Vecsey: Warriors May Buy Out Don Nelson

Peter Vecsey presents a handful of interesting theories about Don Nelson and the Warriors today. In the span of several paragraphs, he suggests the following theories, all of which need to be taken with a bowling-ball-sized grain of salt:

The Warriors are thinking of buying out Nelson rather than risk player mutiny next season;
Nelson benched Baron Davis in the pivotal second-to-last game of the season because he was angry Davis "partied" the night before;
Nelson benched Davis in a passive aggressive attempt at getting fired so tha he can retire while still collecting his salary;
Nelson benched Davis with the Warriors "unspoken blessing" in a passive aggressive attempt to anger Davis enough to opt-out of his contract and leave.

Obviously a lot of these theories contradict each other, and even a careful examination of his column makes it difficult to figure out what's based on actual reporting and what's pure conjecture (a frequent problem when it comes to Vecsey). But assuming Nelson is on the way out, it'll be interesting to see if he becomes a candidate for any other job or simply (finally) retires.

Pretty much every team that had even a passing interest in Mike D'Antoni would have to consider Nelson, right? His teams won't play a lot of defense, but they'll score a ton points, put butts in the seats and do wonders for the local mock turtleneck economy. That has to count for something, right?