Game Day Links

There’s been a lot of hype coming from the Warriors’ coaching staff about how Webber’s passing is going to help the team. After a rough start, they’ve qualified it by saying that his teammates need to move better without the ball in order to create passing opportunities. Geoff Lepper on Nellie’s new drills designed to get the cutters cutting and the slashers slashing:

“For the first time since coming back as the Warriors coach in August 2006, Nelson dusted off his set of extra-defender drills. Where the Warriors ordinarily run various groups of players up and down the court in four-on-four or five-on-five battles, Monday the offense went four-on-five or five-on-six.

The point was to make it so much harder for someone to dribble-drive their way to an open shot in the lane that Nelson’s players would have to sharpen up their skills at making quick, precise passes meant to free up their teammates.”

The only good thing to come out of the loss to the Hawks last Friday was Brandan Wright’s performance. Suddenly it seems like there’s a reason beyond mere curiosity to get our first round pick more playing time, he can actually help. John Crumpacker on Wright’s upcoming opportunities:

“Had he returned for another year at North Carolina, Brandan Wright would be a sophomore. A star sophomore, no doubt. Instead, he chose to enter the NBA.

Of course, being 6-foot-9 with leaping ability helps, and now Wright is on the verge of getting more playing time with the Warriors as they confront the last third of the season with less than a full squad.”

Finally, big news about a big man in the West. Henry Abbott on Yao’s injury and the shock-waves it will send throughout the league (and Olympic play):

“Two years later, Yao Ming’s Rockets have at last, apparently, turned the corner. They have won a dozen in a row, and 16 out of 17, to put themselves a mere three games out of first place in the brutal Western Conference.

And now Yao Ming is out for the season, thanks to a reported stress fracture in that same foot.”