Golden State Warriors

Warriors Stay Golden

June 19, 2015 by Peter Getty

For the first time in 40 years, the Warriors are back in Oakland — as NBA champions.

With more than a hundred team employees donning the team colors, the Golden State Warriors received a hero’s welcome — as they should. Holding off LeBron James’ best efforts to save the Cavaliers, sweet victory came at the cost of the Cav’s 105-97 loss in Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

Helicopters hovered above the airport and the chartered flight received an escort from a police car and two fire trucks on standby. The Warriors’ arrival was akin to a celebrity wedding, with people snapping photos and shooting videos with their smartphones. MVP Stephen Curry was the first player off the plane, quickly joined by his elated teammates.

“We Are the Champions” by Queen blared. Warriors employees, shuttled from team headquarters on three buses, cheered, and gave hugs and handshakes to players and coaches.

Forward Draymond Green is the team’s only first string Warrior not yet signed for next season. As a restricted free agent, the Warriors would be able to match any offer he receives from another team — and they would be remiss not to do so.

When asked if he will be back next season, Green responded, “Hell yeah I expect to be back here.”

Congratulations poured in from many sources, including a phone call to Warriors’ Head Coach Steve Kerr to congratulate the Warriors and an invitation to the White House.

“You’re still kind of on an adrenaline rush and excited to win a championship, so guys are taking naps, guys are listening to music, just talking about how fun the journey’s been,” said Stephen Curry. “And now we get to celebrate for real.”

Warriors at the Break

February 17, 2015 by Mark Cuthbertson

Late winter / early spring is a great time for the NBA. Football is over and baseball is months away. With a little more attention on basketball, San Francisco fans have a lot to be happy about at the All-Star break. The Golden State Warriors are currently boasting the best record in the NBA, and have lost less than 10 games (42-9). It’s not too early to talk about a possible championship.

The Warriors are fantastic with outside shots, but might want to consider looking for a player who is strong in the post before the trade deadline hits. Right now there is no insurance for Bogut – we can’t rely on his consistency to seal up the season. Otherwise the bench looks great. Some are saying they can be inconsistent, but it ultimately comes down to wins – and those have been very consistent. Quality players make the difference.

What’s going so right? Stephen Curry has been a monster lately, and is in a strong lead to become the season’s MVP. He recently scored 51 points against the Mavericks, just amazing. He averages over 30 points a game with a 50% average – 45% from deep, along with multiple turnovers per game. And he’s showing no signs of slowing down. With such a sizable lead in the Western Conference and a deep bench, Kerr has the luxury of resting key players in preparation for bigger games.

Stats can be misleading, but the Warriors are on the short list of teams with a legitimate shot at earning an NBA title. The Grizzlies, the Spurs, and the Hawks are among the other strong contenders.

The Warriors weren’t playing their best during the last weeks before the All-Star break, but that was more a result of some tough travel schedules during that time. In that respect, the break came at the perfect time for the team. The team’s confidence will be further renewed by Curry’s win in the three point shootout.

stay healthy bogut

The key things to look for are getting back to moving the ball and playing tough defense, both a little lackluster in the past couple weeks of games. Sure, they’re giving up less than 100 points per game, but the defense was much stronger at the top of the season. Bout was out for a while, which forced the team to scramble on defense. We can’t afford to have that happen again, particularly once playoffs begin. So stay healthy, Bogut!

Klay Thompson

July 15, 2014 by Mark Cuthbertson

The Golden State Warriors have a star in guard Klay Thompson, and now that his rookie deal is expiring, they have to start compensating him more. Thompson’s future seems so bright, in fact, that there is worry as to whether the Warriors can afford him. The team already pays three starters over $10m. In light of this, Thompson needs to add a tremendous value to the team if he is to receive an eight-figure salary too.

Thompson has grown a lot as a player during his three years with the Warriors. His shooting percentage, his points per game, his rebounds, his assists – he’s improved across the board and become an essential part of the team. Coach Mark Jackson has stated publicly that Thompson and Stephen Curry form the best shooting duo in NBA history. Together, these two players set an NBA duo record two years ago with 483 three-pointers.

