I usually have a spoiler protection pet here, but none of them were available today, so my friend Will is here instead. Don’t read anything into his appearance, just look into the light. It will all feel better in a moment.

Game 13 wrap: Life is full of change, and the suffering from impermanence of joy is called Viparinama Dukkha

attachment is the root of suffering, please look into the light

The official Always Close Enough To Hurt™ audit

We have transcended things like Hurt and Not Hurt.

BTW, I told APRIBOT to factor in a -5.4 net rating for Steph’s injury before this game. That would bring GSW down from #4 in the league (holy cow) to #14 in the league. So she still thinks GSW is a .500 team without Steph. But this is a hard road trip and she expects 1.86 wins in the next 4 games (including tonights… did we play tonight?) to finish the road trip.

(The -5.4 isn’t completely pulled out of my butt. It’s from openrapm.com, but it’s extremely naive to just subtract his rating like I just did.)

Anyway, even though this one loss (though I can’t remember much about it) basically eliminated GSW from the NBA Cup this season, it still counts the same a one close loss in the playoff race.

On to the next one…

According to reporting, Steph Curry’s oblique tear is going to put him out of action for a minimum of two weeks - with some reporting stating that the team is bracing for an absence of “close to a month.” There’s never a good time for something like this to happen, but especially not on the week consisting of two of the biggest Western Conference test games of the season. But so it goes.

After dropping a close(ish) one to the Houston Rockets on Wednesday, the Warriors are going to drag what’s left of their healthy roster into San Antonio for a showdown against Wemby and the Spurs. Thankfully, Gary Payton is cleared to return to play after missing a couple of games with a minor knee issue. Guard defense was one of the problem areas against the Rockets, so his return is timely.

GAME DETAILS

WHO: Golden State Warriors (8-4) at San Antonio Spurs (10-2)

WHEN: Friday November 13th, 2026; 6:30 pm PDT

WATCH: Amazon Prime

Injuries:

Ugh. Houston.

Back when I lived in Texas, they called Houston “the armpit of Texas” and over the years, I’ve grown into a deeply felt agreement with that statement. Curry has faced Houston 74 times over his career, including playoffs, averaging 24.1 points in regular-season matchups and 24.9 in playoff games. Back in April of 2016, Curry sustained one of the biggest injuries of his career - an unintentional slip on the Houston court that caused the MCL sprain that nearly derailed their championship.

And now, a decade later, it’s Houston again. The Warriors seemingly with limitless potential and a bunch of momentum - all derailed in a moment. It puts more pressure on a season that had been feeling light and airy. Hopeful. That hasn’t been stolen necessarily, but paused perhaps?

I had an ex from Houston. Cool woman. She was super into art cars (apparently there’s a whole scene in Houston), and did fire dancing on the side. We met while leading wine tasting bicycle tours. She lived in this weird yurt in a backyard in Santa Rosa. I fondly remember sitting around after a long day listening to these weird Ultra Lounge sampler albums she had.

Maybe it’s just the Houston connection, but I think I’m also drawing a parallel here because of how ephemeral it was. She was moving back to Texas (a State I had just very intentionally left recently). So there was an impermanence to that relationship that made everything easy, but also, an enjoyable bittersweet undertone to everything.

The world of professional sports is full of these ephemeral human interactions, and I love it. A regrettably short crossing of paths for us watchers to enjoy from our seats.

So yeah, Curry is out for a while, and everything just got harder for Golden State. But man, for a moment there, the magic was flowing freely. Curry was playing as good as he ever has. At 38 years old, there was something very, very special going on with Curry this season. But we all knew this couldn’t last forever. Hopefully this is just a short pause.

But even as that dream fades, I can see a new one starting to form. Maybe not tonight, when Wemby and the championship-seeking Spurs show us what a fully powered roster looks like. They’ve won 10 in a row and are looking like the team to beat in the West. A win isn’t impossible this evening, but the odds are against it. You’d have to be delusional to expect the Warriors to win.

It’s a pretty brutal two-week stretch, especially now that Curry is expected to miss at least six games with his oblique injury. I’d rate the upcoming schedule around 8/10 in difficulty, with the combination of road games, quality opponents and compressed schedule making it particularly challenging. But there are winnable games in here:

This opening stretch is particularly brutal. Four games in seven days, all on the road:

• San Antonio

• New Orleans

• Dallas

• Memphis

But the Warriors were showing some meaningfully helpful depth, and Yaxel Lendeborg is looking very much like this team’s next fleeting dream giver. It’s obviously worse without Curry, but with those glimpses - eight games of scrappy greatness - it’s enough to sustain hope.

Every team in the league comes with an asterisk next to their season’s plans. *If healthy. All around the league star players have been going down. As far as bumps in the road go, this one might spill a little coffee, but it could have been much worse for Golden State. Now we get another type of look at this team. The Warriors have always been worse without Curry. Not even at the height of the dynasty’s power was Durant enough to offset the impacts when Curry couldn’t play.

So no, Yax and Podz don’t need to go undefeated, but they do need to keep their heads up. Give Dub Nation a reason to hold on to hope.

Because if you look at the calendar, Curry’s re-assessment will be around the end of November. Assuming a period of gently returning to basketball activities, and that’s getting awfully close to the timeline for Butler and Moody to begin working their way back.

Golden State has built themselves a little bit of a cushion when it comes to the standings. It was a beautiful run that was cut all too short in Houston. A bittersweet memory, but what a great ride!

Now it’s going to be something else for a while, and who knows what Curry will look like whenever he comes back. We get something new for these next few weeks. Uncertainty is part of following any team.

The next two weeks probably aren’t going to be pretty. San Antonio, Boston, and a string of road games are a rough way to navigate life without Stephen Curry, and on one will be surprised if the Warriors give back some of the cushion they’ve built for themselves. But this is also where the season gets interesting in a different way. Podz has a chance to take on more responsibility, Yax gets another opportunity to show that his early-season promise can hold up under a bigger spotlight - and the rest of this roster has to figure out how to keep the whole thing moving.

Prediction

The Warriors come out of this stretch a little worse for wear, but not wrecked. Something like 3-3 feels reasonable, with the possibility of a better result if they steal one of the tougher road games. Curry’s absence is going to be felt. It always is. But there’s still something worth watching in what happens.

Music Friday!

Oh, have we got a classic for you today, DNHQ. When’s the last time you listened to some whiny emo music? These guys are coming to San Jose Saturday, and maybe I’ll go cry about Curry in the pit.

That’s a lot of plot for one day, even for a guy whose life already plays like a docuseries. Ayesha Curry’s five-second kiss with co-star Matthew Daddario in Roku’s Second Chance Holiday had turned into a social media and podcast storm, with Gilbert Arenas reportedly calling her a “blemish” on the family. Steph called out Arenas and other commentators Nick Young and Emmanuel Acho by name and effectively told them to pipe down.

All three apologized, but tensions had clearly heightened around the Curry name. Meanwhile, back at work on the basketball court in Houston he’s poured champagne on repeatedly, calamity struck Steph.

Early in the first quarter Steph came off a screen and hit a three. He grimaced on the release, waved to the bench and walked to the locker room in obvious pain. He was done with 6:25 left in the first quarter and by Thursday morning the MRI showed an oblique abdominal tear. The Warriors say he’ll miss at least two weeks and be re-evaluated then. Steve Kerr said there was “a high level of concern,” and Steph told him it was a pain he had never felt before.

The Warriors lost 115-108, which ended an eight-game win streak. Former Warrior legend Kevin Durant led the Rockets with 20 points in what was a balanced attack for Houston (six different players scored in double figures). He used to be the Golden State’s answer to Steph coming off the floor; now he was the one punishing them for it.

If you’ve followed this team for more than a few years, sometimes Rockets games feel like an episode of Rescue 911 with the way that Golden State keeps inexplicably suffering random weird injuries.

• In Game 4 of the 2015 West finals in Houston, Steph went up as Trevor Ariza pump-faked, flipped over his shoulder and hit his head on the floor. He went through concussion protocol and came back in the third quarter.

• Two nights later, back at Oracle for the closeout game, Ariza’s knee caught Klay Thompson in the side of the head. Klay needed stitches in his ear and was diagnosed with a concussion with the NBA Finals a week away. I remember them getting called the ”Crash Brothers” that week, as Dub Nation held a collective frustrated breath.

