After 58 games, how are we feeling about these 31-win Warriors?

Let's take a look at the big picture.

The Golden State Warriors have played 58 games out of 82 so far this season, bobbing and weaving through the punches on their way to a record of 31-27.

This season has felt like a series of humbling lows sandwiched by flashes of the arrogant, spectacular play that has defined the Golden Empire’s dynastic reign over the NBA.

Draymond Green was on the brink of having his career thrown into carbonite freeze, and yet in his return from indefinite suspension the team has gone 13-6. And everybody who wasn’t riding with him the whole way is getting no love (which is hella funny because Green also readily admits he didn’t handle things properly when he got removed from the league temporarily). At any rate, he’s bringing that volatile, protective big brother energy to the Warriors, putting a battery in their back in this recent stretch of quality play.

Klay Thompson, Green’s fellow Core 3 member, has been benched from his lofty starting position, and isn’t consistently in Coach Steve Kerr’s fourth quarter crunchtime lineups currently. It’s clear that this wasn’t the highly decorated and insanely competitive Thompson’s idea.

But in the six games he’s played as a reserve, he’s been averaging 19.2 points, hitting at least 3 triples per game in all but one contest. If you have a bench player who can come off the bench and damn near average 20 points a game while cooking from beyond the arc like that, you’re moving into that legendary zone where guys like Toni Kukoc, Manu Ginobili, and Jamal Crawford were feared for how they could drastically tilt a game when the starters sat down.

Steph Curry is averaging 27.6 points and 5 assists per game and hitting 41% from beyond arc, just doing that thing he does where he’s working on greatness on a daily basis. Ya know, regular degular stuff.

But something that’s really on my mind is that I’m not sure how to evaluate this team relative to similar teams from Warriors history past. For example, at this current point in the We Believe year of 2006-2007, when Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson roamed the basketball earth, the Warriors were 26-32.

That team ultimately finished the season 42-40 and went on to destroy the #1 seeded Dallas Mavericks, putting MVP and future Hall-of-Famer Dirk Nowitzki into a personal depression that fueled his later greatness. That team carried the vibes of small team of unfairly exiled military buddies having to kung fu fight their way out of small town suffering from a zombie infestation. You knew they were probably doomed from the start, but the swag, courage, and ingenuity levels were so high you had to wonder if they might just get out of that situation alive. And if they didn’t make it, you knew they were taking somebody down with ‘em.

Let’s hop to another version of the Dubs.

By the way after 58 games during the 2012-2013 season, the Warriors were 33-25! Under Coach Mark Jackson’s watchful eye, the Splash Bros emerged and ultimately won 47 games, humiliating the favored Denver Nuggets in the first round, before being narrowly outfoxed by the dynastic San Antonio Spurs in the second round.

That team was so young and free, every mistake was a useful lesson and every success was a harbinger of greatness to come.

How about last year’s title defense gone wrong? At this point last year GSW was 29-29. I remember here at DNHQ the frustration levels were SKY HIGH for that team, who couldn’t seem to win anything on the road and never quite found their chemistry. They finished the season with a 44-38 record, survived the Sacramento Kings in a grueling first round series, and then flamed out in the second round against LeBron James’ Los Angeles Lakers.

I still believed the 2022-2023 version would find a way to win the title, despite the Green-Poole saga, the Andrew Wiggins leave of absence, and the inconsistent minutes for Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody as guys like Ty Jerome and Anthony Lamb were featured. It was a weird year, the vibes were off…that team felt like a sports car with no brakes, we didn’t know where the season was going.

And just for kicks and giggles, remember 2018-2019 during Kevin Durant’s last year with the Warriors when speculation about his departure was rampant and the team didn’t seem to play with the consistent of joy of earlier championship runs? That team was 42-16 after 58 games, going on to have a 57-win season.

I was reporting on that team on a daily basis and can vividly remember how incensed some members of Dub Nation were for what they considered to be a squandered regular season with many embarrassing defeats. Meanwhile that team made the NBA Finals and if not for some devastating injury luck, may have won their third championship in a row. #perspective

By the way, the team that beat them that year? The Toronto Raptors. Time to get some revenge today in Canada.