WW.NET:  Will the Warriors make the Playoffs? Which teams would be a good matchup for the Warriors in the 1st round and which would pose the toughest challenge?

TK:  Yeah, I think the Warriors will make it and, as I've mentioned in many places, I seem to have been much more convinced of this far earlier than Nelson and Mullin ever were this season. Which is weird, but oh well. They seem a lot more confident of their spot these days. 

You know, I haven't thought much of Denver all season... and now the Nuggets are sinking a bit. I've been thinking 7th seed for the Warriors for a little while--maybe a tie with Phoenix for 7/8 and the Warriors get the tie-breaker if they beat Phoenix in any of their final two meetings.

Problem for the Warriors heading into the playoffs: Their worst match-ups all are at the top of the conference (San Antonio, Utah, Lakers) and among the top teams, only Houston looks like a good Warriors first-round draw. You know, I actually think Houston is a tougher draw for the Warriors without Yao than they were with him, which goes contrary to normal GSW thinking--can't beat the great bigs--but there ya go.

If I'm the Warriors, I'd love to see Phoenix, Dallas or New Orleans in the first round... I know things are volatile in the West, but I just don't see any of those three teams jumping up to 2 or 3 and I don't see the Warriors getting any higher than 7, assuming Dallas steadies the ship with all those home games down the stretch. So Houston is the best draw, possibly, and the Warriors just have to hope the Rockets cool down by then.

I'd be most curious with a San Antonio-GSW draw--the Spurs never win back-to-back or even get to the conference finals the year after a title. I think Duncan wears down over two long playoff campaigns. I don't think the Warriors would win that potential first-round meeting, but it might be better than expected.

I think the Lakers would be a killer match-up. Just killer, in a bad way, for the Warriors. Why? K-o-b-e.

WW.NET:  Who do you envision the Warriors targeting this offseason via trade, free agency etc..and Will Baron Davis stay?  If Baron Opts out, would Gilbert Arenas be an option?

TK:  If Baron opts-out, I think many things--maybe all things--are possible, but I don't expect him to opt-out and I don't expect the Warriors to want him to opt-out, either. They're both sort of stuck with each other, now that we know Don Nelson is likely to be back, which is good for the Warriors. Baron's probably not going to get 5 and $90M from anybody, including the Warriors. The Warriors aren't getting a better player than BD, especially not for one year, $17M. I think they'd keep Baron over any thought of Gilbert.

So I think they go one more year together, with Mullin telling Baron that if he keeps it straight, there'll be 3 and 45 or 4 and 60 coming on the back end of 2009.

But Mullin is never satisfied with status quo, so if he knows he has Baron for another year, I think he'll be shopping for a youngish veteran big man and my guy, as I've written, is Elton Brand. Don't know if he'll opt-out. Don't know how healthy he is. Don't know if the Warriors can get him in a sign-and-trade (since that's almost certainly how a deal would have to go for Brand.)

Still, how many big guys can bang and still play Nellie's system? I've listed them before: KG, Boozer, Stoudemire, possibly Dwight Howard, Bosh, Duncan... And then... Brand is the next guy. Maybe the only guy left. I think the Warriors will take a look at Brand. Who knows what the Clippers will do and what Brand thinks of what the Clippers are doing, but if you're asking me, how do the Warriors improve over Brandan Wright, if they feel they have to? It's Brand.

WW.NET:  What’s the future looking like for Nellie? Is he grooming Smart to take over much like he did with Avery Johnson in Dallas?

TK:  OK, you asked me that before Nelson's option was picked up and before Nellie said that's nice, now let me think about it a while. I think Nellie will ask for a bonus clause here or there, but I think he'll be back next season. I think this is too perfect a situation for him to walk away from, assuming Baron comes back, and I am assuming that.

Will Nellie groom anybody? Well, I'm not so sure he was too thrilled about the Avery grooming situation and I don't think Don's ever going to be put in quite that situation again. He didn't like getting shoved aside by Cuban when Cuban thought the team was ready to win a title and he sure didn't like Avery getting the credit for taking Dallas to the finals. HATED THAT. 

Smart probably will be the guy eventually, but it won't be Don training him. It'll be Keith learning from Don, watching Don, watching Don's interaction... but not as a pupil/mentor. Just as an assistant and a main man.

WW.NET:  Gasol to the Lakers, Shaq to the Suns, Kidd to Dallas, C-Webb to GS, which is/will turn out to be the best move and which is the worst move?

TK:  Webber to the Warriors? When did that happen? I keep checking those box scores and I don't see him... No, I kid. I kid! Obviously, I wasn't a fan of the Webber signing at the time and I have remained steadfastly confused by that move. Wright was better than Webber two months ago, he's better now and Webber might not ever suit up for the Warriors again, pending his knee soreness.

