Without a doubt – the Warriors haven’t been an easy team to follow in the past few weeks. It’s not even worth evaluating how the team could have been better without all the injuries they’ve suffered through. There have just been so many injuries thats its hard to keep track any more. To try to quantify how much the Warriors have suffered from injury losses this year – for most of the 4th quarter tonight against the Clippers – the best lineup the Warriors could produce was a rookie point guard, three former D-league players and an undrafted 2nd year player.

In a sense, they are like King Leonidas at the end of the movie 300. They’ve lost it all, they have no more backup or support – but they are fighting until their last breath.

That would make tonight’s game against the Clippers  like the dagger that Leonidas throws that nicks the cheek of the Persian king. It really won’t have an impact on the end result of the season for the Warriors, but it was a nice way to bow out of the first half. It was an ugly few weeks with losses that left Golden State depleted and down in the dumps, but the Clippers rolled into town completely flat, and ran into a Warriors team that could not miss from anywhere on the court.

Sure enough, Baron Davis played absolutely horrendous in this game against his former team (1-12 shooting, 5 points), and its also worth mentioning that newly annointed all-star Chris Kaman looked entirely confused by the Curry-Turiaf pick and roll.

But my main take away from this game was the oustanding shooting of the Warriors. Even at their weakest, the Warriors still have some excellent shooters – Stephen Curry and Anthony Morrow will both be headed to all-star weekend, and although Curry is the Warrior that will be represented in the three-point contest, its clear that Morrow deserves to be in the same contest. Even Anthony Tolliver looked like a solid NBA caliber player tonight – at least enough to have deserved his spot on the roster for the remainder of the season.

At the end of the game, it was a beautiful touch to see Stephen Curry end up with his first career triple-double by grabbing a last second rebound. Clearly all his teammates knew that Curry was one rebound short – and when it finally came, he was mobbed by the Warriors bench and walked off the court with a big smile on his face. Curry becomes the first rookie to go for 30 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds since Phoenix’s Kevin Johnson in 1988, and the first Warrior rookie to do so since Chris Webber in 1993.

The Warriors will have some interesting decisions to make in the next few days as the trading deadline approaches. Will they seek a deal to send any of their players to a contender? I believe that if anyone goes, it will be Corey Maggette, who would be an excellent fit for a team like Cleveland or Boston looking for another athletic player. Corey’s hefty contract may make that a difficult trade, but if the Warriors play their cards right they could get some value for Maggette while his stock is likely at an all-time high.

Once they return from the All-Star Game break, the Warriors will go back to battle with whomever can take the court on a given night. In all likelihood they’ll continue to lose and setup the highest Warriors draft pick since Mike Dunleavy (ouch), but at least we can say they’re continuing to fight.

This is how far the Warriors have fallen: They finished last night’s game with only four players.

With just a few seconds remaining, rookie Stephen Curry received his 6th foul and started walking towards the bench. But the Warriors, who started the game with only eight players, had no one left to come in for him. Anthony Morrow left the game with a knee injury in the 1st half – and Chris Hunter fouled out in the 3rd quarter, followed by Andris Biedrins fouling out with just under 1 minute to play in the 4th.

That left only the remaining five – Monta Ellis, Curry, Devean George, Corey Maggette, and Cartier Martin – to play the remainder of the game.

Here’s how the rule works: The team is required to have five players on the court at all times – so if the last person eligible fouls out, as Curry did last night, then he must remain on the floor with the following penalty: every time he commits a foul, it is an automatic technical foul.

So with just a few seconds to go – Luke Ridnour goes to the line for two – plus a technical. Curry stays in the game – and end up missing a long range three at the buzzer… in all likelihood making him the first player in NBA history to record a shot attempt after he had fouled out.

What a sad ending to a game, and an accurate microcosm of the Warriors’ season so far. Injuries have depleted the depth of this team so badly that they can’t even finish a game with five players. The W’s have used 17 players this year – and at this exact moment, 10 of them are injured (Wright, Azubuike, Moore, Bell, Radmanovic, Watson, Turiaf, Morrow, Randolph, Claxton).

