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Stephen Jackson saga hits entertaining new low for Warriors
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Captain Jack has dropped the ball. (AP Photo/George Nikitin)
The Golden State Warriors’ traveling circus arrived home Tuesday, marking the end of an eventful six-day road trip.
The trip should have been a quick preseason jaunt through California, but Stephen Jackson used the time away from home to ramp up his efforts to escape from Oakland.
In just six short days on the road, Jackson managed to:
- Rack up five fouls and a technical in ten minutes against the Lakers Friday night;
- Argue with coach Don Nelson upon returning to the bench, which got Jackson banished to the locker room;
- Incur a two-game suspension (worth $139,000 in salary) in the wake of said banishment;
- Voluntarily cede his captaincy in Tuesday’s follow-up meeting with Nelson.
Even for Stephen Jackson, that’s a lot for one week.
The fact that Jackson isn’t even in mid-season pouting form yet has to concern Nelson, who will need his forward for another few months if he’s going to break the all-time win record and quit on the team by February.
Jackson’s petulance is just the latest misadventure for the Warriors, who haven’t seemed to do anything right since their 2007 playoff run.
As great as it was for the fans, the success of the “We Believe” team may have been the worst thing that could have happened to the franchise. That wave of relative success appears to have convinced Chris Cohan and Robert Rowell that they know how to run an NBA franchise, in spite of thirteen years’ worth of evidence to the contrary.
Once Cohan empowered Rowell to begin making basketball decisions, it set off a domino effect the Warriors will take years to recover from. Rowell’s first move was to deny Baron Davis’ contract extension, which served the dual purpose of neutering general manager Chris Mullin.
The eventual departures of Mullin and Davis created a leadership void, which Rowell filled by extending Jackson and handing Nelson the keys to the team.
Unfortunately for the Warriors, Nelson and Jackson responded by shirking as many of their responsibilities as possible. Nelson stopped coaching defense altogether in the middle of last season, and now Jackson has decided he wants no part of leading a team.
Monta Ellis has hinted that he’s unhappy as well, and given the Warriors’ history in such matters, he’s sure to demand a trade of his own soon. Jackson is providing Ellis with a blueprint for how to escape town in a hurry, so this may not be the last of the ugliness this season.
Anthony Randolph and Stephen Curry now represent the future of this franchise, but they can’t be excited to inherit such a mantle. The Warriors may not even reach their season opener before Dell Curry shows up on TV with a bag of ransom money in front of him, yelling "Give me back my son”!
Though trade demands are nothing new in Oakland, the Warriors’ ability to come up with fresh takes on this same old storyline is quite an impressive feat.
When has a professional athlete ever given up his captaincy? For that matter, how many historically troubled athletes receive contract extensions two years early? Or get named captain in the first place?
These things only seem to happen in Golden State, where the fans can only sit back and watch the show at this point. Lucky for them, Jackson is still one of the best quotes in the league, which has at least kept this whole saga somewhat entertaining.
When asked about his relationship with Nelson in wake of the suspension, Jackson dropped this gem:
“Any time somebody takes $150,000 from me, of course it’s going to change. If my mom took some money from me, I’d still love her to death, but I’d still be upset about it. And he’s not my mom.”
The Warriors under Cohan are like an episode of “Cops”, a nonstop whirlwind of bad decisions where no comes away looking good, and only the luckiest of individuals have their identities hidden.
And just like “Cops”, the one redeeming aspect of watching the Warriors is walking away happy once it’s over, satisfied that there are people crazier than you in this world.
Unfortunately for Stephen Jackson, that’s a simple joy he may never know.
The Oakland Sports Examiner.
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