Media news: more sportswriter departures

By Andy . July 3, 2008

We just learned of some more big-time departures from the newspaper industry
from here in the Bay Area.

The Bay Area News Group-controlled by MediaNews Group and responsible for
the Contra Costa Times and the Oakland Tribune-has let go of Eric Gilmore,
Bill Soliday, Dave Del Grande and Warriors beat reporter Geoff Lepper.

Soliday covered pro football, while Del Grande was a fantasy/media news
writer. Lepper's departure comes, to me, as a bit of a surprise. Lepper was
one of the more popular and well-read Warriors reporters in the area,
especially for the readership of the Tribune, which is essentially the
home-area paper. He also kept a successful Warriors blog on the Oakland
Tribune website. His recent coverage of the Baron Davis situation was
top-notch.

All had articles published as recently as June 25th, with Lepper having
Baron Davis stories in print yesterday.

Save Your Money

By Marcus
Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 10:01 pm

I've been thinking - a big mistake, some of you would say - about what the
Warriors' should do. The more I think about it, the more I say stand pat.
Instead of throwing huge money at these second-rate...

Warriors are likely to find Baron Davis irreplaceable
POSTED July 6, 8:29 AM
http://www.examiner.com/x-441-Golden-State-Warriors-Examiner

Kirk Hinrich

The Warriors are said to be in the running to sign free agent power
forward Elton Brand and already may have expressed interest in Corey
Maggette.

And the intriguing Josh Smith is still out there (as a restricted free
agent), a player who might be better for the Warriors long-term than
Brand. All this is well and good but there is still the matter of
finding a competent point guard to replace Baron Davis.

That's the problem. The names you hear thrown around aren't bad names:
Kirk Hinrich, Kyle Lowry, Carlos Arroyo. But none of them is in Davis'
class, and it is likely that the hit the Warriors take at that
position will likely mitigate any (possible) signing of a free agent.

In other words, the Warriors have to sign a player to make up for
Davis' loss, and it says here that even if they do, it probably won't
be enough to get the team back to where it was last season: 48 wins.

A lot of these names are beyond the Warriors reach, unless Cohan is
willing to overpay to get them here.

Especially some of the young restricted FAs.

Some people have been talking up Josh Smith and Igoudala but any offer
sheet they sign can be matched.

People are talking about sign and trade scenarios, if the Clippers have
to offer Brand more money. But we're not going to get value back from
the Clippers, so it seems better to have the cap room from BD signing
outright with the Clippers.

But only if the Warriors spend the money to use up that cap space.

If it's not Brand, here are the Warriors' free-agent options now, next year
and a few in 2010

Posted by Tim Kawakami on July 5th, 2008 at 10:51 am

* Minor 12:48 p.m. update: Added some names to summer 2010 market. You'll
see why.

For your Warriors' fan shopping information.

Your team has anywhere from $12M (if they don't renounce everybody) to $18M
or more (if they renounce everybody) in available cap room. That's PURE cap
room-they can spend all of it on free agents or trade into it or anything.

What do they do with all the money? Well, it's clear they're chasing Elton
Brand with a lot of it. They could go hard after Corey Maggette with a lot
of it.

They could shop for a lot of other people. They could pocket it for a year
or two-to the howls of Warriors fans, I know-and see what the future brings.

With things a little quiet on the Brand/Maggette front for now, thought I'd
toss out the lists of current and potential future free agents.
-The remaining summer of 2008 free agents (R = restricted; U =
unrestricted), listed in order of my subjective value: