Larry Ellison, chief executive of Oracle, told stockholders that he looked into purchasing the Golden State Warriors from current owner Chris Cohan.

"I did actually look at buying the Warriors," Ellison said, "and they're also not for sale."

The Warriors would neither confirm nor deny Ellison had approached them.

Ellison is now making a bid to purchase a team of the NFL.  He spoke with the current owners of the San Francisco 49ers, but they are not for sale either.

Mickael Pietrus of the Golden State Warriors was voted the international player most likely to have a breakout season this year.

He will back up Jason Richardson and his prescence is the lone reason why JRich remains without a contract extension.

Pietrus is the best defender former coach Eric Musselman has ever seen and many in the Golden State brain trust expect Pietrus to develop into an offensive player as good as Richardson.

With a three-month negotiating window less than a week from closing, Jason Richardson on Tuesday called it "mind-boggling" that the Warriors have not extended his contract.

Richardson, the team's top scorer and second-leading rebounder last season, revealed that he is seeking a package "somewhere around the area" of the reported six-year, $72-plus million contract small forward Richard Jefferson received from New Jersey in August.

The Warriors' 23-year-old shooting guard has grown frustrated that contract talks have dragged this long. If the Warriors do not strike a deal with Richardson or fellow fourth-year player Troy Murphy by Sunday night, both will become restricted free agents after the season, with Golden State able to match any offer.

Citing his improvements each season and dedication to the organization, Richardson said "there should be no question" that he merits a rich extension, even though the Warriors have not finished with a winning record or made the playoffs in any of his three seasons.

"I played last year with a coach who didn't like me," Richardson said, referring to Eric Musselman. "I played with injuries, I tried point guard the last 10 games (of last season). I just don't understand what the problem is. It's kind of mind-boggling. I come back a better player every year.

"I think I've been very loyal to the franchise. I've represented this franchise in dunk contests, the Rookie Challenge, the stuff at All-Star Weekend. I think it's time for them to be loyal back to me."

Richardson said Warriors vice president Chris Mullin has told him a few times that a deal will be completed. Mullin declined to comment Tuesday. Richardson's agent, Dan Fegan, who also represents Murphy, has said he will not comment on negotiations.

Asked if he was optimistic about signing, Richardson said: "I hope something gets done. ... We're not quite there yet, but hopefully we can get there."

Murphy, though reluctant to discuss particulars, echoed that sentiment.

"The way I understand it, they have a young nucleus with Jason, Mike (Dunleavy), myself and they're trying to keep it together," the power forward said. "They have the opportunity to keep it together. Jason and I want to be here. We'd both like to get something done before the season. That's really what we're looking at right now."

The Warriors are looking at an interesting market for young swingmen.

Richardson's statistics last season -- 18.7 points, 6.7 rebounds (tops among all guards), a career-high 43.8 percent from the field and 28.2 percent from 3-point range -- were similar to those of shooting guard Quentin Richardson, who averaged 17.2 points and 6.4 rebounds and shot 39.8 percent from the field and 35.2 percent from beyond the arc with the Clippers.

As a restricted free agent, Quentin Richardson, 24, signed a six-year, $42-plus million offer sheet with Phoenix that the Clippers did not match.

Jason Richardson, however, noted Jefferson's financial windfall and labeled the two "identical players." Jefferson, 24, known as a better defender than Richardson, averaged a team-leading 18.5 points and 5.7 rebounds and hit 49.8 percent from the field (12th best in the league) and 36.4 percent from long distance last season. He teamed with Jason Kidd and Kenyon Martin for back-to-back Eastern Conference titles in 2002 and 2003 before playing for Team USA in the Athens Olympics.

"I think the only difference between him and me is he played on a winning team with two All-Stars. I played on a losing team with no All-Stars," Richardson said. "If I had two All-Stars and we played in the playoffs, there would be no question that I would get that money. As for our play, our numbers are identical, and I did it without two All-Stars.'"

Mike Dunleavy, Jr. came into the NBA in 2002 with a wealth of burdens.

The first one is the one he has had since he was born and named.  Being the son of Mike Dunleavy, a former NBA player and current head coach, automatically put a host of expectations on him.  Some people expected him to be as good as his son, while other people believed him to be trading on his name.

The second one is the stigma of failures players from Duke have had.  Danny Ferry, Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley all failed to meet the lofty expectations people had carved for them after amazing college careers.  Grant Hill was a player that had found incredible NBA success, but after a host of injuries, the Duke curse lives on in many people's eyes.

The third and most important one was Dunleavy, Jr's 3rd place in the NBA draft, following Yao Ming and Duke teammate Jason Williams.  When a player is drafted at that spot, teams expects the player to develop into a franchise caliber talent.