• In the 2016 first round, after winning 73 games and putting the entire league in a stranglehold, Steph hurt his ankle in Game 1 at home. Then in Game 4 in Houston he went down again with a sprained MCL in his right knee in arguably the most viscerally disturbing fall he’s taken as a Warrior. Ask anyone in the Bay how that June went and watch their face.

• In 2018, Steph narrowly avoided being turned into a crash test dummy when he and Ariza collided in the audience over a loose ball. This Ariza guy just was a magnet for harrowing moments of physical contact with the Splash Bros, eh?

• Then came 2019. In the second round of the playoffs on a hot night in Houston, the leg of a Finals MVP was compromised. That’s right, I’m talking about Andre Iguodala.

• But I wish that was the worst of it. At Oracle, two-time Finals MVP Durant pulled up over Iman Shumpert late in the third quarter of Game 5 of the West semis, landed, and walked off with a right calf strain. After that he only played a little over one more quarter as a Warrior before embarking on a journey of self exploration around the NBA.

• It keeps going: in 2021 in Houston, Steph fell into the metal stairs by the Rockets bench and left with a tailbone contusion.

Last November at Chase Center, he tried to take a charge on Amen Thompson, got run over and left with a quad injury.

This current injury to Steph has the cruelest timing of the bunch. I’d be curious to hear what you think about the footage on it in the comments (#foulplay).

A roster held together with tape had finally found a rhythm and won eight straight with half the rotation in street clothes, while the Rockets employ the one guy the Warriors desperately wanted to keep to ensure the team was bulletproof even when Steph wasn’t available.

Was KD the best insurance policy ever written? In retrospect the Durant years still look so ridiculous. KD was a superstar and also the ultimate safety net. If Steph went down, the Warriors still had one of the three or four best players on the planet. Even when KD was the one who got hurt in 2019, the setup worked the other way too, and the Warriors closed out the Rockets without him.

This version of the team already lost their insurance policy when Jimmy Butler’s knee buckled last season. Not to mention the absences of their supposed center Kristaps Porzingis and a former lottery pick in the rotation Moses Moody. Additionally Gary Payton II’s knee is inflamed and Brandon Williams has a strained hamstring. Will Richard was suiting up with a torn thumb UCL.

They kept stacking wins anyway, because a 38-year-old guard in his 18th season was putting up 27.8 a night on 50 percent shooting and nearly 46 percent from three. In his absence the team faltered despite a gritty effort.

Watching KD lead his team to victory last night made me wistfully remember how he exemplified Dub Nation’s rallying cry of “don’t waste Steph’s prime.” It was pretty good seeing Big Yax play so competitively against the Slim Reaper, even earning Durant’s praise after the hotly contested game.

Yaxel scored 25 points with 10 rebounds. Brandin Podziemski, the other leader of the Warriors MASH brigade, added 22 of his own. Those two will have to be their best selves for Golden State to escape this Steph and Jimmy-less stretch of basketball with wins.

The next formal update for Mr. Curry comes in about two weeks, and a re-evaluation is just a checkup… not a return date. Nobody’s going to rush a 38-year-old’s core. This is happening as a five-game road trip starts, with the injured list trying to get longer than the active one. It’d be interesting to see how Kerr juggles this and how De’Anthony Melton gets a lion’s share of the minutes in Steph’s absence.

I know that right now the Warriors need health, not another Kevin Durant (and they’re not getting one anyway). They also better exhibit the kind of disciplined, tenacious, and intelligent basketball that adds up to a path of their own. Because that’s a path they better get more and more familiar with, as not only do they have to continue without Steph at least half a month; there’s also the not-so-distant future when he’s fully gone.

Steph Curry’s story has always been a blockbuster. Now the Warriors are getting an unexpected holiday preview of the sequel without him.

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Eddie wouldn’t put on the Klay shirt so he is lounging tout nu in his golden glory. Notice those giant paws - no one can best him chasing and batting a ball on the hardwood. Love to all at DNHQ!

- Janet

Pet Picture Rotation

General offer to DNHQ: if you send me a tasteful picture of your loved animal, I will add it to the rotation of Game Wrap animal pictures.

Ideally, wearing DNHQ gear or Warriors gear, but having gear somewhere in the picture is great, or even without is okay.

No AI please.

Email to apricotan@gmail.com

Game 12 wrap: Dubs lose to Rockets; Steph injured; streak ends

All good things must end

Official Box Score

• NBA Official Box Score

The official Always Close Enough To Hurt™ audit

Here is a home-grown graph of the game win probability tonight. The gray line is the actual score difference. The chart looks about right to me, but if you use this for anything important or anything bad like gambling, then you get what you get.

It looked hopeless with no Steph. But the Warriors showed never-quit guts and a full commitment to the corporate mission of Always Close Enough To Hurt™ and sliced it to a 2 point lead, then 3 in the 4th quarter and then 6. This maximized hope, which is the source of pain.

APRIBOX Scores

It’s okay if you don’t know what all these stats are. My high-strung computer calculates some rough advanced statistics for the game.1

Teal = better, blood orange = worse.

Warrior Wonder

If I didn’t include your favorite player, sorry! There are only 5 slots available. Write a tribute comment at DubNationHQ.com instead.

On Site Comments and Politics

Reminder that I do not want DNHQ to become a political discussion. Politics is much more important than basketball. These events should be discussed widely and people should call their Senators and Congresspeople, and organize locally, but there are much better places than here. This is a little corner of the internet to get away from that.

On to the next one…

The Golden State Warriors just turned their early season around with an incredibly strong 6-0 run at home - bringing the total run to eight in a row. But the injuries have begun to pile up just as the team hits the road. Guard injuries are mounting: Gary Payton is out with an indefinite knee inflammation, Brandon Williams tweaked his hamstring early in the previous game. Williams’ will be re-evaluated in a week, Payton’s indeterminate absence sounds like a minor issues rather than a major concern, but the real question mark is Will Richard. He’s been upgraded to Questionable tonight and could be available to give it a go despite a reportedly torn ligament in his non-shooting hand1.

Looking at the season stats, those players may not play huge roles on a nightly basis, but the Warriors just lost the players representing the 7th, 8th, and 11th total minutes played so far. Losing them all (again, Richard is going to attempt to give it a go tonight) is a significant wrinkle in coach Steve Kerr’s rotation. Even more, just looking at the total minutes played undersells how critical these players might be on any given night due to matchups.

Tonight will be merciless. The Houston Rockets are more than Kevin Durant’s team. This is a near-perfect blend of old veterans (with Fred VanFleet, Marcus Smart, and Bogdan Bogdonovic) meshing nicely with an elite young core (Jarbari Smith, Amen Thompson, Reed Sheppard, etc.). With Durant service as the focal point on the offensive end, and a team with impressive defensive and Rebounding on the other end, the Warriors will have their hands full tonight!

GAME DETAILS

WHO: Golden State Warriors (8-3) at Houston Rockets (8-3)

WHEN: Tuesday, November 12th, 2026; 6:30pm PDT

WATCH: ESPN, YouTubeTV (Weird channel alert)

Red hot Warriors get a chance to measure up against the West’s top teams

Early season is a weird time. While it’s way too early to say anything definitive, there has been enough basketball for everyone to draw a few conclusions about where teams are likely to fit into the spectrum of excellence. No surprise that the bottom features some standard citizens. The Kings. The Clippers - who have had a tough run-in with injuries and a nasty fallout from paying Kawhi Leonard under the table. The Utah Jazz round out the bottom with their cautionary tale of a failed rebuild that has mired them for a handful of seasons in an ongoing saga of ineptitude and bad outcomes.

So, even before the season started, it was evident that the Warriors were probably not destined for the bottom of the barrell. Not as long as Stephen Curry is here and healthy. But then something magical happened. After a slow start, the Warriors have flipped the entire script and are now (maybe) one of the elite?

Rookie Yaxel Lendeborg has quickly emerged as a legitimate #2 already. He is second in points scored, leads the team in rebounds per game, and has shown an accuracy from deep (44.% on 5.5 threes per game) that really stretches the court. He’s become so critical that Kerr was recently quoted as saying that he wants to have one of either Curry or Yax on the floor at all times. Much like the Rockets, the mix of veterans, internal development (Podz is taking what sure looks like a leap this season), and young talent is all coming together nicely. Plus Golden State is quietly inching closer and closer to getting Moses Moody and Jimmy Butler back. There’s something to believe in here!

