Dub Nation HQ Comments of Week, plus open thread

the pain makes the wins sweeter

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Wiseman was the Warrior worth watching in…

ACTIVATE RAGE WISEMAN!

• g8tgod (17 ♡):

  I'm good with Ja doing his thing in Chase in December. I'm not rooting for him to embarrass the Ws, but if he does, all the better come playoff time. Beat me up while my big brother Steph isn't around, but when he comes back, he's going to kick your ass.

• nomdesab (14 ♡):

  https://instagram.com/stories/_klaynation_/2998439381942823132?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

  KD quote for those who can't access IG: "That's my family [the Warriors] over there. When they succeed, I succeed. Because I'm part of that history forever."

• Shawyer (12 ♡):

  Three college games. Pandemic. Fifty-four pro games. With an entire year off due to injury. Trying to learn a playing style he probably never was asked to emphasize, because he was just bigger than everybody else.

  I’m giving him time. Do we have it? That’s on the front office. But that’s not his fault.

• Irrationally optimistic (12 ♡):

  I love the sight of a good Hardee rant in the mid-morning.

• dinohealth (11 ♡):

  Agree on Wiseman, Daniel. We have waited a decade for a franchise BIG to drop in our lap, and we are talking trade, at age 20, after he has barely played one full season due to serious injury. Talk about fickle. Dude is going to be a star....it will take a couple of years; so what....Reason we are getting our arses kicked is summed up by loss of GPII, OTTO, BJ, DAMION, AND, JTA. Those vets fit really well together; never took them for granted, it was magical, as next-man-up was REAL. Gonna take a while with a practically new bench; coming off-the-bench is hard even for vets, nevermind young rooks and sophs.

• Goofus (10 ♡):

  Is he “demanding the ball”, or making himself available and putting up a target?

• DFiB (9 ♡):

  Steph and Andrew played 38/41 second half games, which stabilized rotations and roles. That’s it. That’s the thing.

• tempprofile (9 ♡):

  I can still remember the Erick Dampier Warriors so regular beat downs don't faze me or dim my enthusiasm all that much.

• belilaugh (8 ♡):

  I still think the Warriors can win the chip this season if they survive this stretch. Will they survive this stretch though?

• James S (8 ♡):

  Important stat I haven't seen anyone talking about: 1 foul in 28 minutes. Not that he'll never get in foul trouble again, but he defended without fouling (hmm, where have I heard that phrase?) and allowed him to stay in the game.

• Night Night (7 ♡):

  Okay so I've been traveling for a few weeks, and this (gestures wildly in a variety of directions) is what I come back to???"

Post-game: Patrick Baldwin Jr rains 5 threes… (Nets)

Wiseman dominates in game-long existential garbage time

• Professor Trogdor (16 ♡):

  I know most of you have long ago jumped off of Wiseman Island, but I think this sort of performance is what we'd see out of him if he were on the typical rebuilding team that gets a #2 pick: big numbers in big losses. The talent is there. He is clearly improving. He's not ready to be a major piece of a championship contending team at the moment, but his trajectory is headed in the right direction.

• Sleepy Freud (11 ♡):

  Based on winning % and net rating, my current projections indicate … no one is going to win the championship this year.

• TwoRingTest (11 ♡):

  My beach shack is intact.

  My Wise Fro continues to grow.

  My sandaled feet keep the beat.

• Sleepy Freud (10 ♡):

  I’m more than a little tired of the “don’t trade away the future in an attempt to save what may already be a lost season” story line. 😝

  Everyone would trade any or all of Kuminga, Moody, Wiseman, Baldwin, and Rollins for, say, Giannis. No one would trade them for, say, Carmelo.

  It’s pointless imo to stake out an extreme ideological position on one side or the other (whether “don’t waste Steph’s prime” or “don’t mortgage the future”) without specifics. Kuminga, Moody, Wiseman, Baldwin, and Rollins are each unique cases — just as Steph, Klay, and Dray are each unique from each other, and just as anyone they might consider trading for is a unique case.

  It’s reasonable imo to think there may be a smart middle ground somewhere.