The funny thing is – this is still a competitive basketball team amongst the guys still out there. I would argue that their four best players – Ellis, Biedrins, Maggette and Curry – are still healthy. But a lack of depth has changed the way this team plays.

When you are constantly in foul trouble, you can’t drive to the basket, taking away a key part of Ellis’ game. You also can’t be as physical and tough inside, and you can’t risk a foul on trying to block a shot – which made Andris Biedrins a non-factor on defense late in the game.

So where do we go from here? This team desperately needs to get healthy – but until then they will probably need to sign another player or two just to make it through the homestand.

If I were the Warriors, I would put Raja Bell’s expiring contract on the market. Bell is a solid player, but if they could get a few young bodies to provide some depth I think it would benefit the team in the short term.

As a side note, I should mention for the record that I’m not a big fan of Cartier Martin. Plain and simple, he can’t shoot. He has grabbed a few nice boards in his three games with the team, but I don’t think he projects as an NBA player long term. Oh, and he also got posterized by Andrew Bogut last night. Yeeesh.

I should also state that I was in-person to watch the Cleveland Lebron’s on Monday, and I don’t know what compelled me to make a bet on the game with my girlfriend (she’s a Cavs fan), but lets just say I was disappointed the Curry didn’t get off a better shot at the end of the game.

Oh, and Lebron James is ridiculous. He’s better than Kobe. You can’t be sure of these type of arguments until you see the players in person. Now I am, Lebron is better. He’s a physical beast, can pass like an NFL quarterback, and gets all the calls. My bold prediction? Cleveland fails to offer him the best deal, he teams with D.Wade in Miami, my buddy Kevin buys a 23 jersey within 30 seconds of the contract signing, and they win 5 NBA championships.

Happy new year everybody!

Its been a good start to 2010 for the Warriors – especially for Chris Hunter, who will be with the team for the rest of the year after the W’s decided to end the Mikki Moore experiment and cut him loose. Moore was recently added to the list of injured Warriors, and he wouldn’t have been back until around March, so this was the right move.

More importantly, the major difference in the play of Golden State since the horrid east coast road trip has been the return of two additional centers, Andris Biedrins and Ronny Turiaf. Biedrins was incredibly steady in last night’s matchup with the T’Wolves, providing 8 pts, 8 boards and 5 blocks. Turiaf’s numbers haven’t been there yet, but its clear that he provides a boost to this team, if only because it means Anthony Randolph can guard 4’s and play his natural spot.

Okay, now that we’ve started on a good note – time to talk about Tuesday night’s “loss” to the Denver Nuggets. With under a second to play, Monta Ellis was called for a foul on a desperation three-pointer at the buzzer by J.R. Smith.
Two major problems I have with this play:
1: Referees: Who calls that foul? How many times EVER have you seen a foul call on a buzzer beater, let alone a call in the last 10 seconds of a game. It should just be a general principle that if a guy takes a desperation three while being double-teamed from 35 feet out, then it really doesn’t matter if one of the guys got a swipe of the body.
2. Smith’s reaction: If you take a look at the aftermath of the shot, you can see Smith walking off the court dejected, assuming that there wouldn’t be a call. If he had really been fouled he would have been jumping around looking for a call.

That loss was about as devastating as they come – luckily it was quickly followed up with a win over the T’Wolves. The Warriors proved by topping the Celtics and Suns (as well as hanging with the Lakers and Nuggets), that they truly hang with the big boys when healthy.

(Key words in that statement: “when healthy”. I feel like this year the Warriors have actually had a decent amount of luck when it comes to star players missing games against the Warriors. Recently they missed Paul Pierce against the Celtics, both Blazers centers and Lamarcus Aldridge, Artest against the Lakers, and Carmelo and Billups against the Nuggets. Just you watch, Lebron James will bruise a toe this weekend and miss the Warriors matchup).

The Golden State Warriors have made that extremely difficult over the past two weeks.

I’ve usually waited until I find inspiration to write about a positive aspect of the Warriors performance, even during a losing streak. But right now, I’m not inspired to write about this team.

