“Us together? No,” Ellis said after the Warriors drafted Curry. “Can’t. We just can’t. … Just can’t. … They say you can … but you can’t. I just want to win and you’re not going to win that way.”

Ellis made it clear that he didn’t need a twin in the backcourt and the Warriors made it clear that they would take the best player available in last year’s draft, which according to Rookie of the Year final voting, they did.

Keeping the combo of Ellis and Curry together could work if you surrounded the guards with big, defensive minded forwards and a center. But that’s not what the Warriors have, and to get it, they’d have to give up Ellis, which negates the whole point.

It’s not Ellis’ fault that management decided to clone him. So why has Curry become the golden boy while Ellis’ stock has crashed quicker than a moped in Mississippi?

Because Ellis doesn’t play the game. Curry was raised by his NBA pops and Ellis learned from Stephen Jackson.

Curry is a media darling, smiling and saying all the right things. Ellis is brash, and, as one well-respected national basketball media member once told me, is a “total cancer.”

And since even Nelson must be sick of eating the same tasteless results season after season, it’s obvious that Golden State needs to change the menu.

Early indications on what type of offseason that management will direct are ambiguous at best.

Larry Riley’s drafting of Baylor’s Ekpe Udoh with the No. 6 overall pick could be a sign that the team might have some interest in playing defense. Or, more realistically, the front office was simply looking to stockpile in the Anthony Randolph, Brandan Wright category (more evident since Udoh is already injured and out all of summer league).

If the Warriors truly do want to improve, they’ve got an opportunity this offseason.

Clearing the contract of Corey Maggette for a defensive-minded Charlie Bell and “pay me for one more year” Dan Gadzuric, all while fighting the Golden State instinct to offer retiring Adonal Foyle a seven-year deal, is a great start.

But management can make real strides if rumored offseason moves ever materialize.

(Side note: There is absolutely no way that the Warriors would trade Curry, their biggest marketing weapon. So moving Ellis and the four years remaining on his six-year, $67 million contract seems to be an obvious maneuver.)

(Secondary note: Further complicating matters though is the damage the Warriors have done to Ellis’ trade value for the manner the team handled his moped accident and the subsequent posturing that followed.)

Oakland Tribune Warriors beat writer Marcus Thompson II reported that sources told him that Golden State is looking to do a sign-and-trade with the Knicks to obtain David Lee. With Amar’e Stoudamire in place, a pairing with Ellis in New York could rejuvenate Mike D’Antoni’s high-flying offense.

The latest rumor, however, would move Randolph in exchange for Lee, keeping Ellis in place.

Either way, adding Lee definitely gives the Warriors a more well-rounded plate. The move does nothing for the Warriors’ defense – except maybe make it worse – but it does give the Warriors an inside presence and some rebounding.

But Lee is likely going to require somewhere around a max deal, and should a team pay that for a potato? (Or maybe at that point Lee becomes the steak and Curry and Ellis are the potatoes? I’m confused now … and hungry.)

Maintaining the backcourt of Ellis and Curry, while adding Lee, gives the Warriors incredible offensive juice and that might be enough for Nellie to forget about pretending that defense matters. The Nellie experience would parade on.

What is clear, however, is that somehow Golden State is going to need to change its diet.

Jimmy Spencer can be reached at jimmyspencer11@gmail.com or on Twitter @jimmyspencernba