The Golden State Warriors have the 11th pick.  Their
net GM is:

  Russ Smith
 
With the 11th pick, the Warriors select:

  Todd Fuller, C, 6-11, North Carolina State
  
======================================================================

1) Team needs/History

The Warriors are just beginning a new regime with relatively new
ownership and a coach(Rick Adelman) and a GM (Dave Twardzik) beginning
their 2nd year with the organization. This year is the 50th of the
franchise and they will play in San Jose this year so it's a time of
change in a lot of ways. Gone is "god in a fishtie" and his devotion
to scoring over defense, in is Twardleman(as Dave and Rick are
affectionately known to Warrior fans) and their obsession with defense
and ball movment(the horror!).

This past season saw longtime Warriors Tim Hardaway and Chris Gatling
get traded away primarily in an effort to free up a salary slot and to
get Hardaway's negative attitude out of the equation.

A) Center

Ever since trading away a young Robert Parish, the team has been
searching for his replacement. Joe Barry Carroll was better than he's
given credit for, but the parade of lousy pivotmen continues with the
current black hole Rony Seikaly. Rumor is Seikaly will be sent to
Boston for Eric Montross in the offseason (a move sure to please
Matthew Merzbacher but few others in the Bay Area) so my assumption is
that Montross not Seikaly will be the Warrior center this year. Eric
is a tough hard nosed kid with limited skill and not much room to
improve. He's not a particularly great rebounder, doesn't block shots,
and is not nearly as cute as Seikaly, but at least he plays hard and
makes strong moves to the basket. He's also not the black hole Seikaly
is. Not a great player but certainly serviceable and he can use the
same barber Chris Mullin does. Backup Clifford Rozier will almost
certainly be gone too, he's upset over playing time but his poor work
ethic in practice didn't sit well with Twardleman so he earned his
bench time. It's likely that Andrew DeClercq, and not Rozier, will be
the backup C. Declercq is the prototypical hard worker who's never
going to be very good but won't kill you either. He runs the court and
does all the little things, but he's not much of a scorer and just
isn't big enough to be more than a spot backup who can play PF
too. Geeeeeeeeeeeeert Hammink has a spot on the roster for the sole
reason of pleasing Roy Navarre, and because they hope his special bond
with Shaq will persuade Alakazam to sign with the Warriors as a free
agent.


B) Power Forward

A misnomer on this team, Joe Smith was certainly the right choice for
the Warriors last year(despite my pleas for Stackhouse) but he's not a
true PF and I still think he'll eventually wind up at SF. However he
had a solid rookie year and his enthusiasm is a welcome sight. He can
make the open shots, is a solid offensive rebounder, and blocks shots,
but he has to get stronger, rebound better on the defensive glass, and
work on his defense. This past year the club had to carry vet Jerome
Kersey at SF so he could guard PF's and let Joe guard the SF's. Kevin
Willis was both a backup C and PF for the Warriors but all signs point
to him being let go as a free agent so the Warriors can sign someone
younger who cares about winning. Donyell Marshall saw time at PF last
year and actually did ok there, but he continues to be a major salary
drain and a colossal bust who had better show up in shape for camp
this year.

C) Small Forward

Jerome Kersey got the starting job primarily so he could guard PF's
and give Joe Smith a break, veteran Chris Mullin came off the bench as
the 6th man with minutes from Donyell Marshall added in
occasionally. Kersey is old and not very good, Mullin is old and after
all his injuries is not capable of returning to a full-time role
IMHO. Mullin willingly became the 6th man last year and is a solid
part of this franchise but the club would probably love to trade him
if they thought they could. This is a real weakness longterm for the
club unless like me you believe the SF of the future is Joe Smith.

D) Shooting Guard

Assuming they do resign Latrell Sprewell, the club's ok here. Spree
came back from his disenchanted dog it year and had a very solid
season last year. Still not a good shooter,but he plays great defense
and does a lot of other things that help the club. Spree says he wants
to stay and that is good for the franchise. Jon Barry is apparently
going to leave, he did a nice job in limited minutes but he believes
he can get more minutes and more money elsewhere(I disagree). BJ
Armstrong can also give minutes here, but the team will probably look
to pick up another player in the draft or from the CBA to back up
Sprewell. In retrospect letting Tim Legler go was a mistake but then
the Warriors made lots of those in recent years.


