The Golden State Warriors got off to a surprisingly hot 6-2 start this year, playing decently on the road and going unbeaten at home.
Their season then hit an unexpected snag after a victory in New York, when doctors discovered an infection in David Lee”s elbow. Lee missed eight games and has only started getting back into game-shape.
The team”s Nov. 11 game, its first without Lee, marked the beginning of a terrible stretch with a 30-point loss to the Chicago Bulls. The Warriors have gone 2-12 in their past 14 games and are slowly falling out of relevance yet again.
You could point to any number of reasons for the recent skid: poor defense, sloppy play, inconsistent scoring, unproductive bench, injuries or an inexperienced head coach.
List any of those and you wouldn”t necessarily be wrong. But if you want to correctly place your blame, study the streak a little harder.
If you want your answer to be right, simply answer Wright.
The streak began when the Warriors lost their starting power forward and looked to backup third-year forward Brandan Wright to fill the void.
Brandan responded with a lackluster game against the Bulls, and then got himself injured against the Bucks.
Brandan hasn”t played a game since mid-November because of a back injury – which isn”t surprising considering he”s only played in 85 games during his injury-plagued career.
The Lee injury provided Brandan an opportunity to shine, but it appears he didn”t have the spine needed to rise to the challenge. Without its two primary power forwards, the team found itself getting destroyed in the paint, a leading cause of their lackluster results.
The Warriors need that third productive big-man and rookie Ekpe Udoh will probably fill that void when he returns from injury in early 2011, meaning Brandan might find himself fourth or fifth on the depth chart.
Perhaps that”s just as well because Brandan has been utterly unproductive in his career, averaging 13.7 minutes, 6.1 points, 3.3 rebounds and 0.8 blocks per game.
Brandan”s dream of a great NBA career could soon be replaced by a nightmare spent in NBA obscurity (a lifetime limbo worse for Brandan than anything experienced by Leonardo DiCaprio or Marion Cotillard).
Luckily for Brandan, he doesn”t make up the entire Wright answer.
The Warriors have all but lived or died by the right arm of small forward Dorell Wright during this 14-game stretch.
Dorell”s productivity in the team”s losses has been dwarfed by his totals in the wins.
In the Warriors” two wins, Dorell has averaged 23 points per game, including five made three-pointers per. Dorell has shot 25.8 percent from behind the arc and averaged only 12.7 points per game in the Warriors” 12 losses.
Eight of those losses were winnable games that the Warriors lost by an average of around eight points. If Dorell produced anywhere near what he did in the Warriors” wins, any number of those eight losses could have gone his team”s way.
Dorell also just seems out of it in some games. His body language can get negative and he commits mindless turnovers in games where he isn”t shooting the ball well.
One problem could be that Dorell is averaging close to 40 minutes per game this season, which is 14 minutes more than his career high.
Dorell had been a career backup before the Warriors picked him up this off-season, and though some of his all-around numbers have improved, his scoring has been sporadic at best.
The Warriors, who get almost no production from their bench players, need Dorell to hit more than one 3-pointer per game and score on a nightly basis, and he”s not giving them either.
Perhaps that vote of confidence has put too much pressure on Dorell, who”s clearly not living up to expectations.
The Warriors have a lot of problems, but the Wrights, who make a combined $6.9 million, should be near the top of the list.
Unfortunately for the Warriors, two Wrights make a wrong.
Jeremy Walsh is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. He can be reached at 263-5636 ext.37 or jwalsh@record-bee.com.
