Posted on Tue, Aug. 19, 2003 NEIL HAYES: TIMES COLUMNIST Warriors' timing is off by a year Warriors special assistant Chris Mullin apparently met with Nick Van Exel last week. (Gregory Urquiaga/Contra Costa Times file 2000) THE ANTICIPATION builds for the press conference. Watching Warriors officials put a positive spin on their flawed logic is what passes for NBA entertainment in the Bay Area these days. Not that there's anything wrong with the nine-player trade that sent Antawn Jamison and three teammates to Dallas in return for point guard Nick Van Exel and assorted other Mavericks. It will be virtually impossible for team officials to sell this to an increasingly skeptical public, even if the move makes sense on several levels. The Warriors got out from under Jamison's bloated contract. They freed up minutes that should help Mike Dunleavy emerge. It's not the deal itself that should draw the ire of long-suffering Warriors fans. It's the timing. This isn't a terrible trade. Moving Jamison became inevitable when general manager Garry St. Jean made the mistake of signing him to a six-year extension for the maximum allowable salary in 2001. It's the timing that baffles. You don't make this trade now. You make it next year. If it was cap space they wanted why not wait until after the season to move Jamison? It's not like they will be able to sign any big-name free agents this late in the free-agent signing period. The Warriors have been talking about their young nucleus for the past several years. In less than a month they have watched Gilbert Arenas sign with the Washington Wizards. Now Jamison is gone. It makes the message they have been sending to fans seem like nothing more than a marketing ploy or, even worse, a bald-faced lie. There's no reason to run up the white flag one month before the season even begins, which is essentially what the Warriors have done. They now have the flexibility to sign a free agent next year, but what about this season? This could have easily been avoided. The Charlotte Bobcats will join the league in 2004. An expansion draft will be held next June. If they would've made Jamison available in the expansion draft the Bobcats would have taken him. How could they not? He went to high school in Charlotte. Jamison is one of seven former University of North Carolina players to have his retired number hanging from the rafters at Dean Smith Center. He was the National Player of the Year after the 1998 season and remains a beloved figure in his home state. He's handsome, articulate, well-mannered and stays involved in various charities. He would be the ideal ambassador for North Carolina's expansion team. The best part is, he would be off the Warriors' payroll before the 2004 free-agent signing period began. They would still have the flexibility to sign a free agent while keeping their current team together for another year. In so doing, they wouldn't have to operate under the perception that a team that can't score just lost its only scorer, that a bad team is spending the offseason making itself even worse. The criticism stings, no doubt, because it rings true. Even if the Warriors would've re-signed Arenas, kept Jamison and added Van Excel they would've found themselves fighting for the eighth and final playoff spot in the top-heavy Western Conference. Without Arenas and Jamison they will still make that their goal. Perception is important when you haven't sniffed the playoffs for nearly a decade. Credibility is difficult to maintain in the absence of any type of tangible success. The Warriors want to sign a big-name free agent. It's no secret that team president Robert Rowell is infatuated with Yao Ming. He sees dollar signs when he thinks about the popular Chinese center playing in the Bay Area, which has a large Asian population. Never mind that Yao won't be a restricted free agent until after the 2005-2006 season, by which point the Warriors will have been staring at 11 straight years without a playoff appearance. Why would the Houston Rockets let their budding superstar go? Even if they did, why on earth would Yao Ming want to play for the Golden State Warriors? If team officials couldn't convince Arenas to stay why do they think they can get Yao Ming to come? It's not a scenario that inspires confidence. Then again, the Warriors never do. Stay tuned for the press conference, where you can expect someone to stare earnestly into the cameras and explain how lucky you are that the team's future is in their hands. Unfortunately, that's about as entertaining as this team gets.
