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Mullin on the Warriors' 0-6 slide, contract pressures, Brandan Wright, the J-Rich absence and new expectations

Was working on a Warriors column yesterday, then that Barry Bonds little afternoon headline just blew everything up and it was Bonds-Bonds-Bonds/not 0-6 Warriors.

Yeah, only about the 355th time Bonds has done that to all of us, so we’re used to it. Anyway, I’ve still got a whole suitcase full of winless Warriors stuff, mostly from a talk with Exec VP Chris Mullin–why not stick it on this blog? Of course!

(Stapled a Baron Davis Q & A from yesterday at the bottom.)

I asked Mullin if he thought the huge abundance of approaching Warriors free agents–including Davis, Matt Barnes, Andris Biedrins, Mickael Pietrus, Kelenna Azubuike and Monta Ellis (and Don Nelson, too)–might be having an effect on this team’s mood and general nervousness as the losses accumulate.

“Could there be a little hangover from that? Could be,” Mullin said. “I’ll take full responsibility for all of that. For the way we’ve gotten off to a slow start, could be all those things (Mullin had mentioned several other issues earlier in our conversation, from missing free throws to Stephen Jackson’s absence). And you chip away at each one, little bit here, little bit there…

“A few years ago and last year, we had them all locked up, and it was, ‘Oh man, what are they going to do now?’ That turned out pretty good. Now we’ve got them all coming up, and it’s, ‘They’re all free agents.’ Maybe this is good, too. We’ll see.

“Does it creep into their minds? Sure it does. Can’t control that. At 3-3, does it creep in less? Maybe. If we won last night, would it lessen? Probably. But that’s dealing with day to day things. Becomes part of your job, too–that is part of your job, mine and theirs.

“I will take full responsibility for that. But I also will say, I need guys here that can deal with that. It’s like losing–I need guys who can deal with losing, that can handle that and see through it.”

I asked Mullin if he agreed with Nelson, that maybe the 20-game mark would be a decent measuring stick–by then, maybe they’ll know if they’re realistically still a competitive team or not.

Mullin, for his part, suggested 20 games after Jackson’s return, or more, would be a better indicator, but added that he’s always evaluating the team and, knowing his fast trigger, I can say that you never know when he might do something.

(At this point, I must add that Mullin insisted many times last year that he wouldn’t trade Jason Richardson. Then he did. Hey, things change. We all understand that.)

I asked Mullin if things continue badly, could he foresee shaking things up with a major roster overhaul, just like he did last January?

“That’s a possibility,” Mullin said. “The other thing is, that’s already been put out there–the reason we left a lot of options open was for that reason. Give it a good hard look.”

So, even if he’s not planning major changes, given all these free agents, the team could look very different next year, no matter what, right?

“Sometimes, that’s not a bad thing, you know?” Mullin said. “Or you have the ability to maintain; that’s a good thing, too.”

–Quick Baron add-in. At the end of his media session yesterday, I asked Davis if he thought the contract situations were in any way affecting the team.

“No.” Silence.

Nobody on this team is affected by it?

“No.” Long look, not-unpleasant look back at me. More silence.

You’ve never seen that happen on a team?

“I don’t know.” A smile, because Baron sometimes likes doing this to me/interviewers. Then finally: “No.”

Back to Mullin… I asked specifically if Mullin planned to use the $10-million trade exception acquired last June in the Jason Richardson trade–and which expires this June.

“For the right guy we would,” Mullin said. “Not just to use it. We’ve had some conversations about it. Got to make sense for us you know. A lot of people have things that would make sense for them. Now, they call you, and it’d really make sense for them. Not so much for us,though.”

I was trying to ask if this situation was like the last year’s in January, when he made the big Indiana deal, but Mullin heard the words “last year” and jumped right in with something else, just as interesting.

“I never compare. I really don’t. I’m so done with hearing about last year,” Mullin said. “I was done hearing about last year day after the season, but now I’m really done hearing about it.

“But you asked about last year compared to this year? In spurts, yeah. We’ve played well in spurts and spurts gets you nothing.”

I asked if, in some way, this tough start was a mini-reflection of the Richardson trade. Obviously, I supported the trade when it happened, before it happened, and I support it now. But…

“If you compare, he wasn’t there at the beginning of last year, either,” Mullin said of Richardson. “I would say numbers-wise, we’re doing OK filling in there, very admirably, really.

“But again, sometimes… you’re 0-6, a lot of things become magnified. At 2-4 we wouldn’t be feeling too good either, but better than 0-6.

