Dub Nation HQ Comments of Week, plus open thread

Helpful hint: Every commenter’s name is a link that leads back to the original comment.

Helpful hint: Every commenter’s name is a link that leads back to the original comment.

Warriors look good as they knock off Lakers…

The CP3 and Kuminga possibilities look quite tantalizing...

• fzwinter (14 ♡):

  What really helped the Dubs was not the absences of LeBron and Reaves, but the fact that Lonnie F. Walker IV is now playing for Brooklyn

• Janet (11 ♡):

  The Dubs are already more fun than last year!

• Being (8 ♡):

  In a combined 73 minutes, JK, MM, and BP had

  50 pts

  18 rebounds

  and

  10 assists

• Being (7 ♡):

  Man, re-watching that clip of the pass to Steph out of bounds, Steph was freaking calling for the ball (or so it seemed). He was actually just cheering on the bench play, but it totally looks like he's standing there calling for the ball. It's no wonder JK passed it to him.

• belilaugh (6 ♡):

  Not sure if that was the Niners out there tonight or the 2015 Warriors the way the starters were resting in the fourth quarter.

• Klaymatic37 (6 ♡):

  Just looked at Detroit stats. Wiseman: 15 minutes with 4 pts and 7 rebounds.

  Rebounds per minute looks good and hopefully that stat is indicative of his devolvepment. Just rooting for him to carve out a role in the league.

• Sleepy Freud (6 ♡):

  If that? He’s gotta beat out Bagley, who tonight put up 25 pts / 7 reb on 10-14 fg and was a +19 in 22 minutes.

  Such a bizarre pick-up by Detroit with Duren, Stewart, and Bagley already in place.

• Being (6 ♡):

  Re-posting cuz I posted this just after the new thread:

  Jonathan Kuminga's Maturity and Humility.

  In the post-game presser,

• , JK specifically calls out how he spent the last two years soaking up Andre's wisdom as much as possible, seeing him as a big brother. Then he pivots to this season and how he's targeting CP and Gay as mentors, specifically mentioning their 19 and 18 years in the league. He specifically mentions that he wants to build lifetime connections with these guys so he'll have these connections throughout his career.

  This young blood is wise beyond his years, and his maturity has gone up enormously this summer. These are the types of connections that will pay dividends throughout his career and the fact that he's actively targeting them and building them speaks volumes. This is how you build a superstar career, JK. This is the type of thing that makes me super excited about his future prospects.

Post-game: Warriors beat Lakers; we saw… — OCT 7

Small sample size hot takes, ready set... GO

• GlueAndBold (33 ♡):

  At the beginning of another round of this beautiful madness, I just want to again express gratitude to the founders of this place. DNHQ is an essential community that I belong to. Long live DNHQ!

• vignette17 (28 ♡):

  A couple thoughts:

  *19 players played for the Dubs. 19 players finished with a positive +/-.

  *JK played one of his best quarters I've seen in Q1. He struggled with turnovers and team defense in Q2 and Q3. And then he made all his shots in Q4. His final line looked great but he mixed in some awful plays with some incredible ones.

  *Moody felt very solid in his minutes. Just his normal, minimal highlight, pretty good statline.

  *Podz had solid defense throughout. Even when some of the athletes went through him, he made it pretty tough.

  *Saric really will fit this team like a glove. Excited to see more.

  *Klay seemed to be really trying for rebounds. He wasn't that successful, but definitely seems to be a focus. He also played very shot-hungry for a stretch, but also tried to play make the rest of the time. He's definitely working on a few things.

  *The Steph-CP3 two man game was really fun to watch. Just two high BBIQ passes running around looking for openings. Plus CP3 makes some incredible passes.

  *Loon was his solid self, as was Wiggs, no notes.

  *DLo continued his streak of good play against us, annoying.

  *Finally, it was weird there was such a long break, but the series is now 4-3 and I like our chances of tying it in LA. Denver looks tough to beat next round though.

