With the Lakers blowing their chance to open the gap between themselves and their top competition, they folded in a depressing fourth quarter and allowed the New Orleans Hornets to easily dominate them by shooting 37 free throws.

Luckily, the Lakers have a back to back and ready to take on the Warriors. This will be a great opportunity to get over the loss quickly. The Warriors however cannot be taken lightly as they have lots of talent and have the potential to run you off the court if you aren’t ready.

I got a nice response from readers about the Q&A’s with the Hornets blogs so I made sure to prepare for the entire week.

Geoff of 48Minutes.net was kind enough to exchange a few questions and answers with me. I had several questions about the Warriors and supplied some answers to some Lakers questions.

Also, make sure you head over to 48Minutes.net to read my Lakers answers.

LABallTalk: How has the acquisition of Ronny Turiaf turned out for the Warriors. Lakers fans dearly miss Ronny and  it’s painful to watch him play for the Warriors. With the Lakers unwilling to match the offer sheet the Warriors signed him to during the Summer, do you feel that he was worth the money

48Minutes: It’d be great if he was a better rebounder, but outside of that, he’s been a very good value. He’s third in the league in blocks (first in blocks per minute) and when he and Andris Biedrins team up with three wing players,
it’s been one of the Warriors’ most effective lineups to this point. Oh, and he’s also Golden State’s best cheerleader. His signing was one of the few things that went right for the Warriors this summer.

LABallTalk: I’ve heard a lot of talk that Corey Maggette turned out to be a bust. Was he not worth the money? What do you think the problem is?

48Minutes: It’s funny, because Maggette has been exactly the player he was in L.A. for all those years with the Clips: A volume scorer who needs to be fed isos in the half-court to get his numbers, and a shaky defender and rebounder at the other end.

I’m sure the Warriors thought they could bring more balance to Maggette’s offensive game by weaning him off the isos with fast-break buckets, but this team doesn’t run — not anywhere near like it used to, at least. That may change when Monta Ellis comes back, but to this point, the ball has just settled with him and stagnated. Maggette has missed most of the time since Don Nelson recast the offense as a drive-and-kick, ball-movement attack, so it’ll be fascinating to see how Maggette fits in now that he’s healthy.

Why Maggette is seen as a bust (from a fan’s perspective) is two-fold:

A) The Warriors overpaid given the lack of other teams under the cap at that point. There was only Memphis, and the Grizzlies weren’t even in the running, so the best offer Maggette could have gotten elsewhere was a full mid-level, which Golden State topped by more than $10 million, all told.

B) That money could have gone toward extending Baron Davis, if the power struggle between executive vice president Chris Mullin and team president Robert Rowell hadn’t broken out. (For those readers who don’t know, Rowell has been pushing Mullin, who’s in the final year of his contract, out the door in a not-so-subtle manner). Instead, Davis opted out at the last second, fled to L.A., and that’s where it all started to go bad.

LABallTalk: The Warriors are going downhill again. Two years ago they were very competitive and went deep in the playoffs. Last year they barely missed the playoffs. This year they are nowhere near making the playoffs. What is going on? Is there something to point a finger at or is it a combination of various issues?

48Minutes: In descending order of importance:

** There’s a total lack of defense, including worst-team-in-the-league-for-the-last-decade defensive rebounding numbers.

** Losing Baron Davis and Monta Ellis decimated the point guard spot.

** The Warriors are allowing 122.2 points per 100 possessions when Jamal Crawford’s on the floor. (Versus 107.0 when he’s not.)

** Corey Maggette has been an ill fit so far.

** A personality conflict forced the dumping of Al Harrington, the best (if still flawed) PF the Warriors had available for Nelson’s system.

** Did I mention yet that nobody plays D?

And I haven’t even touched on the fact that the Warriors are getting very little from young lottery-pick forwards Brandan Wright and Anthony Randolph — and that that’s by Don Nelson’s choice.

LABallTalk: Are there any trades that are realistic at this point for the Warriors to turn things around? What does this team need in order to start putting together a few wins this year and be competitive again next season?

48Minutes: Obviously, with the Stephen Jackson extension and the Harrington-for-Crawford trade, the team has spent all of its cap space for the foreseeable future, including the all-important summer of 2010. If I were taking over for Chris Mullin (and/or Bobby Rowell), my first aim would be to change that situation.

It’s not that I think LBJ, Bosh or Wade is going to come to the Bay. But there are plenty of second-tier guys who I think could be had for relatively cheap, because that summer is going to be the first year when the current financial crisis hits teams (most teams, including the W’s, are going to post respectable revenue figures for 2008-09 because they’ve already banked all the season-ticket dollars ; when it comes time to renew for 2009-10, however, I think those clubs are going to get slammed, and there will be less money in the market in 2010 because of it).

Additionally, I think there will be plenty of guys under contract that teams will be looking to move in order to free up space for an FA run. So there will be bargains available.