I have waited and I have waited and I have waited.

For several years now, I have looked at the Golden State Warriors, evaluated their talent level and thought, "You know, this could be a pretty good team."

I mean, they have the pieces. They have a deep front court with a burgeoning star player in Antawn Jamison. They have some athletic scorers in Jason Richardson and Larry Hughes. They have a little bit of talent at center in Erick Dampier, though I must stress the words a "little bit" when it comes to Damp. They've got some nice role players in Bob Sura and Chris Mills. And I like rookie Troy Murphy, who has displayed a toughness this season that will keep him in the league for a while.

	Antawn Jamison, left, could lead the Warriors to respectability ... if his teammates believed in him.

And yet, the Warriors suck.

I mean they really suck.

If they sucked any more, well, I'm not even going to go there.

For several years, the Warriors have pointed to a rash of injuries that have plagued them like the, uh, plague.

And for a while, we could buy into that excuse. Who can argue injuries? Up in Seattle, they're still telling us Calvin Booth will be good. We all know differently, but, hey, the guy's hurt, so who can lament the $34 million he got to block exactly 13 shots this season?

But this season in Oakland, there have been no terrible injuries. No major players have missed excessive time. Everybody has been around. And yet, the Warriors suck.

I mean, they really suck.

If you walked into the Warriors locker room and asked them why, you would hear a bunch of mumbo jumbo about defending the pick-and-roll or player rotations or this or that, but nobody would be willing to tell the truth.

So I went elsewhere. I went to a person who used to be in the Warriors locker room, and who no longer has anything to lose by telling the truth.

I went to Marc Jackson, the player-pariah recently traded from Golden State to Minnesota, a move that must have made him feel like a prisoner whose DNA test came back "false."

"I think it's chemistry. To be honest, I still think it's team chemistry," Jackson said. "They have a lot of talent on paper, they have a great team on paper, but for some reason they are just not getting the job done.

"It just goes to show you that you can't just throw 12 basketball players together on the same team, no matter how good they are, and expect them to be great. You got to have some kind of chemistry there."

That last line was a jab at general manager Garry St. Jean, and in the spirit of fairness, we must tell you that Jackson does not exactly get along with St. Jean. In fact, Jackson was fined and suspended by the Warriors for an expletive-filled rant toward St. Jean after the GM had nixed a trade of Jackson to Phoenix.

Now that that is out there, we'll get back to the chemistry issue. It could be argued that the Warriors suck because they experimented with Hughes at point guard when Hughes is a scoring guard. Jackson says no.

"Larry is doing a good job. Larry is doing a very good job," Jackson said. "Team chemistry is about more than one player. You can't point one player out. The thing about team chemistry is the word 'team.' With chemistry, from the first to the 12th man, you got to know your role, enjoy doing that role, and that is what chemistry is about and that is what the Warriors are lacking right now."

Right now, Jackson has the luxury of playing with Kevin Garnett, whom Jackson calls the best player in the world. He may have forgotten about the Big Toe down in L.A., but I understand his point.

	“	I think I would have helped the team. I know that, they know that and the players on the team know that. The players on the team let them know that every day. But they just wanted to stick with what they wanted to do by not playing me. ”
		— Marc Jackson, T-Wolves center

"I think Kevin is in a whole different class by himself," Jackson said. "I don't think there has ever been anybody in the NBA like him before, and there might not be. You can't predict the future, but he is 7-(foot)-1 -- whether he claims 6-11 or not, he is 7-1 -- he can handle and shoot the ball and pass the ball, and he looks to pass the ball before he shoots. He can average 50 points a game and chooses to pass the ball off."

So I asked if Jamison had the capability to be a leader of the Warriors the same way Garnett is leading the Wolves. Jackson cut to the core of the Warriors' problems with his answer.

"He can. But like I said, the players got to want to follow his lead," Jackson said. "Some of those players are like, 'I don't like him.' Or, 'I don't think he is that good.' You know, everybody is on a different page. A tone needs to be set, and it starts with the players."

Jackson, of course, was part of the problem, though it really wasn't his fault. The Warriors messsed with the mechanics of the locker room the day they matched Houston's six-year, $24 million offer for Jackson, then sat him on the end of the bench despite him nearly winning Rookie of the Year the season before.

"I think I would have helped the team," Jackson said. "I know that, they know that and the players on the team know that. The players on the team let them know that every day. But they just wanted to stick with what they wanted to do by not playing me."

Jackson said he never was given the opportunity to help out. "From the first day I got there, they made me want to leave, so I didn't want any part of that team," Jackson said.

"From Day One, when I got off the plane, they said they matched the offer so they could trade me and get something for me and they weren't going to play me, regardless of what happened. I was actually told, 'Regardless of how many people go down, I am not going to play because they didn't want to risk injury to me.' So given that point, I had to take that like a man and just roll on. I don't think that's fair, and I know the players on that team didn't think it was fair, but that's the way they wanted to handle it, so that's how it got handled. I'm just glad I'm out of there."

From the sounds of it, some of his former teammates wish they could join him.

Frank Hughes, who covers the NBA for the Tacoma (Wash.) News-Tribune, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.