E) Point guard

With the trade of Tim Hardaway, BJ Armstrong became the full-time
PG(he had already replaced Tim as a starter prior to the trade) and
did about what Twardleman had hoped, defended, hit the open man and
made open jumpers. He's never going to bring you out of your seat like
Timmy did, but he's a solid player. Backup Bimbo Coles is a hard nosed
defender, plays smart, but can't shoot and thus has definite
limits. The club chose to trade 2 players and 3 2nd round picks for BJ
last year rather than draft Tyus Edney in the 2nd round, IMHO this was
a mistake they'll regret for awhile. Not that Edney is a superstar in
the making, but I think alot of the Hardaway mess could have been
avoided had they picked Edney, instead of acquiring BJ and then trying
to convince Timmy they wanted a 3 guard rotation. Edney would have
been more willing to come off the bench and allow Twardleman to decide
if Timmy fit their future plans or not.


****************************

Basically the Warriors are making the transition from the Nelson era
and it's reulted in lots of growing pains, you just can't take guys
who are primarily offensive players and say "play good defense and
share the ball". Lots of these guys can't do that and Twardleman has
to filter those players out.  Gatling was just asking for more money
than they felt he was worth, too bad because he would have been a nice
fit for this team. At this point my personal opinion is the Warriors
are only 3 starters away from having a decent team, all they need is a
C , a PG and either a SF or a PF, of course in the NBA that's a lot to
need.


II. Your selection

Todd Fuller C North Carolina State: Fuller is getting a big push
from Warrior fans since Rony Seikaly asked to be traded. Assuming
Montross comes in trade, Fuller will provide a solid backup C and can
play PF should the Warriors decide to field an all ACC frontline of
Montross/Fuller/Joe Smith. Todd lacks quickness and isn't a big
shotblocker but he can play offense and is a hard worker who went from
nothing to a quality player in 4 years at NC State.

III.Others considered

Given the team will play in San Jose, the obvious pick is UCLA 6'6" SG
Kevin Dempsey who's from San Jose and will provide the team outside
shooting, passing and the intangibles that led UCLA to the National
Title his junior year .....just kidding!


I looked at several players none of whom fit the bill, Walter McCarty
has the size and tools to be a good player but he's too skinny and
with Joe Smith at one forward you can't take put a skinny guy next to
him. Samaki Walker has the tools but he's had a lot of problems with
coaches and teammates. None of the European guys were familiar to me,
I passed on them all because most European players can't play quality
NBA defense and that's what Adelman is stressing. I considered taking
Steve Nash and then offering one of our 3 PG's to Sacramento for
Michael Smith, but 11 is too high for Nash.


IV. Who the team will probably take

Twardleman originally announced that they would either trade the pick,
or take the player with the most trade value, but reality has set
in. Recently Twardzik announed he now has determined there's little
interest in dealing for a pick in our area because of the depth of the
draft(duh) and teams figure they can get a similar player several
slots lower, so why trade?  My guess is the team's going to look for
another forward who can play both slots, someone like Antoine Walker,
maybe Samaki Walker, Walter McCarty or try to pick up a young big guy
who might develop like Roy Rogers or Lorenzen Wright(don't look for
Jermaine O'Neal given Twardzik's dislike of really young guys). Todd
Fuller's name has come up a lot too.


V. Other moves that the team should make

Obviously much of this is based on the assumption they will trade for
Montross. If that doesn't happen they need to either get rid of
Seikaly or acquire a tougher defender to help him inside since Joe
Smith just isn't big enough to keep people off of Seikaly. They should
resign Sprewell and I'd like to see them acquire help with the salary
slot from Kevin Willis but I don't think they'll be able to afford
pursuing a top of the line C there so it's not a major move to be
made. Basically the team just needs to continue to acquire guys who
can play the defensive style that Adelman wants. They also have to
make a decision about Mullin, keeping him around keeps Marshall buried
and they really have to give Donyell more minutes so that he can
either prove he can play, or prove he can't play, right now we all
suspect he can't play and that makes him untradeable.