What can you say? They miss layups, they turn the ball over, they miss wide open shots. They can’t rebound, they get outcoached, they are banged up and injured. They lose in a different way seemingly every night.

Tonight, in an inevitable loss to Memphis, they look lethargic and completely outmatched by the Memphis Grizzlies. Granted, the Grizz are a better team this year, and they look well-rounded, but they are still a non-playoff team. Whenever the Grizzlies made a shot tonight, it looked like skill. When the Warriors made a shot, it seemed like ridiculous luck.

Look at the teams they’ve fallen to in this horrendous losing streak: Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Washington, and now Memphis. Of the six, only San Antonio would make the playoffs if they started today.

Folks, its time to move forward and look ahead. Barring a complete about-face brought about by the returns of Andris Biedrins, this team is heading for a top-five pick in the 2010 NBA Draft.

So what do they need?

For the sake of argument here, lets say the Nets pick first and get John Wall, the consensus #1 pick in the mold of Rajon Rondo with more upside. Lets assume the Warriors have their pick of the rest.

I’d make an effort to go after a real game changing athlete. Someone who can both fit into the Warriors system and provide the size that they desperately need. But more importantly, someone who can make an impact right away, ala Brandon Jennings or Tyreke Evans this year.

My first choice would be Derrick Favors out of Georgia Tech. Favors is a beast of an athlete and is also incredibly quick. At 6’9, the comparisons to a young Josh Smith (Favors played on the same AAU team that Smith played for) seem well founded. Even with a strong power forward, the Warriors can stick with their fast-paced three guard offensive set on occasion, using any combination of the guard they use now, with Corey Maggette seeing more minutes as a three. This would also allow Anthony Randolph to continue to develop at either the 3 or 4, and with a little bit of help from the trainers we could play some big men as well.

If not Favors, I hope the Warriors go after someone from the deep free agent class who can grab some rebounds but still fit into the Warriors philosophy. It’s unlikely that they could draw the interest of a Bosh, Stoudamire or Nowitzki, but how about someone with playoff experience like Udonis Haslem, or local boy Chuck Hayes who has been playing an undersized center for the Rockets. There’s plenty of choices, take your pick from this list.

All I know is something needs to change with this team. Hopefully it starts with the return of the centers, and is only uphill from there.

But I hardly expec…. Well, I guess I’ll just say nothing.

As I predicted last week, the Warriors lost a few in a row during a tough stretch against Denver, Houston and Orlando.

What I didn’t expect is that they would take the defending Eastern Conference champions to the wire without Anthony Morrow. And that they would come within a few different bounces of the ball from knocking off the Rockets. Shame on me, I guess, for assuming that the Warriors wouldn’t be able to hang with teams that are deeper, more experienced, and generally more talented.

Call me crazy, but I really don’t think it matters anymore how good the opponent is – the Warriors play a different breed of basketball that makes it hard to determine how they will perform on any given night.

Let me explain: conventional wisdom would tell you that the Magic have the best record in the eastern conference and have a huge size advantage over the Warriors, and thus should handle them easily. Instead, the Warriors (and Monta Ellis specifically) were able to drive to the lane, get Dwight Howard and Marcin Gortat in foul trouble, and force Orlando to play the quick tempo. Luckily for the Magic, Vince Carter is comfortable with that pace and was able to carry the Magic throughout the 2nd half.

Their up-tempo game is a slightly different version than the one used by the 2008 Warriors. The Warriors of yesteryear created fast-break points by relying on Andris Biedrins and Ronny Turiaf to block shots. This year, the Warriors are scoring an incredible amount of points off of steals. Tonight against the Nets, Monta Ellis added four steals to put him back on top of the lead league, and C.J. Watson added five steals of his own.

Steals are incredibly exciting. For that reason, I’ll be paying close attention to pretty much every Warriors game for the rest of this season. If they are out of contention, they’ll still have a shot to win on any given night against any team in the league if they can play their style of basketball. They can get big men into foul trouble, they can hit three pointers, and they can cause turnovers.