The Warriors’ big home stand set a new tone, but it’s not hard to notice that some of those wins were against teams that had issues. The Magic, Clippers, and Pelicans are all decent enough teams, but none of them are at full strength. Now sure, it can be argued that simply not losing the games you’re expected to win are a certain mark of quality, but that’s not really the bar Golden State is trying to limbo under this year. Those wins over the Lakers and Heat though? That’s the level of expectations that are worth focusing on.

On the season, Golden State has the 2nd best offensive shooting percentage (2nd in eFG% per Bball Ref). But this upcoming five game roundtrip is going to be a pressure test of the strong early results for the Warriors. A lot of this centers around Curry. He’s averaging 30.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.3 assists, (50.3% from the field and 45.7% from deep, oh and 98.7% from the free throw line) and will be front and center in the opponents’ game plans.

The Rockets are more of a double-headed problem, with Durant (20.8 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 3 assist per game) and Alperen Sengun (21.3 points, 0 rebounds, 7.8 assists) driving the bulk of the damage. Defensively and offensively, there are going to be some interesting, challenging matchups - especially for the Warriors bigs. Already challenged by the departure of Porzingis, the team has found a gem in Charles Bassey.

Forgive me for a little bit of a segue here, but the more I think about this, the more convinced I am that Bassey is playing like a better version of the young Andris Biedrins that was intriguing enough to earn a big multi-year contract. Biedrins wasn't just a useful backup. At his peak, he was a very good starting NBA center. That's what makes the comparison interesting. I’m not saying Bassey is Biedrins;2 I’m saying the Warriors may have found a similarly useful type of player, and perhaps a much more valuable one than his contract suggests. This was one of the key secret sauce ingredients this season: finding value not just financially, but with meaningfully helpful on-court performance.

I’m a visual learner.

Now, Biedrins was just 22 at the time3 and playing on a whacky team that featured Corey Maggette, Monte Ellis, and Stephen Jackson. Bassey is a touch older at 26, and playing on a team with an actual identity and strategy a hair more nuanced than Nellie’s “RUUUUUN” plan. But man. Bassey has really impressed this season. Holding up against the Rockets is going to be a huge test, but I am just delusional enough to think he could be one of the reasons that the Warriors win this game.

This is what games like tonight are good for. We know that this Warriors team is good, perhaps even elite. As the challenge level ramps up, we will see a deeper cut into the soul of this team. Can they win? Yes, absolutely. With Curry continuing to go nuclear and the rest of the roster shining like this, they can beat anyone. Heck, maybe it’s the Rockets that aren’t as good as their record indicates.

Too early for this to be settled maybe, but games like tonight are going to feel like a playoff preview for a reason - these teams can sense that this is the sort of tier of talent that will matter. Whether or not your team can win on any given night is important, but knocking off other top teams is a valuable piece of information - and one that all the best teams know is something everyone keeps track of.

Prediction

There’s probably a typo or two in this article (sorry, big night of beer and pinball with the wifey after a tough day).

Golden State wins, with key contributions from the regulars. Draymond isn’t going to let Sengun or KD take over. Curry, Yax and Podz are going to create enough offensive pressure to break the vaunted Rockets defense. Dubs win a tight one.

I’m about a decade into the sports journalism business, and it’s a pleasure to serve the sports community with the bros Apricot, Duby Dub Dubs, and all the dope people who’ve made Dub Nation HQ THE premier destination for deep-cut Warriors analysis.

Oftentimes when I finish watching a game, I’ll have a bunch of scattered notes and themes I throw into a mental bucket. Some ideas need more evidence before I present them to you, the faithful reader. Other ideas are funny but too crass or preposterous to be useful (Did Mark Jackson and Joe Lacob get divorced, and Steph Curry was the kid Mark lost in the custody battle to new stepdad Steve Kerr?). And sometimes I’ll look at the pile and go, hey, all of this is trash, let me not waste Dub Nation’s time with desperate quota-filling slop. If I ain’t got nothing to say, I ain’t gon’ say nothing.

But tonight, praise God, I have something to say.

I’m writing this while watching Jayson Tatum’s Celtics play Jaylen Brown’s Sixers, the first time the two have faced each other since Boston traded Brown to Philly. Before tipoff, Tatum went in for the hug, and Brown stared off into space twirling a basketball on his finger like he was auditioning for the Harlem Globetrotters. Two weeks ago Brown said there was no beef, but “might be a little lamb chops.” I don’t know what’s really going on between those two. But from my couch, lamb chops looks a lot like leaving a six-time All-Star hanging on live TV. Hilarious.

The Warriors do breakups a lil differently over here. This past week Golden State saw three guys from the 2022 championship team, and every reunion felt like a family cookout…with the Heat and Pelicans on the grill.

Last Thursday, Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins came to Chase Center together, two guys who did heavy lifting during that last championship run. Then Monday, Jordan Poole showed up with the Pelicans and brought gifts. He gave Steph a pair of glasses, then shared a moment with fellow Michigan man Yaxel Lendeborg after the game. Then he told reporters that crossing the Bay Bridge into the arena still feels like home.

Fascinating! Of the three guys who came back this week, I would have guessed that Poole has the most reason to feel unwelcome. His exit was the ugliest of the dynasty, and it started with a punch in practice. And here he is, talking about the Bay like it’s his grandma’s house. Draymond Green, the man who threw the punch, won’t slam the door on a reunion either. Tatum can’t get a hug from Brown, and Poole is getting an open door from the guy who knocked him across the practice gym.

That’s the Warriors for you. They’ll love you forever after you’re gone, even while they’re beating the hell out of your new team.

Look how they had their ex-teammates shackled in Alcatraz.

• Klay: 11 points on 3-of-10 shooting. Wiggins: 2 points on 1-of-6 shooting. Warriors by 20.

• Poole: 7 points on 1-of-5 shooting in 34 minutes. Warriors 138, Pelicans 87, the biggest home margin since 1991.

Three former champions, five days, and they got sent home with a combined 20 points scored and a pair of losses! That makes eight straight wins for the Dubs, moving to a record of 8-3 after coming off a 37-45 season that ended in the play-in.

Go back to 2021-22 when the dynasty was supposedly over after two straight years out of the playoffs. Klay, Wiggs, and JP were instrumental in their specific roles. Golden State moved on from that supporting cast without forgetting the formula, and they’ve rebuilt the roles those guys used to play. Let’s dig into the similarities:

The big gun on the way back. That ‘22 team started the season hot, but everybody was counting down to Klay’s return in January. This year the countdown is for Jimmy Butler, whom the Warriors hope to activate early in 2027. It’s the same point on the calendar, with the same wait-till-he’s-back energy.

The young Michigan guy who makes the wait fun. Back then it was Poole, a guy who’d spent time in Santa Cruz and ended up getting buckets in the Finals. Now it’s Lendeborg, a 24-year-old rookie who used to work a warehouse job and became the first Warriors rookie since Steph to score 25-plus in three straight games. He had 17-8-6 against Klay and Wiggins, then put up 23 with his fellow Wolverines alum Poole standing right there.

The guy who figured out how to fit. What made 2022 Wiggins special was watching a former No. 1 pick finally figure out how to thrive without being the centerpiece. After coming over in 2020, Wiggins became a real glue guy as a connector, defender, rebounder, and finisher. Podz got here a different way and plays a different game, but in his fourth year he looks like a guy who’s found his spot in a winning system. Kerr has praised him for better shot selection, and his most common pairing is with Steph and Draymond.

Okay, but show me the receipts. I know what some of y’all are thinking: “Gold Blooded King, vibes are not analysis.” Fair. So I ran the numbers.

Raw per-game averages lie a little, because guys play different minutes. So here’s every player’s production stretched to the same 36 minutes. Poole’s and Wiggins’ numbers are from the 2021-22 regular season. Lendeborg’s and Podz’s are this season so far.

