By: Sherwood Strauss

‘Somebody other than Monta has to do something!!!’

I’ve heard Fitz screech this about as often as I’ve heard him complain, ‘It’s just one of those quarters for the Warriors!’  Oh Fitzy, your at times homer laments are what get me through these tough Tolliver times.  He’s not totally wrong (just watched Monta drop 46 in a losing effort), but the passion in this refrain strikes an odd chord.  The whole Monta Ellis anointment process seems to spring from some kind of alien culture I can’t relate to.

People are sick of talking about the mo-ped incident, but we need to acknowledge its upshot: Ellis can’t be a part of the future. Can’t. Just can’t.

It’s not because his conduct betrayed the fans.  I’ve honestly never heard a more ridiculous trope.  He’s an athlete, not a politician.  Are we really angry at this guy (I say ‘at,’ not ‘with,’ because fan anger is a one way street) for lying to Club Cohan? Please.

Ellis can ‘put it behind him,’ but the three million dollar fine made chasms irreconcilable.  The degree difference between a 25K wrist slap and a three million buck repo is so vast that it’s a difference in kind.  And a different kind of penalty prompts a different kind of result  Monta will never get over this. Never, ever, ever. I’m not trying to do that sportswriter cliché of reading an athlete’s mind and I’m not trying to imitate Kawakami.  Teams just don’t fine stars that much. It doesn’t work that way in the NBA, and you have to believe such an action leaves a wound that only Larry Ellison can heal.

Instead of voiding the whole contract (difficult to do with the players union and all), giving him a wrist slap penalty, or supporting Ellis through the process, the W’s did just enough to permanently poison the locker room  drinking fountain. Three million sends an earsplitting ‘you aren’t our guy anymore’ message.  Which is fine…if he’s no longer your guy.

Fans get into that ‘he deserved it,’ meme, but it’s not even germane to the discussion. Who cares if Monta deserved the fine, or that it teaches him some grand Bobby Rowell lesson? The team isn’t raising a child; they’re trying to win games (supposedly). When Vlad Rad snowboarded his way out of 500K, he deserved it.  If Pau had slipped down the slope, the Lakers would have spent 500K getting Gasol a second, third and fourth medical trainer. Maybe they would have had an extra grand for a better beard trimmer, and maybe they wouldn’t have. But you get my point.

If the Warriors felt Ellis would return to form, what were they trying to accomplish with this action?  Were they trying to curb Monta’s cyclism? And does Monta’s transgression even matter when every Warriors player goes down with an ankle injury like they’re all on a staggered vacation schedule? But I hella digress.

Teams take care of their stars, unless the star is no longer wanted (see: Gilbert Arenas).  If the Warriors didn’t want Ellis, it would have made sense to gash him like that. Maybe they don’t want him. Maybe they were trying to hedge on the ankle and screwed up. Damn, it’s spilled milk—I’m digressing toward depressing again. I just can’t shake the past.  It’s in every scowl, glare, and lapsed rotation.

There’s just something strange in how they douse him in praise these days.  That constant CSN Ellis blather is enough to make you think he’s a jump-shooting unicorn.  It’s like watching someone brag about a spouse while you spy divorce papers on the coffee table.

And I do like his game. Few experiences are more thrilling than seeing Monta burn a D for a finger roll.  I love when he has it going and the crowd anticipation builds as Ellis bounces to the rhythm of his dribble (How easy will he make it look this time?).  This has not been an efficient year for No.8, but I could see greener pastures on the horizon.  Specifically, I could see him in Celtic green, wreaking holy hell alongside Rajon Rondo.  Sigh.

So, on a night where I watched Monta Ellis set a career high, I couldn’t shake the negativity. I hate dredging up the past, but its shadow has rendered pure Monta enjoyment impossible. For me, anyway. I hope you guys are doing better.

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By: Rick Blaine

For Warriors fans the months of January and February begin the long march to death. Not a traumatic, theatrical demise, but a slow, insipid decay.  You see, mid-winter marks the annual onset of apathy, a death all its own. Watching Warriors basketball becomes a struggle, and many just stop watching altogether, finding other diversions and developing other interests.

It’s been said that ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart.  For those who follow the Warriors, it is not the rending of time that euthanizes the fan in us, but the mundane reverberation of too many bad basketball games piled up recklessly like heaps of jalopies in a junkyard.

The pattern is all too familiar. The renewed hope of September gives way to cold reality in October, which devolves into disillusionment in November, and then to bitter frustration in December.  The ennui of winter ensues, spared only by the diversion of the Super Bowl and the NBA All Star Game. (It’s always sardonically interesting to see which former Warriors make it, and observe which current Warrior gets snubbed.)  Then in spring, while other teams’ fans are gearing up for the playoffs, Warriors fans look to a more distant future.  It comes in the form of ping pong balls.  The Warriors under owner Christopher J. Cohan make their annual springtime appearance to the NBA draft lottery with the preternatural regularity of the swallows of San Juan Capistrano returning to the mission.

