Chris Cohan Sells the Warriors

After years of poor management and penny-pinching, Chris Cohan, owner of the Warriors since 1995, has sold the team to Peter Guber and Joseph Lacob for what is now an NBA record $450 million.  Many Warriors fans were hoping billionaire Larry Ellison was going to buy the team, but he was outbid by Guber & Lacob.  The fact remains though, that the Warriors are no longer under Cohan's ownership, and that is cause to rejoice right there.

The Warriors have had the 2nd worst record in the league since Cohan bought the team in 1995, with only two winning seasons, and one magical trip to the playoffs (the team which Cohan quickly disassembled).  Warriors fans have deserved better, and simply could have had much better if Cohan hadn't been in charge.

Cohan's era got off to the wrong foot when one of his first orders of business was shipping out disgruntled Rookie of the Year Chris Webber to the Washington Bullets for Tom Gugliotta and 3 future 1st rounders after Webber demanded that either he or coach Don Nelson be moved.  Cohan sided with Nelson, and Warriors fans watched their #1 pick grow elsewhere, while Gugliotta only played 40 games for the Warriors, and those draft picks became Todd Fuller, Vince Carter (traded for Antawn Jamison), and Chris Mihm (traded to Cavaliers).  Meanwhile Nelson coached the now Webber-less Warriors (who had reached the playoffs the previous season with him) to a 14-31 start before being fired.

Under Cohan, the Warriors never really had any semblance of consistency.  In his 16 years as the owner, the team went with 10 coaches (9 different ones, Nelson was re-hired in '06), with Don Nelson being the longest tenured one at 4 years, which is unsurprising, given that the Warriors experienced both their winning seasons under Nelson in consecutive years (In fact they had a better record the year after they reached the playoffs, accruing the best record to not reach the playoffs).

But even that minor success was short-lived, as the key players were either not retained, or traded away.

Warriors fans are famously passionate about their team, and they have deserved much better than what they've gotten from Cohan.  It remains to be seen if Lacob and Guber will be any better (they'd do well to overhaul the front office and coaching staff by ditching GM Larry Riley and Don Nelson), but they're a breath of fresh air for Warriors fans, who have long suffered under the stink of Cohan's rein.

To new beginnings.