The young guy filling in (per 36 minutes):

• Jordan Poole (2021-22): 22.2 points, 4.1 rebounds, 4.8 assists

• Yaxel Lendeborg (2026-27): 24.1 points, 8.1 rebounds, 4.5 assists

The glue guy (per 36 minutes):

• Andrew Wiggins (2021-22): 19.4 points, 5.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists

• Brandin Podziemski (2026-27): 16.8 points, 5.7 rebounds, 4.6 assists

Start with the rookie. Lendeborg is out-scoring 2022 Poole per minute and matching him as a passer. Poole is a 6-foot-4 guard while Lendeborg is a 6-foot-9 forward; they both got handed the same gig: juice the offense while the vet heals up. (I’ve always wanted to use a semi colon and a colon in the same sentence LETS GOOO).

Podz scores less than Wiggins did, which makes sense. Wiggins was a second option who could drop 20 points on you. (Although as I recall it felt more like it was gonna be like 17 points, no more, no less, pretty much every night.) Podz makes it up everywhere else, with more rebounds and nearly double the assists.

Add their individual scoring rates together and Poole and Wiggins gave you 41.6 points per 36. Lendeborg and Podz? 40.9. Eleven games ain’t a championship season, but those numbers are a pretty encouraging start. Same recipe, new ingredients.

Which brings me to the question. Of Klay, Wiggins and Poole, who would you want back in a Warriors uniform?

Klay is the heart pick. He’s a four-time champion still hitting game-winners, and Chase Center would lose its mind. Wiggins is the size pick. His combination of athleticism and length is a nice wildcard, and he’d be great to throw at an opposing offensive threat to slow ‘em down. I’d welcome Wiggins Island back in a heartbeat!

Poole is the one who wants it most. He’s said he’s a free agent after this season, and he’s practically filling out the application in the postgame scrum. He’s also at a career-low 6.6 points on 19.2% shooting.

It’d be interesting to see the Warriors bring him back on a cheap deal with no franchise-savior expectations. Give him a seat on the bench and a chance to remember who he was: the joyful young hotshot who helped Steph and Dray run the West and win ring #4. No pressure to be the man; he just needs to be a Splash Son again.

Then again, maybe as long as the philosophy lives you don’t need those former players anymore. The vision has always been that if you give Stephen Curry and Draymond Green a collection of competent, gritty, versatile pieces you’re going to be in championship contention. Coach Steve Kerr has been patiently trying to figure out who those players are on the roster, and GM Mike Dunleavy has been trying to cobble as many of them together for right now while still keeping one eye towards a Steph-less future.

That’s what makes this run so much fun. The Warriors can welcome the old crew back to Chase Center, remember the championships, and laugh about the good times. After that they go right back to figuring out how to win another one with whoever’s wearing the uniform now.

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Hey Eric,

Huge fan of the newsletter and e1p. Here’s Walter White, a Samoyed whose favorite activity is sleeping but he’s also a big dubs fan. He’s still working on tightening up his handle but isn’t that what the offseason is for.

Go dubs!

Kevin O

Pet Picture Rotation

General offer to DNHQ: if you send me a tasteful picture of your loved animal, I will add it to the rotation of Game Wrap animal pictures.

Ideally, wearing DNHQ gear or Warriors gear, but having gear somewhere in the picture is great, or even without is okay.

No AI please.

Email to apricotan@gmail.com

Game 11 wrap: Dubs win by 51 over short-handed Pelicans

Short-handed, tired Pelicans play like it, GSW has no letdown

Official Box Score

• NBA Official Box Score

The official Always Close Enough To Hurt™ audit

Here is a home-grown graph of the game win probability tonight. The gray line is the actual score difference. The chart looks about right to me, but if you use this for anything important or anything bad like gambling, then you get what you get.

Even the emperors of Always Close Enough To Hurt™ deserve a night off every now and then. This one was over by the end of the first quarter, and just got over-er and over-er with every minute.

APRIBOX Scores

It’s okay if you don’t know what all these stats are. My high-strung computer calculates some rough advanced statistics for the game.1

Teal = better, blood orange = worse.

Warrior Wonder

If I didn’t include your favorite player, sorry! There are only 5 slots available. Write a tribute comment at DubNationHQ.com instead.

On Site Comments and Politics

Reminder that I do not want DNHQ to become a political discussion. Politics is much more important than basketball. These events should be discussed widely and people should call their Senators and Congresspeople, and organize locally, but there are much better places than here. This is a little corner of the internet to get away from that.

On to the next one…

With seven straight wins, the Golden State Warriors have leapt into fourth place in the West - actually it’s a weird three-way tie for fourth through seventh place - but the important thing is that the Warriors are back.

This will be an intense week of games: first the Dubs face the Pelicans at home tonight to end their long (and extremely successful) home stand, and then finally back to the road to face the Houston Rockets on Wednesday, and then the San Antonio Spurs on Friday. If the Warriors are able to stamp an extension onto this already impressive win streak through what is sure to be a challenging week of basketball… oh man!

Unfortunately, as I may have found some breaking news while prepping this article. I’ve got the baked potatoes in the oven, the steak bubbling away in the sous vide, so I sat down around five to make the header image and game details section. It appears as if Will Richard is out, and may be out for a while. According to the injury report posted at 5pm Sunday, he’s listed as “out - left thumb UCL tear.” It doesn’t look like he was listed in the earlier injury reports.

If confirmed, this sounds like the sort of thing that may well require surgery, but we’ll wait for additional details tomorrow once the Warriors have media availability. For now, just send hope. Richard has been phenomenal. The return of Gui Santos1 softens the impacts of this a bit, but Richard’s defensive intensity and flexibility will be sorely missed. Heal fast please!

GAME DETAILS

WHO: Golden State Warriors (7-3) vs New Orleans Pelicans (4-6)2

WHEN: Monday, November 9th, 2026; 7pm PDT

WATCH: Peacock/NBCSBA, NBATV

Injuries: Posted above, see most recent news here.

What if Curry and the Warriors aren’t done yet?

Steph Curry continues to make history. His most recent accolade? With the big night over the Orlando Magic. Curry passed LeBron James for the most 40-point scoring nights after the age of 35. It’s one of those weird records that probably doesn’t count as much as more traditional ones because it’s not the way that we tend to think about a player’s greatness. But Curry rushed over after that final buzzer in OT to be sure to grab that game ball. It’s passing LeBron on an all-time list, after all.

Curry’s showing both longevity and a current relevance that is at the core of what the Warriors are doing so far this season. He’s already passed both Dominique Wilkins and Oscar Robertson on the All-Time scoring list and could climb as high as 12 or 13 if season trajectory holds. This man is still breaking records left and right. And it’s hard not to notice this season out of Curry.

“It’s kind of a weird one,” Curry said of his latest record. “But it makes me super proud of the work that’s gone in, especially with some injuries and all that. But just the idea that I can still get to a certain level, you kind of feed off all that. Especially when it’s in a winning fashion like tonight where we needed all of them. I appreciate the longevity, y’all know that.”

He’s averaging 31.3 points per game while playing less than 30 minutes per contest. The shooting is crazy across the board: almost 50% (49.7%) from the field, 44.7% of his shots from deep, and 98.5% from the free-throw line. It’s a ridiculously elite .708 True Shooting percentage.

I just went down a statistical rabbit hole. Some things I learned from bball reference: Curry is scoring the highest points per 36 minutes at the highest TS% of his career, with the lowest turnover percentage he’s ever had. That 44.7% from deep is the best he’s shot in a decade.

Curry really is having that crazy of a season. He’s showing that he’s still one of the best in the league right now, no question.

But Curry is far from the only factor - and that’s what’s so exciting about this team. There’s an additional rising tide. with Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody looming like a Kelvin wave in the new year.3

The loss of Will Richard, if true, will be a big blow. But it’s the plethora of other options that’s been such an unexpected boon for the team this season. When overtime came against the Magic, and coach Steve Kerr decided to give Curry and Green some rest on the bench it wasn’t a desperation play. Kerr knew they could at least hang in the game for a bit, and keeping Curry’s minutes low would pay dividends throughout the season. In a way that they struggled to do in the past, the team seems okay without Curry for stretches.

