The Warriors Youth Movement Looks Young Like Greg Oden

Normally, you'd look at an opening night game where the Warriors took the New Orleans Hornets down to the wire without Monta Ellis and say "Hey, that's pretty good! How about these Dubs?!"

Unfortunately, it ignores two points. One, the Warriors still lost, and two, the Warriors completely abandoned the youth movement they centered around all summer. In last night's game, Don Nelson ran a 7 man rotation (outside of a scintillating 23 second performance by C.J. Watson), that featured all veterans, DeMarcus Nelson for about long enough for Nellie to figure out he didn't like him, and Al Harrington who has publically begged, demanded, and pleaded to be traded.

Who got the DNP-CDs? Marco Belinelli. Okay, that's understandable, the guy's never put in a good regular season stretch yet. Marcus Williams. Okay, when you're in the Nellie doghouse, you're in the Nellie doghouse. Brandan Wright. Huh. That's odd. He's a second year guy and they really need to get him some time. Guess he's still in the doghouse, too. Anthony Randolph. What? So after four months of talking about how much you love the kid and gushing over his handle you just sit him and don't play him?

The Warriors came out publicly and said they were going to a youth movement this summer. They pulled in Corey Maggette (who really does look great in this system), and gave Ellis the wheel. With Ellis out, you have even more incentive to get the young guys some playing time. I recognize that it was a close game against a quality opponent in your season opener, but what kind of a message does it send when the coach you just gave a 2 year extension to is obviously not comfortable with giving young guys burn time.

And playing Al Harrington 42 minutes? How can Marcus Williams or Brandan Wright possibly be more in the doghouse that Harrington who has pinpointed Nellie as his reason for his trade demand?

You can't take the Boom Dizzle out of the Dubs, but you can't take the bizarre out of the Warriors.