How to Reopen Scabs and give fans a chance to select another team..

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7714701/how-annoy-fan-base-60-easy-steps

This was way too painful to knowingly read. Allowing a rookie (Webber) to have a one-year opt out? Unbelievable.

 

Re: How to Reopen Scabs and create unfans..

That's just incredible.

 

Without the Warriors, Bird = Nash and Beantown is still worshiping Cowens/White/Chaney rather than forgetting about that team which was between Russell and Bird.

 

Typical Simmons milllimeter-deep analysis.

Any team which has been a consistent loser for decades is going to build up fan hostility. See also Clippers, Kings, Wizards, Nets, Hornets, Bucks to name just a few in the NBA.

The same story can be written about probably one-fourth of the teams in all of pro sports. Most have a very similar history of flameout phenoms, brief failed runs at contention, stupid trades, disastrous drafts, free agents flown the coop, etc etc.

Of course the hometown fans in each city thinks their owners/management/coaching staff has been the absolute dumbest, but in fact, they're nothing special, even in futility.

 

I think it says something (and something not good) about an organization that is the only NBA team in the region, an area where players would presumably enjoy living in, and consistently sucking for the entire duration of the greatest boom time in the league's history.
Is there another team that has failed to reach a conference championship series from a bigger metro area?

 

Totally true.

The Warriors should be one of the class franchises of the league. They've been around, literally, since the league was founded, even though they did move once. They are, as noted, in one of the most prominent cities in the U.S. And they have one of the most rabid fanbases, even though they barely raise a blip in the rest of the country.

 

The Warriors play in Oakland. It's not exactly paradise by the arena.

 

The Warriors are the NBA's equivalent of the Toronto Maple Leafs: passionate fans showing up night after night, paying big money to watch total shit.

 

As I have lamented for 18 years now, this could have been the 1994 lineup if I remember right:

Tim Hardaway (Avery Johnson)
Latrell Sprewell (Ricky Pierce)
Chris Mullin (Sarunas Marciulionis)
Chris Webber (Chris Gatling)
Rony Seikaly (Victor Alexander)

(Switch Seikaly for Billy Ownens if you want one more little man on the court.)

All but Alexander and Johnson put up decent scoring numbers at some point in their careers, probably north of 17 points per game.

This crew wouldn't have won the title, but they would have outscored just about everyone.

Stupidity and injury took care of all that.

 

P.S. Still a fan.

 

The 1994 lineup was

Webber
Spreewell
Owens
Alexander
Avery Johnson

Mullin was injured early and only played a part of the season and Hardaway blew his ACL before the season.

That team even without Hardaway could get out and run; then Webber was traded. Sad.

 

Simmons spends about 1/3 of his manifesto swooning over what an incomprably unearthly galactic-class player Chris Webber was.

Webber was Shawn Kemp (during his 3-4 peak years) who liked to throw about 3 no-look behind-the-back passes every game (including one out of bounds).