A unit of starters Yaxel Lendeborg and Brandin Podziemski, and reserves Charles Bassey, Brandon Williams and Georges Niang gave the Warriors a four-point lead in what would be a 126-119 win…

It was only a minute, but it was a loud vote of confidence. Yaxel is special. He struggled a bit in the early stages of the game, but ended up with seven of the team’s points in overtime and was incredible late. Podz has cemented his spot as the starting two guard, and like Curry, he’s scoring more - and more efficiently - than ever before. Charles Bassey has been a revelation. I’ll have to do a full feature on him soon because he reminds me a lot of a young Biedrins. Cautionary tale aside, the combination of size and speed with the ability to convert layups, play defense, and inhale rebounds is exactly the sort of young talent teams invest in.

Curry is still playing at a level that makes the whole enterprise worthwhile, but the Warriors aren’t asking him to do absolutely everything. That’s not new, but it’s refreshed this season. They’re finding contributions from players who weren’t supposed to be central to the story, and they’re getting enough from that group to make the nights when Curry does take over even more valuable. It’s not a new version of the old championship formula, exactly, but it’s a team built around the same basic understanding. Give Steph a chance, and make sure there’s enough around him to matter.

So no Will Richard. A loss of a special addition to this roster.

“He’s kind of the perfect guy for that role,” Kerr said Nov. 2, on Richard’s changing stay-ready minutes. “Just really smart, and simple game. Doesn’t make a lot of mistakes, can guard multiple positions.”

Another setback. But this season feels different. It’s a firm handshake rather than a deep sigh and skyward glance as the team asks Podz for more. Brandon Williams and GP2 actually can mostly cover for Richard, and this feels more like an opportunity for players who are also doing well to add some additional minutes - especially if Gui Santos is heading back towards health. Richard has been one of the team’s best point of attack defenders, and started twice recently in big games against the Suns and Heat. So changes will be felt, for sure.

But this is a team that can handle it. Big week coming up, but a team with a deep, deep understanding of how to push through. This core has already known that this is how roads to championships are built - and while it’s way too soon to talk like that, this season has given more than enough reason to keep my delusions afloat.

Tonight, the Warriors have another opportunity to show that this isn’t just a hot streak built on Curry catching fire. This team has found ways to win, ways to survive the inevitable absences, and ways to keep contributing players involved. A little harder? No worries.

Prediction

Curry continues to go crazy, and the rest of the roster again demonstrates that they are increasingly capable of making the most of it.

Warriors get enough help from around the edges to keep the streak alive.

Explain videos will return

Yes, I know you and I prefer that I do the Explain videos... they'll be back soon enough.

I'm providing these highlights instead of posting nothing.

(Don't worry, I am a partner with the NBA so I have full permission to post game highlights, thanks for your concern.)

From Golden State Warriors games:
2026-10-26-DEN
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Three weeks ago the Warriors were 0-3, their first such start since 2007-08, and the critics were writing the obituary. Sportsbooks had them at 37 wins. They’d finished 10th last season, Jimmy Butler’s knee had been torn up since January, and the franchise player was 38. The “Golden State Warriors Dynasty” movie was supposed to be over and the credits were rolling. Half the theater was already headed out to the parking lot while the people who stuck around got one last shot in the post-credits scene.

Cut to a slow zooming close-up of Steph’s shooting hand poking out of the rubble. Wait a minute, did those fingers just twitch?!

MY GOODNESS, THEY’RE NOT DONE, NOT BY A LONGSHOT. The sequel is coming whether the critics like it or not.

Saturday Curry put up 41 points to drag Golden State past Orlando 126-119 in overtime, and that made it seven straight. Every time you think you’ve figured out what’s carrying them, they show you something else.

Sometimes it’s a hungry rookie. The streak started in Denver, where Golden State walked in as seven-point underdogs and left with a 20-point blowout behind Yaxel Lendeborg’s 31 and 12. A week later they played the Clippers without Curry, Draymond Green or Butler, and Lendeborg dropped 37. That’s the most by a Warriors rookie since Curry had 42 in 2010. A streak is supposed to die on that kind of night.

Sometimes it’s the legend being legendary. Curry hung 44 on Minnesota, and Saturday he scored 19 in the fourth quarter and overtime after Orlando had climbed all the way back. Steve Kerr said they only “got out of there alive because of Steph”.

And sometimes they just refuse to stay down. Luka put the Lakers up 25, and the Warriors won by 17, becoming the first team in 30 seasons to pull that off. Two nights later they were down 17 to Phoenix before Curry’s 25 second-half points won it. In between they hawked down the Miami Heat to stun former teammates Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins.

There’s only one team hotter. That’d be the reigning, defending Western Conference champion Spurs who beat Portland Saturday for their eighth straight, the league’s longest active run. Nobody else in the league has more than four. The Warriors are 7-3 and in the West’s top five, a sentence that sounded like fan fiction last spring.

In Curry’s first four seasons the Warriors never got past five wins in a row. Since then, the Warriors have strung together 22 streaks of seven or more before this one, each a separate run snapped by a loss before the next began. Let’s lay them out like old Polaroids:

• 2013-14: 10 → first-round exit

• 2014-15: 16, 8, 12 → CHAMPS

• 2015-16: 24, 7, 11, 7, 7 → 73 wins, lost the Finals

• 2016-17: 12, 7, 7, 14 → CHAMPS

• 2017-18: 7, 11, 7 → CHAMPS

• 2018-19: 8, 11 → lost the Finals (cheated by NBA probably)

• 2021-22: 7, 7, 9 → CHAMPS

• 2024-25: 7 → second-round exit

• 2026-27: 7 and counting → we’ll see

Now I’m no slick big city streak tracker, but it looks like in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2022 all of those 7-game victory tours ended up in championship seasons. And I’m not telling you a seven-game streak in November gets you a parade... I’m just telling you that every parade we’ve thrown in this era had a few of these behind it.

Kerr kept spirits up through the 0-3 start knowing Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody were due back in the coming months. So the cavalry hasn’t even arrived yet, and this was the version of the Warriors that was only supposed to hang on until it did.

The Pelicans come to Chase Center on Monday, with eight in a row on the table and the Rockets and Spurs looming on the schedule.

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Hi Eric,
Thank so much for curating such an amazing community. I have thoroughly enjoyed all the videos and articles. I especially especially love those of Daniel and Punk Basketball, but really everyone is so engaging. I am learning so much.

This is Shalomy. He plays center. Coach Kerr keeps telling him to sprint the floor but he prefers to saunter; therefore his minutes have been kept to a minimum. He doesn’t care, he likes a warm bench. He’s a loving teammate, but gets cranky when the spacing is off. He is at all the team dinners, and when he sees another four-legged inside the arc, he’s a ferocious competitor.

Warrrrriorrrss, (shamarosa)

Pet Picture Rotation

General offer to DNHQ: if you send me a tasteful picture of your loved animal, I will add it to the rotation of Game Wrap animal pictures.

Ideally, wearing DNHQ gear or Warriors gear, but having gear somewhere in the picture is great, or even without is okay.

No AI please.

Email to apricotan@gmail.com

Game 10 wrap: Dubs explode, collapse, win in OT; Steph is unstoppable down stretch

Yaxelotl chips in 23, Dray has 13 assists

Official Box Score

• NBA Official Box Score

The official Always Close Enough To Hurt™ audit

Here is a home-grown graph of the game win probability tonight. The gray line is the actual score difference. The chart looks about right to me, but if you use this for anything important or anything bad like gambling, then you get what you get.

Every OT game is Close Enough To Hurt™. But one where GSW blows a big lead super quickly? We deem this Always Close Enough To Hurt™.

APRIBOX Scores

It’s okay if you don’t know what all these stats are. My high-strung computer calculates some rough advanced statistics for the game.1

Teal = better, blood orange = worse.

Warrior Wonder

If I didn’t include your favorite player, sorry! There are only 5 slots available. Write a tribute comment at DubNationHQ.com instead.

On Site Comments and Politics

Reminder that I do not want DNHQ to become a political discussion. Politics is much more important than basketball. These events should be discussed widely and people should call their Senators and Congresspeople, and organize locally, but there are much better places than here. This is a little corner of the internet to get away from that.

On to the next one…

The Golden State Warriors are on a roll, and hoping to keep that momentum going tonight against the perpetually rebuilding Orlando Magic. A minor wrinkle has appeared, a deepening of a known crease already impacting the season’s plan. Kristaps Prozingis announced that he’s “stepping away.”