Fans and analysts seem to believe that Thompson is a shoo-in to become an All-Star, but the cash-strapped Warriors need to determine just how likely that is if they’re looking at another All-Star salary. How long is Thompson likely to play at such a high level? He’s only 24, which bodes well, but guards with similar stats to Thompson tend to fall off after five seasons or so. Already three years in, Thompson is working against history if he wants to be an All-Star after his fifth season. Most All-Star NBA guards who have similar stats to Thompson don’t achieve All-Star status after their fifth season. If the Warriors are going to enter into another big contract, it better be for more than two years of real strength.

Statistically, if Thompson is going to become an All-Star, it will have to be in the next season or two, if at all. The problem is that he didn’t receive that many votes for the Western Conference this year…he was ranked 9th. For a player who could potentially be entering his prime (according to statistics), this isn’t a good place to be going into your fourth season.

I’m interested to see whether or not Thompson appears on the Golden State roster next season. There’s a real value to holding on to him, but $10m is a lot of resources that could be spent bringing some new talent to the team to support the stars we already have. There is talk of trading Thompson for Kevin Love. Losing Thompson would be a blow to the franchise, but Kevin Love may potentially pay off more in the long run.

Hilton Armstrong & The Golden State Warriors

April 3, 2014 by Mark Cuthbertson

Dedicated fans of the Golden State Warriors have started to hear the name Hilton Armstrong a lot lately. Armstrong is a defensive player who just signed a 10-day contract with the Warriors for the second time in two months. The first contract was in late February, and another 10-day was just announced on Sunday. At 29, Armstrong is a more mature player who has been at it professionally since 2006. Wondering if he may become a more permanent part of the Warriors lineup, I did a little research on Armstrong.

Like so many players in the NBA, Armstrong has signed with more than one team. Armstrong has really made the rounds in his eight years. He was the 12th pick during the 2006 NBA Draft, signing with the New Orleans / Oklahoma City Hornets for a couple years. An adequate player, he soon became an often traded commodity. Over the course of four years, he played with the Sacramento Kings, Houston Rockets, Washington Wizards, and Atlanta Hawks. Then there was a period of international play with the French pro league (ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne), the Chinese pro league (Changsha Bank Guangdong), and the Greek pro league (Panathinaikos). Armstrong played basketball in college at UConn with the Huskies. Not a top performer in his first three years, he came into his own during his senior year, where he vastly improved his stats and subsequently won the Big East Defensive Player of the Year in 2006.

Armstrong has been a member of the Warriors world for over a year now. In January of 2013, he was hired by the Santa Cruz Warriors, a team in the NBA D-League. He gained a very good reputation in Santa Cruz, earning 2nd Team All D-League Defensive Team honors, and was signed to play with Golden State this past December. For some reason he was waived quickly, and returned to Santa Cruz. Armstrong continued to prove himself in the D-League (he was named to the Future All-Sar roster for the D-League All-Star Game), and now finds himself getting called in for short stints with Golden State.

For Santa Cruz, 29-year-old, 6-11 Armstrong has appeared in 32 games (23 starts) this season. He averages 12 points per game, over 7 rebounds, and is in the D-League top 10 for blocks. For Golden State, he has played eight games this season, averaging 2.3 rebounds in 4.4 minutes. These are solid stats, and I imagine we’ll continue to see him here and there on the roster. Whether he becomes a more permanent fixture, of course, depends on his performance during these 10-day opportunities.

Golden State’s Playoff Chances

February 26, 2014 by Mark Cuthbertson

The All Star break has ended and now it’s time to get back to actual real basketball. Being a fan of the Golden State Warriors, that means i’m part of the most conflicted fan base in the NBA right now – because Golden State couldn’t be more on the cusp of a playoff run. But though they’re on the cusp, a lot needs to happen for them to get there.

By now, both the fans and management thought that the Warriors would be a lot further along in the standings than they actually are. Golden State currently holds the 8th seed in the Western Conference, making them the bottom seed of the playoff bracket in the West and are really right on the edge of the playoff picture with Memphis simply a game and a half behind them. The distance between the 6th seed (Dallas Mavericks) in the West and the Grizzlies is only two games total, so it’s anyone’s game for the bottom rungs of the playoff ladder going into these last three weeks of the season. The Phoenix Suns, holding the 7th seed in the West with a 30-21 record have been playing fantastic ball this season, considering the injury to Eric Bledsoe, thanks in great part to Gerald Green coming off the bench and making them truly dangerous from behind the arc. Chances are, this is going to be a very intense four-way battle for the last few spots; everybody’s got a chip on their shoulder between four franchises that were all expected to make a playoff run, and are all now vying for a playoff run. But not everybody can make it.

