49ers could learn from Warriors

CLEVELAND — What a difference a few months make.

In June, we found ourselves on the shore of Lake Erie, watching the two best basketball teams on the planet do battle with championship hardware on the line. It was Warriors vs. Cavs. Stephen Curry vs. LeBron James. Game 6 ... set ... and match.

The Warriors’ championship, earned right here in Ohio, crowned them kings of the Bay Area sports scene. Their reign has only heightened since, with a magical winning streak taking them to national and international superstardom.

Fast forward six months and it’s a different scene in Cleveland. The 49ers are in town to play the Browns. These are two of the worst teams in football, both hoping to salvage a shred of decency from respectively tattered sea

sons.

The Browns come into the contest sporting a 2-10 record, leading the race for the NFL’s No.1 pick in next year’s draft. It’s been a spectacularly bad campaign, even by Cleveland standards. This team is finding new and creative ways to lose, week in and week out.

The 49ers arrive with a slightly better 4-8 mark, which probably takes them out of the running for that first pick. But don’t worry, 49er Faithful, the Santa Clara brain trust will be picking in the top 10. This has been a forgettable season that has devolved into picking up players off the waiver wire and inserting them into the starting lineup.

How did it come to this? How could one Bay Area franchise fly so high, while another sinks like the Edmund Fitzgerald? It’s a pretty simple formula, really.

Picture a dusty chalkboard with a bushyhaired math professor standing in front of you, pointer in hand.

The 49ers Postulate —> Bad ownership + bad management = Lousy results

The Golden State Multiplier —> Good ownership * brilliant management = Shiny rings for everyone

The 49ers need to get back to the chalkboard and rewrite their formula.

Let’s start with the ownership part. Denise Debartolo York owns this team, in partnership with her husband, John York. Neither ever showed any interest in being the face of the franchise, so they entrusted their son Jed to run the team.

Jed’s made some good moves, successfully building a new stadium and hiring Jim Harbaugh to run the team. Then he made some horrible moves, making the stadium an inhospitable shrine to privilege and firing Harbaugh.

In terms of management, it’s a train wreck. General manager Trent Baalke squandered an incredibly deep cache of draft picks in recent years. And his handpicked head coach, Jim Tomsula, is clearly in over his head, learning on the job with a challenged roster. It’s been hard to watch this team play, and many have chosen to do just that: Not watch.

The 49ers’ ownership has two clear paths out of this mess:

Sell the team and let someone else rebuild it.

Replace Jed York as CEO, allowing a more seasoned NFL executive to come in and hire a GM who, in turn, will find the right coach and draft the right players.

It’s really not that hard. Two short seasons ago, the 49ers stood atop the NFL and the Bay Area sports scene, challenging for a second Super Bowl berth with a roster full of All-Pros. They can get back there, but they need to get back to the basic blocking and tackling required to build a winner.

We all witnessed the Warriors do it, under the stewardship of owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber. Golden State’s owners went out and hired the very best talent they could find and let them do their job. Lacob openly admits that his primary attribute is the ability to hire talented people.

And so it should be for the 49ers.

Sunday’s game in Cleveland is a meaningless contest on the field. But it’s a meaningful opportunity to reassess the future of the 49ers’ franchise.

Does the York ownership group want to join the Browns at the bottom of the NFL pecking order, turning in season after season of dismal results stemming from bad management and bad decision-making?

Or do they want to return to the top, reclaiming the 49ers’ legacy for its disappointed fan base?

If they’re not willing to make wholesale changes to the current management structure, maybe they’d be better off coming back to their Ohio roots and buying the Browns.

They’d fit right in.