• belilaugh (27 ♡):

  The crying about how Kerr treated him last season was some impressive fan fiction. Imo what happened was some fans didn't want to admit defeat about Wiseman so they turned it into a condemnation of Kerr and "development" to avoid condemning Wiseman. Now Wiseman and Marvin Bagley are competing for a backup big man slot while Kuminga is taking seriously that he needs to be more versatile to avoid the bench in playoff games again.

  Going to be perfect when Kerr getting Kuminga to play the right way will be used to retroactively criticize Kerr for not playing him last season.

• TwoRingTest (14 ♡):

  EA is falling down on the job, so I'll do it:

  I like most of you.

• Chasing Rings... (13 ♡):

  Pretty mpressed with Klaymond Green grabbing rebounds and pushing it up ahead, and Chris Poole tightening up his handle and letting the game come to him. Feels like the stinky gloomy cloud of last season has been lifted. And there's more cavalry coming?! Yeeeeeeesh :) BTW JoKu created the 'No one ever got fired for passing to an open Steph'.

• SabWrites (13 ♡):

  JK: https://ibb.co/mJZ3s3G

• ForeverFoyled (11 ♡):

  In regards to DLo -- it is more annoying in games that matter, but as far as ex-Warriors go, I feel like DLo did us plenty of favors and as a result I don't mind seeing him do well. I don't really enjoy his style of play at all, to my untrained eye seems like an inferior Harden imitation, but him agreeing to the sign and trade instead of outright signing with the Wolves (where he ended up anyway) really helped us out and eventually led to Wiggins + Kuminga.

  Also when with the Dubs he seemed quite drama-free and performed well enough to not crater his trade value.

  So I guess to summarize, I am annoyed when any player performs well against the Dubs, but probably give DLo more leeway than most due to his (perhaps indirect but still impactful) ultimate contribution to dub dynasty.

Preseason 1: GSW vs Los Angeles Lakers. The… — OCT 7

Even if it's just a scrimmage, it’s a great chance to rush to premature conclusions

• Goofus (20 ♡):

  “Even if it's just a scrimmage, it’s a great chance to rush to premature conclusions“

  Are you kidding? I’ve been dumping my premature speculations all over this site since last season ended.

  Also, I’m hoping for the Steph, Klay, GP2, Wiggins and TJD lineup. I sincerely doubt another team has ever thrown out a lineup entirely made up of 2nd generation players.

• AttilaTheHun (12 ♡):

  Nobody ever got fired for passing to Steph Curry.

• Sleepy Freud (11 ♡):

  Lotta people have been sleeping on Kuminga and Moody to a ridiculous degree. They’re both five years younger than Chris Duarte, both already way better than him, and barely scratching the surface of how good they can be. Having two wings that good and that versatile for under $10M combined is a hugely important part of our roster construction.

21 Jump Street: How Steph Curry and Chris… — OCT 6

On how two of the greatest point guards of all time can make magic with just a simple guard-guard action on the wing.

• Abaddon (20 ♡):

  Tomorrow I will be a on a short 20th anniversary trip with my wife and will therefore not see the first real NBA basketball of the season. I can't promise I won't stay up late reading all of your comments though...

• Sleepy Freud (18 ♡):

  I think people sometimes forget that CP3 is not just an elite mid-range shooter from the elbows — he's also an elite shooter from three when open with his feet set (e.g. the eye-opening 52.3% on catch-and-shoot threes that Joe Viray cites here, with six seasons in his career over 38% from three, despite rarely having good shots created for him) and elite FT shooter (87% career, with four seasons over 90%).

  He's not gonna hunt threes regularly, or get his shot off in a nanosecond like #30; and of course he's too short to get his shot off over defenders, like Klay does. But he's a lot like Nash and Stockton in that his elite passing and floor-generalship has often made fans overlook how elite he is as a shooter, from every part of the floor, including beyond the arc. Nash after retiring and witnessing Steph's ascendance expressed regret about not hunting his own shot more at his peak; and I think anyone who rooted against the Jazz in the '90s (both vs. our lowly Warriors and in the Finals vs. the less-lowly Bulls) knew that little bastard Stockton could not miss, and were relieved every time he passed up an open look.