“Last year, we had a losing streak, right? Middle of the season, that felt pretty funky, I know that. When you go through it, no matter when it is, it doesn’t feel too good.”

Later I remembered that last year’s longest streak was six games, which I think Mullin knew when he saying this yesterday. It was in late-Feb/early-March, when the Warriors were 26-29, then lost six in a row, caused Nelson to throw up his hands, and the Warriors proceeded to begin the blistering run into the playoffs from that moment on.

“A big thing for me is how you handle this, how you go about remembering, this is what we’re doing,” Mullin said. “It’s not blaming and all that. Kind of gripping to it–this is what our performance has led to up to this point, let’s make sure we change it.”

On the day the Warriors clinched the playoff spot last season, Mullin said he didn’t want to do it that way again–he wanted to make the playoffs as a comfortable middle seed, at the worst.

He has repeated that several times since then. I asked yesterday: Doesn’t 0-6 basically mean that, at best, you’re going to be racing to the finish line as a No. 8 (again: at best) this season?

“Well, not necessarily–we were going to lose six games at some point, right?” Mullin said. “Obviously when you get behind like this, I think you want to play with urgency. But not emegency or panic.

“You’ve still got to focus, that’s my main thing. I thought our effort, definitely in three or four games was enough to win. Could’ve won those games, but 0-6 is the bottom line.”

OK, because it’s me, I had to ask Mullin about the young players–would he like to see Brandan Wright (cameos so far) and Marco Belinelli (even less) get more time?

Mullin said he’d never want to force rookies in there just to get them in there, and pointed out that Belinelli, while interesting and talented, is behind several of the Warriors’ best players, and once Jackson and Mickael Pietrus come back, it’ll be even deeper at the wing spot.

Brandan Wright, however, is a potentially very different matter.

To me, it sounds like both Nelson and Mullin see the return of Jackson as ultra-important to Brandan Wright’s development and playing time–Wright is raw and needs two play-makers on the floor with him to make sure he doesn’t try to or need to do too much.

Baron is one play-maker, obviously. That’s the only one the Warriors have right now. Once Jackson is back, look to see Brandan Wright on the floor with Jackson.

“If you had to pick a guy that you’re lacking, it’d probably be (Brandan Wright)–athleticism, can play without the ball, get the ball just because he’s longer,” Mullin said. “We don’t see guys around here getting to balls like that.

“Does that impact the game? It could. At end of a game? Maybe. In the right situation, he could… I don’t think we’re at that point at all., though.”

—To the Davis Q & A, minus the No-no-no moment….

-Question: How do you approach 0-6? Is there any way you can feel OK about it?

DAVIS: It’s not OK. Losing never feels good. It only builds frustration. But considering our circumstances and our situation, you’ve got to keep a positive attitude because we’re playing under-manned.

The way we’re playing, our record shouldn’t be 0-6. We shouldn’t be 0-6. I don’t know what to think at this point. Just got to keep playing hard.

-Question: Do you think fatigue is a factor–the rotation is very short right now.

DAVIS: I ain’t one to make excuses. We just have to find a way to win. We have to play better and we have to play consistent for 48 minutes. Including myself. I’m out there, got to be as consistent as possible and finish games off.

We had a great opportunity to get that last one as well and allowed a good team to come back and close the gap. We have to play better.

We just have to keep our heads. We have to have a little bit more fight in us.

-Question: Since you’re playing so much, are you having/trying to conserve energy even early in the games?

DAVIS: I think I do a pretty good job in the time that I’m playing. Just got to pick your spots throughout the flow of the game, when to be super-aggressive and when to let the offense run through you.

-Question: Would you be more effective if you played 30 to 35 minutes?

DAVIS: Absolutely. I think the less minutes you play, the harder you go. When I was a rookie and I was getting only 17 minutes game, I complained that I wanted more minutes. Now that I’m playing 45 minutes, I can’t really… I like playing. I like being on the floor. You’ve just got to pick and choose your spots.

-Question: The goal this year was to avoid a race to just get into the playoffs. Does 0-6 pretty much guarantee that, at best, you’re going to be racing to try to get the 8th spot again?

DAVIS: It’s going to be a race, anyway. We expect that. It’s not going to be easy.

Evaluate ourselves after the first 10 games. We’re 0-6 right now without Jack. And Pietrus, pretty much. Nobody ever talks about us missing Mickael. But that plays a factor. That’s another man, another body, another active body that we could use—his points, his rebounding and his energy.

I think the first 10 games after we get those two guys back on the roster and playing, then we could see where we are.