Here’s the downside: they can also turn the ball right back over. The Warriors now lead the NBA in turnovers, with 16.6 per game. And they still will struggle to grab rebounds. That was the case on Monday, when Kevin Durant and the suddenly interesting OK Thunder dominanted the boards 57-37. The rebounds are not just coming from big men – rookie James Harden (6’5) had nine boards along with his career high 26 points.

The next few games against mid-level eastern conference teams will say a lot about where the Warriors are headed this season. We already know that they won’t be a top contender in the west, but they’ll need to run off a few wins here in a relatively easy stretch in order to stay in contention at all.

Another night, another spectacular performance for Monta Ellis. Ellis dropped 45 points on the Pacers tonight to continue his great run and give the Warriors a 126-107 victory. Another spectacular defensive performance from Ellis to prevent Danny Granger from having a big game. And to boot, his five steals give him the league lead in steals-per-game, surpassing Rajon Rondo.

Still, at the end of the day, the Warriors sit at 6-10, stuck in last place in the Pacific division. I hate to be pessimistic after watching a great all-around performance by Golden State, but we have to remember that it comes in the wake of two losses to San Antonio and the Lakers.

Could you really ask this scrappy Warriors group to beat either of those teams? The Warriors haven’t won on the road in San Antonio since 1997, and the Lakers are just on another planet these days.

Similarly, what can you expect from the next three games? The Warriors face a tough matchup with the Nuggets in a back-to-back without Anthony Randolph (who should hopefully be back for Thursday after turning his ankle tonight). It will be tough for a small Golden State team to contend with Nene, Kenyon Martin, and Carmelo tomorrow. Then they’ve got the pesky Houston Rockets, and the defending Eastern Conference champion Orlando Magic. No one would be surprised if 6-10 becomes 6-13.

The Warriors seem to be stuck in perpetual underdogness. Even tonight, going up against a Pacers team that shouldn’t make the playoffs in the weaker Eastern conference, the Warriors needed another career night from Ellis to get it done. On any given night, they can be the most exciting team in the league. But they won’t become a perennial playoff team until they begin to put strings of wins together, and prove not only that they can upset the West’s top teams, but they can truly be in the same company. Right now, they are still playing catchup to the top teams in the conference.

The good news? There are a number of things to be excited about. Monta Ellis has the star power. Biedrins and Turiaf are slowly progressing and will work their way back into the lineup. Last year’s diamonds in the rough (Morrow, Watson) continue to be excellent role players. Corey Maggette looks like a legitimate second scoring option, as he showed when Monta fouled out with 6 minutes left in the game tonight.

The bad news? Reality Check: Still 6-10.

I wasn’t planning on writing another blog entry until after tonight’s matchup with the Spurs, but the storylines after the Warriors victory over Dallas last night are just too good to pass up. Think of all the angles and sub angles I could take with this one! In order, here are my top 10 headlines from last night:

1. The Warriors won the game using only six players. According to ESPN, it’s the first time that has happened since the 1952 Baltimore Bullets. There’s no way they can keep this up – and hopefully they will have at least a handful of guys back by Friday, because even young bucks like Monta Ellis can’t be counted on to play 48 minutes every night. It was nice for a player like Stephen Curry to not have to worry about being taken out of the game, but I would still like to think that they won this game in spite of only having six players, not because of it.

2. Don Nelson misses the game with pneumonia. Nelson has had health troubles in the past, and even with the many issues the Warriors have had with Nelson this year, you never want to see someone miss time with an illness. Even if he is not the right coach for the team anymore, I hope everyone wishes him well.

3. Nelson misses the game against the team he sued for millions of dollars. Now that I’ve wished him well, don’t think I’ve forgotten about this little tidbit. You think Nelson really looked forward to going to Dallas and standing a few feet away from Mark Cuban? He ended on about as bad of terms as possible with the Mavs brass, so I don’t think he really wanted to go shake those hands again. He had to absolutely love watching his team whoop on Dallas from his bed last night.