This year, of course, is no different.  With a record of 13-34, third worst in the league, the Warriors are yet again certain to miss the playoffs. The quest for a high draft position has already begun. For those of us who are still somehow engaged, the only intrigue left is watching Stephen Curry develop and projecting how many ping pong balls the team can collect by losing games. Everything else is just window dressing on a dilapidated mansion.

Warriors fans, who have been among the best in the NBA, don’t deserve to this Sisyphean fate. Spirited and vivacious, they have filled the Oracle over the years, in spite of a product that is, to put it kindly, mediocre. But even the most loyal and true of fans have their limits.  Much of the fan base has finally lost interest, and many of those who still somehow remain engaged are boycotting the team with the hope that declining ticket revenues will encourage Chris Cohan to sell the team.  Make no mistake about it, a movement is under way.  This year, for the first time, numerous Web sites, such as fansvscohan.com have emerged urging Warriors followers to boycott games or to publicly shame the Warriors with signs or T-shirts that have an anti-Cohan message.  The now commonplace sight of empty seats at the Oracle might indicate that the movement is gaining traction. At the very least, it is a sign that fewer people in this economy are willing to invest their diminished disposable income on a bad product.

For Chris Cohan, there may not be a better time to sell this franchise. His reputed troubles with the IRS and the decline in season ticket sales could mean that Cohan will have cash flow issues soon if he doesn’t liquidate his investment.  With the economy still slumping and the Warriors once again deep in the tank, the outlook for 2010-2011 season ticket sales is even grimmer than last year at this time.  If he sells now, he can cash in his considerable gains. He paid $130 million for the team, and it is estimated to be worth over $300 million today.

Financial concerns aside, the now reclusive Cohan must also consider the battering that his reputation has taken over the years.  The list of ignominies is well known:  the 2000 All Star Game where he was booed at half time standing next to his son; the infamous 2002 Special Report in the Chronicle by Mark Fainaru-Wada in which Cohan was portrayed as a litigious and uncouth (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/10/SP74259.DTL); and the recent distinction by Sports Illustrated of his team being the worst NBA franchise of the decade (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/magazine/specials/2000s/12/03/nba.highlights.lowlights/index.html).  Imagine the emotional and mental toll that owning the Warriors has taken. Selling the team would bring tremendous relief to the embattled Cohan.

Enter Larry Ellison. The news that Ellison is trying to buy the Warriors has excited fans more than any other Warriors-related news item this year. Warriors fans, who are a passionate and contentious bunch, don’t often agree on what is best for their team, but there is consensus among them that the current ownership is the source of the team’s perpetual failure, and the only way for the Warriors to become relevant again is for Cohan to sell the team. Larry Ellison is no saint, and he has earned a reputation for being egotistical, flamboyant, ruthless, iconoclastic, and even unethical. Yet, if he were step up with an offer acceptable to Cohan, he would be instantly canonized by Warriors fans.  He is a visionary and a leader, whose “great strength,” according to David J. Roux, “is to make exceptional employees do the impossible.”  This is the kind of ownership fans want to see. They want a little more George Steinbrenner and lot less Donald Sterling; they want investment, not salary protection; they want championships, not “a great time out.”

Though Ellison has confirmed publicly that he would like buy the Warriors, Mitch Lawrence reported last weekend in a sidebar to his column in the New York Daily News that Cohan turned down an offer of $310 million for the team. (http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/2010/01/30/2010-01-30_wizards_gilbert_arenas_nba_contract.html) Sources indicated that Ellison’s offer came in $90 million short of what Cohan is asking.

Robert Rowell, who denied last summer that the team is for sale, recently told reporters, “At some point in time, the media speculation will become a reality. But right now, there’s not much to this [rumor of an offer by Ellison to buy the team].”  Rowell’s cryptic comments seem to hint that something may happen down the road. How far down is anybody’s guess.  But fans are watching this closely with the sense that Ellison’s pursuit of the Warriors will furnish their favorite team with its best shot at legitimacy.  Are their hopes ill founded?  Maybe, but probably not. The world’s fourth richest man has made an overture to an owner of a moribund enterprise who is in serious need of cash and an emotional rescue.  It would seem that given Ellison’s ego (he’s gone public with this, and he won’t lose face) and Cohan’s impending IRS troubles there is plenty of room for negotiation.

For Warriors fans on the verge of yet another bout of ennui, let’s hope that there is.