Tank-A-Taco
The Oracle crowd, previously roused from their REM sleep only for the occasional opportunity to boo former Golden State Warrior Stephen Jackson, or a Nate Robinson-Klay Thompson mini-three-point barrage, was suddenly frenzied.
How often, after all, does a team that starts four rookies get an opportunity to trade jabs toe-to-toe with the San Antonio Spurs for something meaningful in the closing minute?
The crowd stood, Chris Wright—perhaps feeding off the energy of a crowd looking to get fed—rolled with purpose and authority. Only the victory, no matter how small, was not to be. Spurs center DeJuan Blair stood his ground, drawing the charge.
Dejected, at least the Golden State Warriors fans got a taste of the “NBA-fan-of-a-legitimate-franchise” experience. Be it Phoenix, Dallas, or New Orleans, the San Antonio Spurs have long stood in the way of other franchises achieving their ultimate goal. DeJuan Blair drawing the charge to keep the Warriors stuck on 99 points was typical Spurs villainy at its best. There would be no free tacos, in the literal or metaphorical sense.
A franchise that had guaranteed its long-suffering fan base a playoff appearance could not even deliver on a crummy free food promotion.
The Golden State Warriors started four rookies Monday night, at times providing single coverage on Tim Duncan with a player whose name would have to be looked up in a game program to identify. The results were predictable, and the 120-99 outcome to a certain extent planned.
Golden State is tanking, and shamelessly so.
There has been some national discussion on tanking over the past month, specifically to curtail debacles like Monday night. Terrible teams still trying to compete, it’s argued, should somehow be rewarded.
And talks of better draft positioning aside, those teams are rewarded. Next season, given the opportunity to compete down the stretch of this one, those teams will be a year better. The Toronto Raptors, the Detroit Pistons, for all their flaws, will have key pieces another year entrenched in the system and culture those respective franchises are trying to establish.
Regardless of where the Warriors fall in the lottery next season, they will essentially be starting from scratch; and realize, even in those large office hundred-million dollar lottery pools, with everyone pulling resources to improve playing odds, a lottery is still a lottery, subject to the laws of chance.
Even at their most competitive, a fully realized Warriors roster (sans the legitimate injuries) probably is just bad enough to save their draft pick, but good enough to pick up a few valuable lessons along the way.
Warriors head coach Mark Jackson might not be the proper man to lead Golden State out of the basement, but by denying him even the rudimentary tools necessary to compete—it appears his Monday lineups failed to grasp even his simplest defensive philosophies of “hand down, man down”—the Warriors are denying Jackson a year to implement his culture.
Despite acknowledging managerial mandates to tank, the lost season will still reflect on Jackson’s resume. And even though next year will for all intents and purposes be year one for Jackson and this roster, the expectation remains that the learning curve began at the beginning of this season.
That’s how a coach gets fired, an organization remains in flux and without direction, and a franchise that has tanked its way into multiple lottery picks finds itself doing the same year after year.
A 120-99 loss in which the opposing teams’ best players failed to crack the mid-teens mark in minutes, in the fashion the Warriors went about it, is a stain on the integrity of the game.
The Golden State Warriors fans, even in a down year, deserved more than an opportunity to boo Stephen Jackson. They deserved more than free tacos. And the organization couldn’t even manage that.
