Mark Jackson says he won’t allow himself the comfort of gazing into the future. Not for a minute will he drift out of today and into potential glories of tomorrow.
He has to coach the Warriors for the rest of the season, beginning with Friday night against Milwaukee, so he won’t get to fantasize about the personnel moves made this week that should improve the team.
Even as Jackson trumpets the commitment of CEO Joe Lacob, he will spend no time dreaming about the 2012-13 Warriors team that, on paper, has 50-win potential.
“I’m a man of faith,” Jackson said Thursday after practice. “I know that tomorrow is not promised.”
Having a vision and revealing it are two different things, though, and Jackson surely realizes his current roster will be much different from that which he would greet next fall.
And when you press him on it, he’ll eventually concede that losing star shooting guard Monta Ellis places a heavier burden on point guard Stephen Curry, who might not play until next fall.
Moreover, Jackson will tell you Curry will be ready for that burden.
“He realizes it’s his team,” Jackson says of Curry. “What’s inside of him will come out because of the change.”
That’s NBA code for saying Curry will elevate his game. And, ankles able, he will.
Understand, Steph has spent the better part of three seasons essentially playing Robin to Monta’s Batman. Steph was the baby-faced kid. Monta was the tattooed veteran, the team’s best scorer and its dominating personality. Who can forget how Monta responded to Curry’s arrival, insisting the two could not thrive while sharing the backcourt?
That was the cool greeting into which Steph walked. And once he got on the court, he quickly realized Monta was more effective playing with the ball than off it, which meant Steph would have to adjust and share the rock a lot more than a point guard is expected to.
But if you took note of those games when Ellis did not play, for one reason or another, you realized Curry seemed particularly energized and certainly was more assertive. His numbers improved, virtually across the board. He was a decent point guard alongside Monta, but flashes of brilliance would appear whenever Steph was in charge.
Well, now, Steph is in charge.
And, presuming good health, he’ll soon have around him a better team.
The Warriors’ core this week evolved from Ellis and Curry and forward David Lee, to Curry and Lee and 7-foot center Andrew Bogut. Rookie Klay Thompson was drafted in June to be the heir apparent to Ellis, and that plan is being accelerated. Veteran wing Richard Jefferson, acquired Thursday, likely will slide into the starting lineup.
It’s a considerably bigger team – averaging 6-9, 235 across the front line and 6-5 in the backcourt – and, equally germane to the offensive potential, a quintet of good and willing passers. There will be few concessions to, and almost no need for, the kind of half-court isolation that allowed Ellis to be such a productive freelance scorer.
“Steph’s got a lot of pieces,” Thompson said, referring particularly to the skills of Bogut and Lee. “Steph’s a (very good) passer, and I don’t need the ball in my hands; I can spot up. Teams have to play us honest.
“We’ll have one of the best-shooting backcourts in the league next year.”
Next year. That’s the rub, and the phrase many Warriors fans don’t want to hear. After so many empty seasons in Oakland, another round of “next year” talk always feels so, well, hollow.
Then, too, many of them are not ready to buy into Curry as the leader. Some think he’s “soft.” Some don’t trust his troublesome ankles, a concern that frankly is valid. A few simply don’t think he is dynamic enough to provide the goods needed to transform the Warriors into a winning team.
Such dissent, however, is best ignored. This season is gone, and it wasn’t going very far anyway. These final weeks are about education and evaluation of what’s left on the roster.
As for Curry, the brain trust in the next day or two will decide a direction. The Warriors know it would be prudent, for his own recovery, to sit him. It also would improve the slim chance they will be awful enough to finish in the league’s bottom seven, which would allow them to keep their lottery-protected pick in the 2012 draft.
The team’s shot-callers believe Curry is their new leader. They’re right. And they don’t need to evaluate him when there is so much more to lose than there is to gain.
