[h2]Warriors Big-Picture Fail: Cohan, it's all Cohan[/h2]
Posted by
Tim Kawakami on August 30th, 2009 at 11:39 am | Categorized as
NBA,
Warriors
Writing a column on the Stephen Jackson trade request for tomorrow's paper, just looking up stuff, and am, as always, reminded that there is an undeniable root connection to every bit of the Warriors' prolonged badness/chaos/scaredy-cat syndrome.
-One common thing:
Chris Cohan. Owner for 15 seasons, 14 of them finishing without a playoff berth.
(
Will this prod Cohan to sell, at last? I don't know. He should sell. He's a failure. But he's also stubborn. He's looking at sellers, but he wants a premium price. Yet it's his own mis-management that has made sure the Warriors aren't worth a premium price. Larry Ellison should pay $400M for a team Cohan has turned into a $300M team, just because it SHOULD be worth $400M? Don't see that happening…
Ellison isn't as stupid a negotiator as… well, say, as Rowell.)
He's the one who hired Robert Rowell near the beginning of the Cohan Era, kept promoting him, and now has installed him as the No. 1 executive above all others.
He's the one who has hidden down deep underground for years, stewing in paranoia and fear of the rest of the outside world. (Rowell is a perfect instigator for the paranoia and fear, believe me.)
Cohan is the one who has set the tone of management thinking: All politics, PR shadowplay, strange agendas out to protect Cohan at every moment, even if it has to kill parts of itself along the way.
Cohan is the one who has overseen the departures of Jason Richardson, Baron Davis, Al Harrington, Chris Mullin, Mickael Pietrus, Jamal Crawford, Marco Belinelli and presumbly Jackson, Monta Ellis and anybody else who is ever any good in a Warriors uniform.
Cohan is the one who let Rowell be suckered into giving SJax that three-year extension last year, with the hope and promise that SJax would become management's best pal because of it. Oops, the extension won't kick in for another year and already SJax is off the reservation.
Rowell's fault. Mostly Cohan's fault, though, because he's the owner and the man who is letting Rowell be Rowell.
You are who you're owned by. You just are.
In that vein, I stumbled across these few paragraphs that I forgot I wrote (SIX YEARS AGO), but seem rather time-tested at this point about Cohan's futility and lack of credibility.
This is how I started a column in July 2003, right after Gilbert Arenas spurned the Warriors' last-ditch efforts and signed with Washington…
If there was ever a moment that demanded that Warriors owner Chris Cohan bust out of his self-defeating, self-imposed seclusion, it was Tuesday.
And still Cohan did not emerge from wherever he hides or resides.
If there ever was a time for Cohan to step forward, it was to answer Gilbert Arenas' stream-of-consciousness claim Monday on KNBR that he would've taken the Warriors' $4.9 million salary and rebuffed Washington's six-year, $65 million deal if only he could've found a way to trust Cohan.
And still no Cohan, no answers, no leadership, no direction. Same Warriors, hurtling aimlessly forward, now minus a star…