While it’s not a huge immediate subtraction given the team’s current success playing without him, this is the finalization of a disheartening loss of talent that will certainly impact the team - even as the resolution plays out.

Up tonight, Orlando is 2-6 through eight games, and the numbers are rough: 29th in scoring at 105.5 points per game, 25th in offensive rating, and 25th in defensive rating. So this isn’t just a team that can’t put the ball in the basket. They’re not defending particularly well, either. In their defense, offensive engine Paolo Banchero rolled his ankle in the season opener and Franz Wagner isn’t doing enough to cover the absence.

On the injury front, Orlando will be without the aforementioned Banchero, plus Jalen Suggs. On the Warriors’ side, Draymond Green (elbow) and Gary Payton (calf) join Gui Santos on the Questionable list. After tonight, there’s one more game (against the Pelicans) to close out this successful home stand run.

GAME DETAILS

WHO: Golden State Warriors (6-3) vs Orlando Magic (2-6)

WHEN: Saturday, November 7th, 2026; 5:30pm PDT

WATCH: Peacock / NBCSBA

Injuries:

Understanding Porzingis’ decision and what it means for the Warriors

The way this season has unfolded with Porzingis is weird, but far from unexpected. Golden State knew they were taking a major roster gamble here, and while it wasn’t a total failure, it feels safe to say at this point that the Warriors didn’t knock this one out of the park.

It all started in preseason, when Porzingis’ status quickly went from an unknown, to something related to his illness, and eventually to a fully agnostic outlook from coach Steve Kerr, who dealt with the issue by simply forgetting about it altogether.

“Other than my concern for him and his own well-being, I don’t think of it,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “When we come to practice, I don’t think of it. Because I have to focus on the guys who are here, and that’s my concern when we come into the building.”

Since then, the Warriors and Porzingis have agreed to keep everything fairly low key, up until a few days ago, when Golden State was widely reported to be withholding pay citing a failure to “render services.” With around $20million on the books this year and only a small guarantee next year, this situation is far from ideal, but may allow the Warriors to make some in-season adjustments that work out. This isn’t a formal retirement, so the team and Porzingis are back on the phone lines trying to “find a solution that makes sense.”

Porzingis is amenable to a trade and could actually become a relatively appealing contract for a rival team intent on shedding a longer-term salary or saving immediate money. Porzingis has only $3 million guaranteed on his deal next season, and the expectation is that he'd be open to a post-trade buyout that would save a team more than that.

The NBA trade deadline isn’t until February 11th, and according to reports, Golden State had been asking around looking for potential trade partners a month ago - if not longer. And this is where it begins to get hard for the Warriors. It’s a good example of how many layers of contingency a team’s plans must have, as that low guarantee next season was risk mitigation for exactly the scenario that has unfolded here.

Easier said than done though. Golden State is looking for a player in the $15-20 million range - either as a sole transaction, or paired with other marginal personnel to make the salaries match. However, the team has been reluctant to attach future first round picks or take on long-term salary, so just having Porzingis as salary ballast doesn’t present a ton of opportunities on its own.

All of these outcomes will be a stretch, but the Warriors have done this dance plenty of times before. A home run swing would be a player like Jalen Smith or Wendell Carter jr.; there sure were a lot of rumors swirling around Herb Jones of the Pelicans. That said, those players are intriguing precisely because they are good. Any realistic trades for those players would definitely cost the Warriors additional assets. Assets that the team has been real stingy with as part of their multi-year strategy.

For the players that are on court, this is all background noise. The team is winning and playing at such a high level right now that there’s not much of an imperative to do anything different right now. Kerr has set the tone from the outset: focus on the guys who are here. Heck, the emergence of Charles Bassey alone is almost worth the loss of Porzingis. Of course, more talent on the court is always better, but Bassey’s play has really softened any crushing emotions or on-court impacts.

Don’t expect a Porzingis trade any time soon, but if the Warriors can keep playing like they have been, it’s not really going to matter.

Prediction

Orlando is reeling without some of its best players, and the Warriors have found a new balance that’s working just fine, thank you. Curry, Yax, Podz, Bassey, Melton, Williams, Green. The list goes on.

The questions about how this roster comes together over the course of a long season are getting more and more quiet, but that’s a problem for another night. Right now, Golden State has enough bodies, enough contributors, and enough momentum to keep this thing rolling. The Magic should be a good opportunity to keep this home stand win streak alive.

My kitty’s name is Zazu! He’s 6 years old. And just like GP2, he may be small but he gets UP there when he jumps!

Appreciate everything you do. your E1Ps are goated — Chase Cross

Pet Picture Rotation

General offer to DNHQ: if you send me a tasteful picture of your loved animal, I will add it to the rotation of Game Wrap animal pictures.

Ideally, wearing DNHQ gear or Warriors gear, but having gear somewhere in the picture is great, or even without is okay.

No AI please.

Email to apricotan@gmail.com

Game 9 wrap: Warriors blow open close game, cruise to win over unbaked Giannis-Klay Heat; Steph finishes strong with 29

Yaxelotl, Will, and Niang(!) minivan to double figures

Official Box Score

• NBA Official Box Score

The official Always Close Enough To Hurt™ audit

Here is a home-grown graph of the game win probability tonight. The gray line is the actual score difference. The chart looks about right to me, but if you use this for anything important or anything bad like gambling, then you get what you get.

It wasn’t close after GSW stepped on the gas in Q3. We deem this NOT Close Enough To Hurt™.

APRIBOX Scores

It’s okay if you don’t know what all these stats are. My high-strung computer calculates some rough advanced statistics for the game.1

Teal = better, blood orange = worse.

Warrior Wonder

If I didn’t include your favorite player, sorry! There are only 5 slots available. Write a tribute comment at DubNationHQ.com instead.

On Site Comments and Politics

Reminder that I do not want DNHQ to become a political discussion. Politics is much more important than basketball. These events should be discussed widely and people should call their Senators and Congresspeople, and organize locally, but there are much better places than here. This is a little corner of the internet to get away from that.

On to the next one…

There’s a certain elegance to how the Golden State Warriors approach the tail end of Stephen Curry’s career. To be fair, the team has tried pretty much everything, from reaching for the most athletic talent to focusing on glue guys that can dribble, pass, and shoot, but seldom dominate. Whether through luck or diligence, Golden State has found themselves a gem in Yaxel Lendeborg, who has lifted one of Curry’s final seasons into one of the most intriguing of his career.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Miami Heat are struggling to find the balance within their new team. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo are discovering that their new All-Star teammate wants to occupy much of the same space and play much the same offensive role as they do. The outside shooting hasn’t shown up, and the newly constructed roster just hasn’t gelled yet.1 They’ll be coming into this game on the tail end of a back-to-back after facing the Clippers in LA on Wednesday.

Last night offered a pretty good glimpse of what that ceiling might look like in Miami. Giannis and Bam both had strong performances against the Clippers, and Miami managed to grind out a win. That’s not nothing. The question isn’t whether those two can produce individually; obviously they can. It’s whether Miami can build a functional offense around two players who do so much of their best work in similar areas of the floor. One close win doesn’t answer that question, but it’s a reminder that there’s an awful lot of firepower here if they can get the pieces working together.

On the injury front, Gui Santos is still out with that knee issue. We will keep an eye on this, as the problem is beginning to linger long enough to warrant concern.

GAME DETAILS

WHO: Golden State Warriors (5-3) vs. Miami Heat (3-6)

WHEN: Thursday, November 5th, 2026; 7pm PDT

WATCH: NBATV; Peacock/NBCSBA

Injuries:

Curry and Yaxel: New guy = good

If you haven’t yet, please click over to Daniel Hardee’s recap of the last game. This is worth celebrating. After a dour 0-3 start, Golden State finds themselves on a 5-0 rip, and it’s not clear anymore where exactly this team’s ceiling is. This is worth celebrating. A pause to let the glory of Yaxel Lendeborg sink into the collective consciousness… Yes. Good.

During the post game press conference, a reporter referenced the fact that this season’s five-win streak is more than the team managed in all of the previous season, and then asked: “in what ways does this group feel different from last year?”

That’s a big question so early in the season. The tight win over the Phoenix Suns was nice, but could have gone either way, but regardless, what’s the vibe? At 38 years old and with a championship ring for every finger on his shooting hand, Curry knows what he’s talking about - even as he thinks about the outside possibility of that fifth ring for the thumb.