• doug chang (10 ♡):

  JW looks more stable. Doesn't hang his head, doesn't look dejected. Looking forward to a Hello Everybody video on JW!!! Great game....good to see the kids grow...

• Alas Phood Fight (9 ♡):

  Pop vs. Kerr.

  How real is the thought that Kerr being extremely strict with his young players has a negative impact on their play? Especially when they know the rules of the house. Screw up in the first and you might not play in the 2nd, you might not play for a week. To tell the truth, I am not on the team and it stresses me out!

  For comparison, Pop can be a fiery coach. You screw up, and he stands up, calls a time out and he is gonna give you an earful. But he gets it out and it ends. This is what we screwed up, now this is what we are going to do next. And the players know they are headed back out onto the court to try an improve.

  Life can be ass-backwards sometimes. Allowing for failure in action can sometimes be the quickest path to success as result, while holding up young players to the standard of Dynasty in action may just as easily lead to failure as result. With the loss of fun-guy Mike Brown, who may have been the yin to Kerr's yang, I just feel like we are trying to hard with expectations too demanding. We are gripping. And Kerr needs to burn one, get some freakin' Bob Marley in the house, and allow for some organic development. And drop the whole JOY thing. It feels like commercialized joy. It's just an empty slogan. Real joy comes from experiencing where we are now, without expectations, without demands, without judgment. And if we are a .500 team today, embrace it. It doesn't mean we are going to be a .500 team at the end of the year. It just feels like there has been too much pressure in the tires, all year, and we need to let some out.

Post-game: Rookie Patrick Baldwin Jr rains (Knicks)…

No Steph, No Wiggins, No Chance

• Stefano Gelati (12 ♡):

  Oh my, oh my... Dub Nation, these days you remind me the Italian soccer fanbase, their toxic an neurotic cry after every loss, their scapegoat and secret plot search, the systematic destruction of younger and emotionally weaker players. It makes me laugh my head off, because Inter FC fanbase, my favourite team then, had the same story: an eternity without winning, irrational lunacies and monumental busts, and then... four titles.

  Come on, this is the NBA. Rules are MADE TO turn the power rankings upside down in a few years, and we've had eight years of grace, which is more than other franchises had. This is a transition year, and before blaming players, coaches, managers, remember that the RULES OF NBA are meant to put them down. They are all doing an excellent job: Myers that built it all; Kerr that handled every sort of situation, from primadonnas to fistfights; the HOFs that sacrifice and teach; and the young guns, that don't have a clue about NBA environment, which takes years to be understood even from the smartest and the greatest players. And, yep, maybe Wiseman is going nowhere, but no one has the slightest clue of the pick values on draft day, even MJ went third. There's nothing else but accepting the system and enjoy the show.

  Inter FC fans did not enjoy it, I assure you.

• Alas Phood Fight (10 ♡):

  Remember Jordan Poole in his rookie season? Some stats had him as the worst player in the league. Today, Wiseman, who is still technically in his rookie season, carries the same torch. I have always said, "Number don't lie." On the other hand, F it. I'm gonna stand behind this kid until he is in another uniform.

• Alex (8 ♡):

  Missed the game, but yikes. This box score looks like the statistical rendering of DiVincenzo's haircut.

• ServantOfLuna (7 ♡):

C.J. Holmes 🚀 @CjHolmes22

Jordan Poole: "Best thing about the league is that we have another game tomorrow. We get a chance to redeem ourselves in less than 24 hours going up against a team that's playing really well. So we just have to turn the page, look at what's next and find a way to get a win."

• Jordan Poole: "Best thing about the league is that we have another game tomorrow. We get a chance to redeem ourselves in less than 24 hours going up against a team that's playing really well. So we just have to turn the page, look at what's next and find a way to get a win."

• Sleepy Freud (7 ♡):

  True. But injuries happen, and games like this are why team with championship aspirations shouldn’t piss away three roster spots on guys who are unplayable (plus two more on Andre and an empty spot).

  Two development projects (2.5 if you count JP, who’s still learning stuff) is plenty.

