Anthony Randolph vs. Brandan Wright

Anthony Randolph vs. Brandan Wright

Reading through my regular Blogs/Sports Websites today, I came across something very misleading and thought it was worth a post (No Worries everyone, The preseason game 2 recap will be available tommorrow shortly after the game so stay tuned.)

Check out these two links and tell me what you think...

Straight from Matt Steinmetz blog at the Golden State Warriors Examiner:
http://www.examiner.com/x-441-Golden-State-Warriors-Examiner~y2008m10d7-Don-Nelson-says-that-Anthony-Randolph-is-ahead-of-Brandan-Wright-in-Warriors-rotation?cid=examiner-email

and the feature story over on the Golden State Warriors official website:
http://www.nba.com/warriors/news/belinelli_wright_feature_0808.html

Any contradictions? Well, don't blame the marketing team over there in Oakland. This is a case of plain old Nellie, be it for better or worse. While the Golden State Warriors are busy promoting how Bellinelli and Wright are ready to take bigger roles in their 2nd years, Steinmetz is quoting Nellie saying that Randolph is much further along than Wright, and that Wright needs to step up his game and show he can play. Furthermore, the evidence of Bellinelli taking a larger role was backed by the article, saying how he just led the team in scoring in the first game. Wright's evidence? "Wright, meanwhile, was aggressive all game, showing that he knows he needs to work hard to earn an expanded role. " ...hmmmm, not exactly inspiring is it?

Should we as Warriors fans have something to worry here about Brandan Wright? Maybe. Nelson pointed out that his toe has been bothering him, which must've been the reason he was held out of practice the day the media came to watch which I alluded to in a previous post. On the other hand, I just think it's harder for Wright to really stand out in training camp the way Randolph has because they're such different types of players. Brandan Wright let's the game come to him and his game consists of doing all the little things right, whereas Randolph is the opposite. If he let the game just come to him he'd probably be out of the league rather quickly. Randolph's strengths are with him creating offense with the ball in his hands, and using his extreme athletic ability for a 6'10'' power forward as a mismatch game in and game out.

Ultimately, I think we'll begin to see more as the season goes on. It's not training camp anymore and if Randolph continues to turn the ball over like he has in real games since he's been a Warrior, he'll find himself behind Wright in the rotation as long as Wright consistently does those little things right. Hopefully he gets more of an opportunity do so though, seeing as he played the fewer minutes than Demarcus Nelson in their openener. That'll have to change.