4. The start of speculation as to how longer Nelson will coach. I foresee this being a topic of many upcoming blog entries. Pneumonia is not an easy thing to over come, especially for a 69 year old coach. Nelson has said he intends to live out the end of his contract through next year, but will his health allow him to do it? He certainly has looked lethargic at points, so I don’t think it would be a shock to anyone for him to announce retirement due to health concerns. Stay tuned.

5. The rise of Keith Smart. It was nice to see Smart with some personality last night, getting a technical in the third quarter after a missed call. It’s hard to determine how well he coached, since he didn’t really get to make that many substitutions, but its clear he will be a solid coach. I liked that he wasn’t hesitant to go with a bigger lineup (Radmanovic, Randolph and Moore all in at the same time). I don’t believe that Smart is all that similar to Avery Johnson. Yes, they are being compared because they are both Don Nelson heir-apparent, but I think Smart seems much less of a players coach than Johnson was. Lets just hope the Warriors hold on to Smart and don’t let him grab a head-coaching job with another team.

6. Monta Ellis continues his dominant run since the trade of Stephen Jackson. Ellis played another fabulous game last night, where he could get to the basket whenever he pleased. Ellis was the best player on the floor last night, which is saying a lot when you are up against Dirk Nowitzki. (Side note: props to Radmanovic for going toe-to-toe with Dirk for much of the 2nd half and forcing him to pass the ball away.)

7. Stephen Curry seems to have picked it up just a notch. Most professional sports fans can tell you there are moments where you say, “that’s when I knew this guy was going to be good”. I can’t say that I knew Stephen Curry was going to be a good NBA player watching him at Davidson, or in the first few weeks of the season. But last night, in the 4th quarter, and more specifically at the moment in crunch time when he drove to the lane and dropped a teardrop over Dirk Nowitzki, that’s when I knew. One minute earlier, he had hit a transition trey on a pass from Ellis. That might have been Stephen Curry finding his comfort zone in the NBA folks. Welcome Stephen.

8. Continuing to dominate Dallas. Even against all the odds, with all of their injuries, the Warriors still managed to beat a team coming off a five-game winning streak with an MVP candidate. The Warriors just own this team, the world saw it with the “We Believe” team in 2007, but it still rings true. Dirk Nowitzki has nightmares about playing the Warriors.

9. Anthony Randolph. You’d think with a team down to only six players, Randolph, one of the most exciting players in the league according to many, would find a way to sneak into the starting lineup. Not so. As it turned out, Randolph didn’t have the best game last night, only contributing 9 points in 30 minutes, but at some point the Warriors have to recognize that he needs to get consistent minutes, even when the rest of the roster returns to action.

10. Happy Thanksgiving everybody! The Warriors will be home for Thanksgiving, as will I this week. I’m thankful for many things, amongst them the opportunity to watch a team that always finds a way to play some of the most exciting basketball in the league.

I woke up this morning to an email from my dad. A quick one-line note “I’ve only got three words to say: “Chris ‘Freakin’ Hunter”.

Sure, Hunter’s Warriors debut was solid, as he helped out a Warriors team plagued with injuries and the flu to provide some solid defense at the center position.

But the story of this week for the Warriors, without question, is the performance of Monta Ellis. After the Stephen Jackson trade, Warriors fans were left to wonder whether Monta would be the next Warrior to leave. He had clashed recently with Don Nelson in practice, and his agent met with the Warriors brass on Thursday to discuss his future with the team. Its possible he wants to be traded and get away from a franchise that doesn’t appear to be going anywhere this season. All Warriors fans should be hoping that somehow the meeting on Thursday went well. Hopefully it was simply a check-in meeting to talk about Ellis’ future as a Warrior, as opposed to his future as a non-Warrior.

Regardless of how Ellis feels behind the scenes, his play on the court has been tremendous. In last night’s game against Portland, he played the best defensive game of his entire career, tallying 6 steals and holding superstar Brandon Roy to a measly 17 points. To boot, Ellis added 34 points of his own and was able to score at will. He’s playing like a franchise player right now.