In his first two years Dunleavy, Jr. has shown flashes of brilliance, but has definitely had his share of struggles.

"Mike kind of reminds me of Dirk," says Eduardo Najera, referring to Nowitzki, his former Mavs' teammate. "I had a chance to see Dirk as he just started to find his way after struggling early, and I think that's where Mike is."

New Warrior coach Mike Montgomery is well aware of the difficulties that college coaches have faced when making the jump from college to the NBA.  

The former Stanford coach made some calls to Lon Kruger, Tim Floyd, and John Calipari to talk about making the transition from college to the NBA. They all could have said the same thing: Make sure you get a good team. But none of them did, all of them bottomed out, and Montgomery is the latest experiment.

"I think it's pretty apparent there are a lot of things that are different here," Montgomery said. "And, like anything else, if you've got good players and good management that will support the transition, then you're fine. If you don't have good players, you're going to struggle to win in this league; there's not many nights off." He's right about that. The Warriors have the current longest playoff drought; they haven't graced the postseason stage since 1994.

Warriors guard Derek Fisher, who spent his first eight NBA seasons with the Lakers and won three championship rings with them, got a standing ovation from the crowd of 15,237 during pregame introductions. His made his first shot, a 3-pointer from the left corner, less than two minutes in and finished with seven points in 26 minutes.

The Warriors went on to win the game 90-88 in overtime.  Kobe Bryant missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer in overtime, which would have won the game for the Lakers.

Scrappy forward Eduardo Najera is finding himself in a similar role to which he found himself over four seasons with the Dallas Mavericks.

Najera's new team, the Golden State Warriors, have Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy and Clifford Robinson playing ahead of him at the two forward positions, his natural spot.  At shooting guard, there is even more of a logjam, with Jason Richardson, Mike Pietrus and Calbert Cheaney.

His minutes will be sparse, but knowing the gritty Najera, he will capitalize on those minutes as much as he can.  The Warriors hope he can cover the role that Brian Cardinal did so masterfully last season.

Adonal Foyle phoned Mike Montgomery early in the July free-agent negotiating period from Washington, where the center and his agent had been meeting with interested teams.

"Convince me that this is going to be different," Foyle said to the Warriors' new coach.

Foyle was leaning toward a fresh start after seven tumultuous and losing seasons in Golden State even though he enjoyed a close relationship with new general manager Rod Higgins and felt confident that vice president Chris Mullin wanted him back. Foyle had even composed a pro-con list that did not favor the Warriors.

Montgomery had left Stanford for the NBA some six weeks earlier, but here he was recruiting again, trying to connect with a player who had designs on going somewhere else.

He needed 30 minutes and a very lucrative contract to convince Foyle to stay with Golden State.

"We just talked about having a good bunch of guys trying to turn this thing around a little bit, and I felt he could be a really important part of it," Montgomery said, recalling the conversation that cleared the way for Foyle's return.

"I told him that we were going to try to do this the right way and work hard at it, and that's all we can do."

The October 31st deadline for the Warriors to agree to contract extensions with Jason Richardson and Troy Murphy is fast approaching and it looks increasingly likely that no deal will be reached.

Management is taking a wait-and-see approach with two solid players, but players with uncertain ceilings.

Richardson has improved his game each year, but NBA insiders have questions about several aspects of his game, such as shooting, ballhandling and defense, which might prevent him from evolving into an All-Star.

Murphy was hurt for the majority of last season, but during the previous year he averaged a double-double.  Questions linger though about his ability to guard the elite power-forwards of this league, such as Tim Duncan.  His offensive game is more of a face-up one, as he rarely utilizes his skills in the low-post.

The Warriors found themselves in a similar situation several years ago when Antwawn Jamison was entering into his free-agency year.  He was a promising player, the best they had, but they overpaid, giving him a max deal, handcuffing themselves against the cap.  Chris Mullin is going to do things differently this year by resisting giving max money to non-max players, that is unless Richardson and Murphy can show their worth and get the Warriors into the playoffs for the first time in over a decade.

According to Sean Deveney of Fox Sports, a byproduct of Chris Mullin's decision to sign Adonal Foyle to such a lucrative contract was in order to have more leverage in his handling of the Erick Dampier situation.

At least six teams were actively courting Foyle and if he would have signed with one of those clubs, he would not only have lost a good defensive center, he also would have lost any control he had on the Dampier situation.

Dampier was eventually sent to the Mavericks in a sign-and-trade deal and came away with SF Eduardo Najera, PG Luis Flores, draft picks and future salary cap space.