So what does the Warriors megastar say when asked what feels different?

Curry took a deep sip of water, shuffled deeper into his chair and said:

“ummmm, Yax.

And BP (Brandin Podziemski) taking another step forward…

We’ve had some individual production that’s been pretty cool standout guys presence felt night after night - but then collectively we are a little bit more prepared in terms of the things we have to do... but we do have some talent that’s been fun to watch.”

[Duby warning: segue incoming. Skip ahead for team-specific coverage]

It’s important that the true fans of this era of Warriors basketball never forget how fundamentally the NBA restructured their salary cap and free agency systems in order to force the dismantling of the Warriors.

The Warriors didn’t just change the way basketball was played during their dynasty. They also helped change the way the NBA does business. The 2016 salary-cap spike gave Golden State the room to add Durant without breaking up their championship core, creating a super-duper-team that put the league’s competitive-balance problem on full display. Those were some of the best rosters ever assembled in league history. Heck, “best ever” isn’t that hard of an argument.

But then the NBA spent the off-season that followed tightening the screws on big spenders, with the real hammer coming down with the 2023 Collective Bargaining Agreement and the introduction of the second apron - which had never existed before.

Now, teams that cross that threshold don’t just get hit with a bigger tax bill. They start losing the tools that make it possible to build and maintain an expensive roster: the taxpayer mid-level exception goes away, salary aggregation in trades gets restricted, and taking on additional money becomes much more difficult. Joe Lacob can still spend whatever he’s willing to spend, but the league has made sure that money doesn’t buy him quite as many ways to improve the team. Golden State’s ability to spend its way into - and then sustain - a dynasty was a pretty obvious part of the NBA’s revised backdrop. The league has spent the better part of a decade making sure nobody gets to exploit it quite so easily; or at least can’t sustain the dominance.

The Warriors’ commitment to Curry has created a different kind of team-building opportunity, and the early returns are making that approach look pretty good. The Warriors spent years trying to preserve the advantage that the league’s own rules had helped create. Now, with that advantage long gone, they’re finding a different way to keep Curry’s window open: identifying talent that can make an immediate impact without requiring another superstar-sized investment.

Meanwhile, Miami is illustrating some of the risks of assembling a roster around individual talent rather than complementary pieces.

[ok, back to the present]

Golden State and Curry have become a sort of antithesis to the more ephemeral team-building approach that LeBron James has embodied. The Warriors and their star have stuck together. Sure, there have been sacrifices around the edges, but they’ve got a clear list of priorities (with Curry far and away the #1) and flexibly execute their ongoing plans.

So it’s not necessarily ironic that Warriors-for-life Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins find themselves playing out the tail end of their careers with Giannis in sunny and fabulous Miami, but it does exemplify two sides of the approach. The risks and rewards are clearly evident on both sides here.

For Miami, they’ve cobbled together an extremely impressive frontcourt that should absolutely dominate any other bigs in the league. With young talent like Wemby and a more expansive crossover of size and athleticism developing across the league, it seems like a brilliant move on paper.

But the implementation has been a work in progress. Some of the concerns that helped Golden State decide to move on from Wiggins and Thompson are still worth watching in Miami. A step slow, with a loss of efficiency, these are players that might be able to fill in as a main player, but are equally likely to not deliver when they’re needed.

For Golden State, the flip side of the coin has some of the team’s wildest gambles paying dividends. Picks that were presumably better diverted to improve a trade of some sunk asset have instead been converted (by none other than Mike kick-me-in-the-face Dunleavy Jr.). Charles Bassey is looking like a two-way contract mega hit. Yax is so good that he’s already widely known by a single name like Prince, Madonna… or Steph. All due respect to Podz, but Yax has a certain panache that’s impossible to deny.

Whether this all works or not doesn’t matter yet. Right now these Warriors are interesting. And part of why they’re interesting is how they’ve approached maintaining relevance.

Make no mistake, the Heat are seeing all of this, too. And they’ll be out for blood tonight. On paper, the records of these teams don’t necessarily fit with preconceptions - and that’s a big part of what makes this matchup so interesting. Personalities aside, there’s a reason this game might get a little extra personal.

So here we are, with Curry still doing Curry things, and the Warriors finding that some of their most valuable contributions are coming from places they might not have expected. Maybe that’s the real trick to keeping this thing going: when you can’t buy your way to another superteam, you’d better get pretty good at finding your own Yaxel Lendeborgs.

Prediction

The interesting contrast isn't that Golden State has figured everything out and Miami hasn't, neither team has. But I like the different flavor of answers. Golden State is finding unexpected answers, Miami is trying to make some very obvious answers work. I love this league!

Curry and Yax will cook the Heat. Wiggins scores exactly 18 points, but the Golden State wing attack is just too much for Miami after their emotional OT win in LA.

There’s a plethora of movies that I saw as a kid in the late-80s and early-90s that have been fragmented forever into my dreams although I can barely remember the plot. If I’m having friends over and playing a hotly contested game of Uno, I’ll often throw on one of those old classics on the TV for that nostalgic background noise from flicks of days past that used to dominate Blockbuster rentals.

One such movie is Ron Howard’s Backdraft, which premiered in 1991 and centers around a concept that blew my mind back then. Behind a closed door, a fire is starving for oxygen, quiet and smoldering. It inches throughout the room, eating everything it touches. Firefighters have to come and touch the doorknob to test if it’s hot; a sure sign that flames await them behind the door. If they’re not careful, they’ll hurriedly open the door, and the sudden rush of oxygen to the flames creates an explosion that could wipe out an entire fireteam. BACKDRAFT!

Why am I talking about this old movie? Because it’s reminding me of these Golden State Warriors. They spent the first week of this season ice cold, losing to the Lakers, Grizzlies, and Suns and sending Dub Nation spiraling into an existential crisis. The conversation around the team had that creepingly familiar “end-of-an-era” vibe to it.

But the team is finding itself on the fly, beating the Nuggets, Timberwolves, Lakers, Clippers, and Suns consecutively. That brings them to 5-3 on the season. Two of the three teams that beat them during that 0-3 start have already gotten paid back, with Memphis coming up soon on the calendar.

This streak is coinciding with Steph Curry’s timeless greatness and an amazing stretch of basketball from the rookie Yaxel Lendeborg. This 24-year old is simultaneously looking like the Rookie of the Year and an All-Star without even a month of professional basketball under his belt. Together, they are definitely providing a spark for this franchise.

Now, to ensure you know I’m not a delusional person (or a Houston Rockets fan), I know that a hot streak in November promises you nothing about April. But it changes how a group believes in itself in the meantime. And that belief, ladies and gentlemen, is the oxygen.

Uh oh, spark + oxygen?? BACKDRAFT!

That’s 5 wins in a row folks! The Warriors’ last five-game winning streak ran from March 28 to April 4, 2025, which means the entire 2025-26 season came and went without one. That’s 19 months without winning five straight! I took a look at Land of Basketball to track how many times during the Stephen Curry era the Warriors have had a five game winning streak.