Ellis, Anthony Morrow and Stephen Curry all were forced to play the entire game last night, as the Warriors were left without any other options at the guard positions. Late in the game, noticeably tired, Ellis still showed that he was the best player on the court – driving to the hoop, dishing to Anthony Randolph inside, and stealing the ball away from Roy for a layup.

As the Warriors head back on the road to Dallas and San Antonio, the most important thing they can do now would be to get healthy. The expected announcement that Kelenna Azubuike is out for the year is a big blow, as is the news that recently acquired Raja Bell won’t be able to play through his wrist injury and will be heading under the knife this week. Still, CJ Watson (swine flu) should be back this week, and Andris Biedrins shouldn’t be far behind. Both of those additions would be a big boost, although the way they played shorthanded against Cleveland and Portland, they might be best served only having 8 healthy bodies all year!

The deal sends Jackson, whose constant complaints about his situation in Golden State made this trade inevitable, to Charlotte along with backup point guard Acie Law. Law was an up-and-comer whom the Warriors acquired in the Jamal Crawford trade this offseason, but he didn’t figure into the Warriors long term rotation.

In exchange, the W’s will pick up Raja Bell and Vladimir Radmanovic. Bell has had issues of his own this year – he has been playing with a partially torn ligament in his left wrist. That shouldn’t affect his shooting all that much, but it remains to be seen whether it will have an impact on the defensive side of the ball. Bell has been averaging 12 points her game early in the year, and I would expect him to take Jackson’s spot in the Warriors starting five.

Radmanovic is an interesting side piece in this trade. He hasn’t seen much action in Charlotte this year, and it wouldn’t be shocking to see him spend a good deal of time on the bench in Golden State too… but he is 6’10, and even though he is generally not a post player, he could be counted on to help the Warriors out by guarding some of the 4’s and 5’s in this league. I worry that my next blog post will be titled “Radmanovic posterized by Kevin Garnett”, but for now I’ll just say I think I’ll take Radmanovic over Acie Law.

One final thought: My how quickly things have changed – remember the rotation from the “We Believe” squad?

Andris Biedrins C

Al Harrington PF

Stephen Jackson SF

Jason Richardson SG

Baron Davis PG

Key Reserves: Monta Ellis, Matt Barnes, Mickael Pietrus, Kelenna Azubuike.

Shockingly, that was only 2.5 years ago. From that group of nine, only Monta Ellis will be in uniform this week.

Looks like I was wrong. My goodness was I wrong. 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jennings exploded last night for 55 points, 29 of them coming in a third quarter in which he could not miss. At one point, he had about 15 points in a row and I felt like I was watching a friend play “NBA Jam” when the player was on fire. Seriously, he was in a zone I’ve only witnessed a handful of times in my life – Lebron against the Pistons comes to mind.

More importantly, his performance spoiled a very well played game by the Warriors. Corey Maggette in particular made the best defensive team in the NBA look extremely pedestrian. He consistently made Ersan Ilyasova looked like a 7th grader.

And as if losing the game wasn’t bad enough – Kelenna Azubuike sustained what looked like a very serious knee injury in the first quarter. Last week I wrote about how Kelenna was playing the best basketball of his life and was on his way to establishing himself as a definite starter for years to come. This injury will definitely put that on hold for the time being, and Warriors fans should be crossing their fingers that the injury was less serious than it looked. The injury means Corey Maggette will have to step up and get a lot more playing time at the power forward/ faux-warriors-center spot.

All in all, it was a weird week for the Warriors. They played horribly against Indiana and no one could hit a shot. Then, against the Knicks, they played atrocious basketball, arguably worse than they did against than the pacers. But then, they shoot the lights out at Milwaukee (56%), put up 125 points on a great defensive team, and lose. Go figure.

The next two games on the Warriors schedule (at Cleveland & Boston) look like certain losses – especially with the injuries continue to pile up. But, the Warriors always find a way to make things interesting, even in defeat, so I’d expect those games to be close as well.

Just happy the Warriors don’t have to see Brandon Jennings any more this year.