One of the key factors that may determine who will ultimately make it to the playoffs is schedule difficulty. Based on the difficulty of the games ahead, the frequency of back-to-back games, and the number of road trips is a strong (though not perfect) indicator of the chances of any given team making it to the post-season. All these factors can have a large affect on records of teams, and should be paid attention to when evaluating whether or not any given team has a shot of making it.

Strength of Schedule

As far as the Warriors’ strength of schedule goes, of the four teams vying for the playoffs (Dallas, Phoenix, Golden State, Memphis), Golden State luckily has the easiest strength of schedule going forward. Fifteen of their next twenty-nine games are against teams that have no shot at the playoffs. Considering that the Warriors are at 10th in the league in total offensive points scored (103.6/game), that’s a break that they need to pick up steam again and becoming as prolific a scoring juggernaut as they should be on paper. This gives time for players like Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes to pick up steam and start producing like they were expected to produce from the beginning.

The fact that the Warriors have not yet truly hit their stride is worrisome, but the fact that more than half of their remaining games are against non-playoff contenders makes me assume that they’ll likely hit their stride as the playoffs approach (though, Harrison Barnes worries me, which i’ll get to later). The other three teams in the four-way competition also have similarly easy schedules, but less-so than the Warriors.

Road vs. Home Games

Teams generally perform better at home than they do on the road, which is intuitive since if the opposite were the case, then home field advantage would be worthless. The Warriors have been struggling at home as of late, but still have a winning record at home. All but three teams in the entire Western Conference have a winning record at home, and this is a great time to start winning at home to gain momentum.

Golden State, Phoenix, and Dallas all have 15 home games going forward, whereas Memphis only has 13. Two games can be a huge difference when the playoff contention run is different by only two games between four teams. Golden state has 14 road games, which is the second least of the four teams, which is in their favor as a majority of their games giving them the advantage of the crowd.

On the other hand though, the Warriors have the longest road trip out of the four teams. Starting on February 24th, the Warriors will be on the road for six games straight, starting in Detroit and ending in Boston. The only real team that will be a difficult hump to get over is Indiana, since they are arguably the best in the East. In their favor is the fact that they play Detriot, Boston, Chicago, The Knicks and Toronto within those six games on the road; those five are very win-able, since only Chicago and Toronto are amongst those players with winning records, and they are barely winning records at all. Golden State could catch a break on the road by having these Atlantic failures to play against, but they can’t be caught sleeping; they’re n0t in a position to be cocky and not take these games seriously because of the general disarray of the Atlantic Conference as a whole.

Some additional optimism is that their last East road trip ended with the Warriors going 6-1.

Back to Backs

This is where things get dangerous for the Warriors. The Warriors have one of the toughest remaining schedules when it comes to back-to-backs. They have six B2B’s remaining, including several difficult ones between @Sac/ vs. Hou, @Tor/@NYK and @Por/ vs. Minn. Memphis also has six back-to-backs remaining, but less difficult than the Warriors.

Other Notes

Harrison Barnes and Klay Thompson both need to step up. Neither have progressed as expected. Despite Barnes’ amazing performance in the playoffs last year, he has actually regressed this season, shooting only 43% from the field and his passing has been pathetic, averaging a mere 1.3 assists per game.

Thompson has not expanded his game in the slightest. While he has improved in shooting from the field and beyond the arc, he’s still merely averaging 43.2% from the field, which is unacceptable for a starting shooting guard. Furthermore, Thompson has been ineffective in the paint, at best. For a 6’7″ shooting guard, being ineffective in the paint really restricts how dangerous he can be from all areas of the court. Having an effective post-up game is exactly what would bring the Warriors to an entirely different level.

Andre Igoudala has also been lacking. His big-play potential is exactly the reason that he was brought to Golden State, and it was presumed that he would be the one to bring the Warriors over the top. He has been anything but useful thus far. Despite his injury trouble, he has fallen off this season completely. His scoring is lower than it’s ever been since his rookie year in 04-05, and rebounding an assists have also both fallen off. The $13 million he’s getting this year doesn’t add up with this type of performance, and is detrimental to the team.

If what’s around Curry can’t work, then this team can’t work. Golden State needs to step up their game and take advantage of the ease of the schedule going into the next few weeks.

Skip links

Main navigation

Golden State Warriors