  Joe's (typically) awesome diary lays out some of the way getting CP3 off ball more, in less predictable offensive sets, can leverage his elite shooting more than we've seen to date. Maybe Nash or Stockton would have been able to pull out a 'chip at some point in their careers if they had been better able to exploit their own historically elite shooting rather than having to be on ball and "manage the offense" 24/7/365? The hope here is that Kerr + Steph can help the Point God get the 'chip that eluded both Nashty and that dirty little talented bastard Stockton.

  On a related note: both Nash and Stockton were still elite in their age 38 seasons. 😊

• fzwinter (13 ♡):

  Starting to get excited about the Dubs' prospects this coming season. When healthy, they've got 10! key rotation players (last year's starting five, plus CP3, Saric, JK, Moody, GP2), and that doesn't even include Corey Joseph, TJD, Podz, Gay, Lester, or Garuba.

  Hoping Kerr can trust his non-starters enough to give at least the top five subs enough minutes to keep them happy. If his starters could play a couple minutes less per game this year, then they'd be in great shape for the playoffs. WGBC?

• Shawyer (13 ♡):

  Great article as always.

  CP3 is going to be amazing here. He’ll be taking those backbreaking elbow jumpers with nobody close to him thanks to Steph and Klay’s gravity.

Chris Paul starts Saturday, Klay moves to… — OCT 4

Also: Steph and Chris on D, GP2 in the rotation, and the open roster spots.

• Eric Apricot (18 ♡):

  It’s official, Warriors will have a WNBA team starting in 2025. Looking forward to covering some great local basketball!

  https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/sports/wnba-bay-area-expansion-team/3334701/

• Night Night (17 ♡):

  When asked how Poole might’ve impacted the ‘connectivity’ of last season, Wiggins responded:

  “I don’t think it was Jordan’s fault…for the lack of team connection last year.”

  11:15ish:

• Gotta love it, especially for casual fans that want to blame Poole for the structural problems that revealed themselves last year.

  But Wiggins cited his absence as probably one of the main factors, and I think we can all agree on that. Two-way Wiggins is legit.

• belilaugh (14 ♡):

  Also, there's not a single player on the Warriors who would answer that question at this training camp by singling out Poole. They all obviously want to move on and not cause any more distractions.

• belilaugh (12 ♡):

  Yup. Nike isn't foreign, but that's actually the point imo. This article wouldn't be written if it didn't serve an anti-Chinese agenda.

  The Warriors literally play in Chase Center. Yes, the same Chase that was collaborating with the actual Nazis. The entire NBA is rife with "ties to human rights abuses", but just like outside of sports, our media brings this stuff up selectively.

• mDuo13 (12 ♡):

  Now that some of the moving pieces around the league have settled, I'm starting to get a sense of where the Dubs are in the power ranking. And I think the answer is ~5th on the balance with significantly more variance than other teams. But the West is also a vortex with a ton of unknowns, so there's a lot of chaos across the rankings.

  Like last year, the Warriors have an age problem. Steph/Klay/Dray are not going to be better than ever; the fact that they've aged this well so far is already impressive, but Father Time is undefeated, and even if most of them dodge him for another year, "6th Starter" Chris Paul is seriously a lot less than he used to be and he's basically never been healthy for the playoffs. If the four of them each play over 60 games it'll be a miracle. Even 50+ games each and lesser minutes than they used to play is kind of a stretch. And even if they're nominally healthy, shots may not fall as much, moves on offense and defense may not be crisp enough to keep up with active young teams, lingering little things will take longer to patch themselves up... it's going to be a tough road. Cory Joseph and Rudy Gay (if he makes it past training camp) are also on the wrong side of 30 so it's by no means certain that they can stay ready and not also injured when we need them.

  On the upside, having the four old guys in good condition should be plenty good to make the Conference finals without a disaster of a supporting cast.

  Looney has gone from injury-riddled to ironman, but his streak of playing every game is likely to end. Still, he and Wiggins are in their prime age, and likely to collectively miss less time than they did last year, so that's a net improvement. GPII, too. Adding Šarić, who's also still in his prime and played great for his national team this summer, is a big help there too.