So no Webber in this conversation--he was an imaginary move... Don's imagination.

Gasol clearly was the Prime Move. He fits the Triangle, complements Kobe and he's young enough to be good for a while. I didn't care for the Kidd move--Dallas is a set-piece team and Kidd isn't a set-piece player... But he could help in the playoffs, we'll see.

I thought the Shaq trade was a give-up by Phoenix. Just a flat give-up. OK, that was a nice win over San Antonio the other day and Shaq looked good. But Phoenix was special because they ran and everybody scattered and Marion guarded the toughest guys and Nash found the holes. Shaq sort of plugs up the avenues for Nash, doesn't run and doesn't play defense unless it's against Duncan.

WW.NET:  Your Talking Points Blog is one of the most active and read blogs in the Bay Area sports community, what do you like/dislike about being able to blog?  Do you prefer it to the more conventional/traditional print media?

TK:  This blog stuff is new for all of us in the newspaper business, but I do like it. No way I'd spend as much time doing it if I didn't like it and see that it's the future. Or really: It's the now. I figured I'd like writing faster and edgier because I do write fast and I do write edgily most of the time. I had no idea that the Warriors would be such a driving force for the Talking Points blog, but it has just fit perfectly: The audience is out there, the games are nicely scheduled for persistent posting, the players are interesting, trade talk is entertaining... It just happened. I have no complaints about that at all.

Hey, I was at Warriors practice today when they announced Nelson's option and I thought, Dang, I don't have my laptop, I won't be able to blog for a few hours! I'm going to be way late on this for the rabid Warriors fan that may or may not be checking my site to see updates. That's a new feeling. Didn't feel good or bad, just felt different.

I love the energy of the blog world. I love the back and forth, as anybody who reads my site can tell. Sports is the Great Debate--everybody take a side, let's argue.

The louder and angrier the response... then I know I must've hit the right nerve and maybe the debate opens up more interesting discussion points. Maybe not. But it's worth the effort. Obviously, it can get ugly on blogs very quickly. But I have thick skin. I'm tossing stuff out there based on things I know, have seen, have heard or have analyzed, so I'm comfortable with anything I say. I've got a pretty good track record. I'll admit it if I read or said something incorrectly. And I can take whatever happens after that. (Not that I have a choice!)

WW.NET:  You state and reference a lot of stats in your blogs  which websites or blogs do you visit on a daily basis and feel like do a good job of covering their preferred topic or subject?

TK:  I look at a lot of sites... and I know this sounds like the olden times, but I actually use reference books, too. Is there a day I don't grab my NBA Register or NBA Guide? Not many of them, I'll tell you that.

For NBA stuff, I'm all over the Lenovo +/- stat that NBA.com provides... it's in the NBA.com boxscores now. I've always been intrigued by that stat dating back to watching the Warriors always fall behind when Murphy was in the game then rally back when he was out, yet Musselman and Montgomery kept loyally putting him right back. I used to do my own +/- for Murphy and it was never good.

Then I asked Nelson what he thought about it and he told me it's one of the key things they look at. Wham, I was sold on the stat and you can tell because I use it a ton. I just like things that tell us about things other than pts, rebs, assts, FG%--they're all offensive stats. For me, +/- can be random in a single game (when you follow it play by play, it's amazing how much one three-pointer changes everybody's +/- for the game), but man, if you're piling up -10s every night, I don't care what you're scoring, you must be failing your team somehow.

82games.com is another site I like, and again, it's for defensive insight, mostly. You've got to get into the deeper sites to get anything that sheds light on defense. John Hollinger is a great guy and a wonderful thinker, but I've told him and I've written that most of his stats don't take defense into account, and that's how he got Ike Diogu as the key ingredient in the mega-Indy trade. Oops! The best players play offense AND defense, not just one or the other. I don't see too many people saying that. I do.

I also do a lot of my own computing, which brings major error potential into play but hey, I always try to explain that from the outset. I'm no Hollinger or Rob Neyer (for baseball), but I've always been interested in collating statistics in a meaningful way--reading Bill James did that to me. Stats can be mis-used, probably often by me, but I think the right stats in the right perspective... they tell you almost everything that dumb analysts miss.

If I had some imaginary goal for what I'm doing.. it'd be a hybrid between the normal newspaper columnist, the Hollinger/Neyer/James stats-analysis guys and the best bloggers. Probably impossible to do. But can't stop me from flailing attempts at it .

Thanks to Tim Kawakami for spending some time with WW.NET.