2009-10 / 2010-11 / 2011-12: None

2012-13 (1)

• 5 games: Dec. 5–12, 2012

2013-14 (2)

• 10 games: Dec. 21, 2013–Jan. 7, 2014

• 5 games: Mar. 4–11, 2014

2014-15 (6)

• 5 games: Oct. 29–Nov. 8

• 16 games: Nov. 13–Dec. 14

• 8 games: Dec. 27–Jan. 14

• 5 games: Jan. 17–25

• 5 games: Mar. 4–11

• 12 games: Mar. 14–Apr. 4

2015-16 (7)

• 24 games: Oct. 27–Dec. 11

• 5 games: Dec. 16–28

• 7 games: Dec. 31–Jan. 11

• 11 games: Jan. 18–Feb. 10

• 7 games: Feb. 20–Mar. 3

• 7 games: Mar. 7–18

• 6 games: Mar. 21–30

2016-17 (5)

• 12 games: Nov. 7–28

• 7 games: Dec. 11–23

• 7 games: Jan. 8–22

• 5 games: Jan. 25–Feb. 2

• 14 games: Mar. 14–Apr. 8

2017-18 (4)

• 7 games: Oct. 30–Nov. 13

• 11 games: Nov. 29–Dec. 22

• 5 games: Dec. 30–Jan. 8

• 7 games: Feb. 22–Mar. 8

2018-19 (4)

• 8 games: Oct. 22–Nov. 5

• 11 games: Jan. 5–28

• 5 games: Feb. 2–12

• 6 games: Mar. 31–Apr. 9

2019-20: None

2020-21 (1)

• 6 games: May 6–16, 2021

2021-22 (4)

• 7 games: Oct. 30–Nov. 12

• 7 games: Nov. 16–28

• 9 games: Jan. 21–Feb. 7

• 5 games: Apr. 2–10

2022-23 (2)

• 5 games: Dec. 25, 2022–Jan. 2, 2023

• 5 games: Feb. 24–Mar. 3

2023-24 (4)

• 5 games: Oct. 27–Nov. 3

• 5 games: Dec. 16–23

• 5 games: Feb. 5–12

• 6 games: Mar. 26–Apr. 4

2024-25 (4)

• 5 games: Oct. 29–Nov. 6

• 5 games: Feb. 13–27

• 7 games: Mar. 3–15

• 5 games: Mar. 28–Apr. 4

2025-26: None

2026-27

• 5 games and counting: Oct. 26–Nov. 2

Ten days ago they were 0-3 and nobody wanted to hear about them, and since then they’ve paid back two of the teams that embarrassed them, come back from 25 down against the Lakers, and won a one-possession game against Phoenix on Monday night. Against the Lakers, Chase got to roar. Against Phoenix, it had to hold its breath. Either way, they got to walk out of the building into the crisp, fall San Francisco air proud of their team for pulling off wins.

The Heat walk into Chase Center on Thursday night; I’d warn our old friend Klay Thompson to be careful touching that doorknob. It’s getting hot in here.

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Hi Apricot,

This is boba_balla from DubNationHQ. Thanks for all your work on the site. Have always appreciated all that you do since the GSOM days, and glad the Warriors hired you to do some official work for them!

I wanted to submit a photo of our dog, Boba. This is an older pic of him sporting some Dubs swag, and sadly he passed away almost exactly one year ago. If he can make it onto the rotation, that would be so awesome.

Hope you have a great weekend and are able to catch the Dubs and Valks games.

Thanks,

boba_balla

Pet Picture Rotation

General offer to DNHQ: if you send me a tasteful picture of your loved animal, I will add it to the rotation of Game Wrap animal pictures.

Ideally, wearing DNHQ gear or Warriors gear, but having gear somewhere in the picture is great, or even without is okay.

No AI please.

Email to apricotan@gmail.com

Game 8 wrap: Dubs storm back, unstorm back, hold on to win; Steph’s 34 leads way; Dray gets ejected

Bassey and Niang come up big; Podz and Yax chip in

Official Box Score

• NBA Official Box Score

The official Always Close Enough To Hurt™ audit

Here is a home-grown graph of the game win probability tonight. The gray line is the actual score difference. The chart looks about right to me, but if you use this for anything important or anything bad like gambling, then you get what you get.

Draymond Green got himself ejected, triggering that Q3 comeback starting at 10:00. Then it became a wiggly thriller… just when GSW looked like they would pull away, something odd would happen.

Anyway, mission accomplished: Always Close Enough To Hurt™.

As a side note, the Warriors found themselves in a Foul Up Three situation. Longtime viewers may remember that GSW has explored the space of ways to mess up Foul Up Three endings.

Anyway, on the Valkyries side (the WNBA Champion Valkyries!!), I wrote extensively about the Foul Up Three strategy, both on the WNBA and MNBA sides. The whole epic saga is not just about numbers, but includes a months-long redemption arc with my attempts to have Coach Nakase answer my question on Foul Up Three.

Valkyrie Nation

Kiah Defense Highlights; plus Foul Up Three, Part III

Kiah! Kiah! Kiah…

Read more

a month ago · 31 likes · 21 comments · Eric Apricot

APRIBOX Scores

It’s okay if you don’t know what all these stats are. My high-strung computer calculates some rough advanced statistics for the game.1

Teal = better, blood orange = worse.

APRIBOT Rankings

APRIBOT uses a homegrown modification of Simple Rating System to rank NBA teams. It’s very unstable at this early part of the season. For instance, before this game, she ranked GSW (amazingly) as the #5 team in the league, despite having only a 4-3 record.

Tonight’s game, even though it was a win, led APRIBOT to downgrade GSW, probably because she thinks Phoenix is one of the very worst teams in the league and a 3-point victory is not as impressive as things that other teams have done. She still thinks GSW is the #8 team.

Warrior Wonder

If I didn’t include your favorite player, sorry! There are only 5 slots available. Write a tribute comment at DubNationHQ.com instead.

On Site Comments and Politics

Reminder that I do not want DNHQ to become a political discussion. Politics is much more important than basketball. These events should be discussed widely and people should call their Senators and Congresspeople, and organize locally, but there are much better places than here. This is a little corner of the internet to get away from that.

On to the next one…

There’s an energy shift around these Golden State Warriors. What was looking like a morose slog until Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody return has now shifted into…wait a minute is this team actually solid already??

Yaxel Lendeborg’s career high of 37 points against the Clippers last night really shook the NBA social media up.

Also, I find it absolutely amazing that the Los Angeles Clippers sold away their future for Kawhi Leonard, only to lose future picks in the fallout from Leonard’s departure. Meanwhile, you can take a look at Golden State’s recent draft picks with a twinkle in your eye. Brandin Podziemski just got a fat new contract and is a steadying contributor this season (he tallied 17 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists against the Clips). Gui Santos is a 2nd round pick who is getting 20 minutes a game shooting 48% from the field.

And then there’s Yaxel Power. Each game he plays, I’m seeing him impose his will more and more.

Let’s see if he can do it again tonight at 7PM PT on NBC Sports Bay Area, against the Phoenix Suns, in Chase Center.

It’s the second night of a back to back, with the Warriors winning the first against L.A. with Steph Curry and Draymond Green sitting. They should be fresh and raring to get some revenge against the Suns, who beat them earlier this season and also kicked the Dubs out of the play-in tournament last April.

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Hello ApricotAN!

This is Josh (Artfuldodger788). Really enjoying your basketball coverage since joining substack. I’m reaching out to submit some pictures of my miniature dachshund Disqó 🪩🌭. oaklanddachcam on IG.

He’s been a Golden State fan since day one. We would be super grateful to be featured in one of your posts. Attached you’ll find a few photos of Disqó in his Warriors gear.

Pet Picture Rotation

General offer to DNHQ: if you send me a tasteful picture of your loved animal, I will add it to the rotation of Game Wrap animal pictures.

Ideally, wearing DNHQ gear or Warriors gear, but having gear somewhere in the picture is great, or even without is okay.

No AI please.

Email to apricotan@gmail.com

Game 7 wrap: Yaxel’s 37 leads no-Steph no-Dray Dubs to win over Clippers

Melt, Podz and BW in double figures

Official Box Score

• NBA Official Box Score

The official Always Close Enough To Hurt™ audit

Here is a home-grown graph of the game win probability tonight. The gray line is the actual score difference. The chart looks about right to me, but if you use this for anything important or anything bad like gambling, then you get what you get.

GSW were without Steph Curry and Draymond Green, who like many Bay Area folks called out sick to watch the Valkyries win the WNBA championship.

So, when the Clippers jumped out to a double-digit lead against the short-handed Warriors, it felt like a surrendered game. Until the Yaxel Nation attacked. Quite a bounce back from his last dud game.

The game did hurt, but never really got close in the second half, so we deem this game NOT Always Close Enough To Hurt™.

APRIBOX Scores

It’s okay if you don’t know what all these stats are. My high-strung computer calculates some rough advanced statistics for the game.1

Teal = better, blood orange = worse.

Warrior Wonder

If I didn’t include your favorite player, sorry! There are only 5 slots available. Write a tribute comment at DubNationHQ.com instead.

On Site Comments and Politics

Reminder that I do not want DNHQ to become a political discussion. Politics is much more important than basketball. These events should be discussed widely and people should call their Senators and Congresspeople, and organize locally, but there are much better places than here. This is a little corner of the internet to get away from that.

On to the next one…