  As for the youth, we have a lot of intriguing young prospects, but none of those young guys are as critical as Kuminga and Moody. One or both of those two *has* to make a leap to reliable rotation player this season, in a way they didn't for most of last season. If they don't, we're going to end up much like last year, having no choice but to over-rely on the older core and end up burnt out by the end of the season.

  Then there's the new young guys: Podz, TJD, Garuba. Feel free to add Quiñones here to this category too. I'm expecting them to get some minutes and show exciting flashes of potential, but really anything they accomplish this year is a bonus. Rookies generally aren't good except for fleeting moments. That said, I could imagine TJD in particular having some excellent matchups and team synergy that wins us a game or even having a hot streak that makes him a brief sensation mid-season. The other two, we'll have to wait and see, but I feel like they've both shown more potential than I ever saw in Rollins and they should hopefully have more availability than last year's Iguodala, so I'm hopeful they'll chip in around the edges.

  But if things go real badly, injury-wise—and with the most b2bs in the league again, we should have some big load-management opportunities also, even under the new rules—we could end up seeing "too many" developmental minutes for the team's youth movement.

  Finally, there's coaching. We didn't really see any steps up from last year's group, which is a bit disappointing since the absence of Mike Brown was keenly felt in defensive schemes, plus many people (justifiably) feel like Kerr & co were too reluctant to give Moody and Kuminga leeway to make mistakes. I'm hoping the staff has learned some lessons there, but that's just hope for now.

  In total, I feel like the team is more complete then the roster we started the season with last year, and even though there are things like Wiggins' situation where we can point to clear weaknesses, we also still had all of our top 7 players healthy for the playoffs. Knowing how cruel the injury gods of the NBA can be, I don't think we can count on that being the case again this time.

• WarriorsGoldenGirl (11 ♡):

  [On the suggestion for the WNBA team Golden State Golden Girls] I don't know; I'm kinda partial to that one! :-)

• tempprofile (11 ♡):

  I'd wager that every basketball shoe company is linked to foreign producer countries with little regard for human rights so I'm not going to dump on Kyrie for this. Nike, for example, has certainly had problems in this area. That is what happens when capitalism becomes a race to the bottom.

• DubsNerd (11 ♡):

  I'm seeing a lot of concern about how the defense is going to work with CP, but I feel like there are two factors that are being overlooked. First, regardless of height and age, there is no way Chris is going to be worse on defense than JP was last year. So, that is an automatic upgrade. Next, Timpf and others saw that Chris started taking plays off on defense and couldn't give full effort all game. I think last year he played something like 30 min a game. I expect he will be playing a lot fewer minutes this year, like low 20s, which should help him go full out when he does play.

  I'm clearly an optimist, but I'm just not that worried that they are going to get crushed on D.

  Let's get this season started already so we can get the answers!

• SabWrites (10 ♡):

  Anta is Klay and Looney's apparel and shoe sponsor. I'm no Kyrie fan but I can't shit on him for this and not shit on Klay and Looney too yah know?

• Being (9 ♡):

  Man, I kinda miss settling on a new island. I last settled Wiseman Isle, the gorgeous tropical island with the warm waters. And yah, the island was formed by a volcano, but I figured the future paradise was worth the risk. Boy, was I wrong. When that thing went up in flames, everyone was scrambling for every floatable thing to get off the island...

  I ended up floating out to Kuminga Island, and happily camped out here as a refugee for the first couple months, trying to restart my life. Now, I'm renting a little bungalow down by DRC Ave. But I keep hearing about these trade talks, and I'm worried about a repeat.

  I looked over the Podz and TJD Isles when they rose up earlier this year, but they just didn't seem to promise the same MVP-caliber future that I got here, so I'm staying here for now.

• tempprofile (9 ♡):

  I'm more interested in seeing what Podz, TJD, JK, Moody, and Garuba look like in preseason than I am in seeing who starts. A lot of people were proclaiming the demise of the 2nd timeline, but now that the dust has cleared, the Warriors still have quite a few young guys to evaluate. Basically they swapped out JP, Wiseman and PJB for Podz, TJD, and Garuba.