Last Golden State Warriors All Star Starter: Latrell Sprewell, Part 2 of 3 (Photo: via WineAndBowties.com)
The Year 1995 was to be the apex of Latrell Sprewell‘s career with the Golden State Warriors and the downfall of the organization.
Sprewell was on this way to being an All-Star starter by mid-season:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNK1TVE5oaA?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]But, as a team that had tantalized its rabid fanbase with championship aspirations, things fell apart before the season could barely get underway.
Just six games into the season with second year Chris Webber, holding out after one year removed from being acquired in a Don Nelson‘s Draft-day coup, the Warriors traded their young star to the Washington Wizards for a whole lot of nothing. Well, alright, Tom Gugliotta was having an “okay” year so far.
What had started out as an old-school-new school spat over style on the court, had left an un-mendable feud between tenured Coach Nellie and Webber.
Newly placed owner Chris Cohan, who’d wrestled away ownership from the successful duo of Jim Fitzgerald and Dan Finnane via the courts, sided with Nelson.
That didn’t last too long later as Cohan ousted Nelson and before Warrior fans could run their eyes, the team had been the organization had been gutted via their new inept owner. SportsIllustrated’s MIchael Silver wrote:
“Warrior fans, only four months removed from dreams of an NBA title, are still trying to figure out how they got taken for suckers. How were they left with no Webber, no Don Nelson and no excitement? Webber, traded to Washington on Nov. 17, and Nelson, forced out as Golden State’s coach and general manager last week, were the obvious scapegoats, but the Warriors’ naive new owner, 45-year-old Christopher Cohan, is the guy who deserves the bulk of the blame. Golden State’s demise has played out like a sick tragicomedy, and if you’re looking for a catchy title, Cohan the Barbarian will do.”
Though the Warriors had many wasted draft picks, and many inexcusable trades, as well as a myriad of less-than-stellar management decisions, the Webber debacle seemed to be the crescendo of troublesome Warrior moves.
It would place a a dark cloud on the organization for more than two decades as Bill Simmons wrote in his infamous, “How to Annoy a Fan Base in 60 Easy Steps.
“We can’t just casually skip over this Webber thing. He had just won Rookie of the Year and unleashed a free-flowing, up-and-down, uber-athletic, cerebral offensive game that had absolutely nothing in common with anything that had ever happened in the NBA before. In 1994 I wrote my annual “Who Has the Highest Trade Value” column that summer, Shaq would have gone first, Robinson and Hakeem would have gone second and third, and Webber would have gone fourth … yes, ahead of Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, Shawn Kemp, Grant Hill and everyone else. When someone that talented blows through your city and disappears just as fast, you don’t just salvage that, and you certainly don’t recover from it. The Warriors were never, ever the same.”
After the Webber dust had settled, Sprewell was now the new face of the organization as Chris Mullin and Tim Hardaway were either chronically hurt or traded away.
Even though Sprewell continued to rack up stats and take over games during that tumultuous season, losing his friend in Webber seemed to turn Sprewell into an angry player off the court, as Simmons wrote:
“With Webber gone, the Warriors became Latrell Sprewell’s team. The good news: Spree was coming off a First-Team All-NBA nod the previous year. The bad news: He was Latrell Sprewell.”
Even as the team plummeted to a miserable 26-win season, though, Sprewell continued to parlay his own individual skills into being selected as a starter in the 1995 All-Star Game in Phoenix.
Sprewell would showcase all his abilities for an entire NBA audience to see with a stat line of 9 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 steals in 22 minutes of action.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz_F7m_V4D0&w=420&h=315]This was to be the last time the Warrior guard would be seen glowingly in a Golden State uniform for the nation to see.
A more infamous incident and lasting image for Sprewell as a Warrior was waiting right around the corner…
(to be covered in Part Three, tomorrow)…
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