• Captain Jack (6 ♡):

  All I want tonight is for one of the young guys to have a solid game to build on and lose by less than 30.

• GreenDray (6 ♡):

  I agree with almost everything in your post, except for the conclusion that the front has done a poor job.

  - Picking JW was their swing at the fences for the only guy in that draft that was enough of an outlier that he could develop into the next all-time player. It didn't work, but the reasoning was sound.

  - The trade for Wiggs and the Kuminga pick was an epic success that extended the championship window, which was otherwise closed

  - DDV, GPII, OPJ were excellent pickups

  The only MAJOR mistake they made was extending Klay with a max after the injury, but it's a mistake they HAD TO make, and it's hard to fault them for it. Not extending Klay would have led to a fan revolt and would have pissed off Steph. That salary is what's preventing us from having better depth.

  I just don't think the young expendable pieces on the roster could get enough of a return to move the needle.

• Duby Dub Dubs (6 ♡):

  This is almost opposite of the mega win season as far as difficulty for me writing about the team. It's getting hard to find something new to say about this roster at this point in the season

Warriors heading into tough back-to-back with…

The Knicks are hot, the Nets are good; but Golden State has to figure it out against whoever they face

• Goofus (12 ♡):

  Two questions:

  1. Did you know that JMG has a .667 TS% for his nine games in December?

  2. Why on earth would you celebrate him being sick and missing the game, especially when the team is already short-handed?

• Bel (11 ♡):

  Donovan Mitchell on racism in Utah...

  https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/donovan-mitchell-finally-said-the-quiet-part-out-loud-about-being-black-in-utah/ar-AA15uPoF?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=b278aaf3819c4f88eb6949fdd128e950

• belilaugh (9 ♡):

  Ty Jerome is such a better player than Chiozza lol

• stopnpop (8 ♡):

  Moosey Mody with the start

• Sleepy Freud (7 ♡):

  I don’t even think our D was *that* bad. MF Knicks just made every tough turnaround J, every contested 3, every 25 foot 3. At a certain point you get demoralized.

• Run_TMC (6 ♡):

  Warriors keeping Dray. Steph wants him. Doesn't matter how many redditors don't. Only Steph's vote counts.

• AttilaTheHun (6 ♡):

  Given that the Nets have all healthy players and we have too few, do you think they would loan us KD for one game just to make things more fair? He already knows our system. Asking for a friend.

• stopnpop (5 ♡):

  Ty wasn't jumping into his space... not really in the spirit of the rule

Explain: Jordan Poole and new Warrior Donte…

the new guy!

• g8tgod (17 ♡):

  The NBA is going to miss Steph when he's gone. The guy is /the/ show in the NBA; fans come out to watch him /warm up/. Who else gets that treatment?

  A likeable, socially-minded superstar who is the ultimate teammate and wins championships, is a showman, is a great role model for the kids. They should have made him the face of the league and marketed the heck out of him. They should have officiated him fairly and scheduled him wisely (fewer back-to-backs) to ensure the maximum number of games for fans all over the country who want to see him in the hopes that he'll do something unbelievable and unforgettable. Instead, they let opponents beat the crap out of him and schedule his team for a ridiculous number of miles and the most back-to-backs (tied with 4-5 other teams) in the league. It's just stupid.

• tempprofile (9 ♡):

  DDV has been playing well enough that I don't miss GPII all that much. For one thing, DDV is a much better ball handler. It would have been great if the Warriors could have kept them both, but it's hard to argue that they made the wrong decision given the luxury tax burden.

• Sleepy Freud (8 ♡):

  I’d argue missing Donte was the biggest factor (or least by far the most overlooked factor) in the team’s stumbling out of the gate. He had been by all accounts stellar in camp; and was clearly tabbed as the “Andre/Gary 2.0” who was gonna hold things down on both ends of the floor and provide the veteran bench presence and “glue” that was going to allow us to play the kids liberally.

  His injury, even though relatively brief, threw a total wrench in that plan. Kerr tried to run out the kids without a legit babysitter (the idea to rotate Dray with bench guys came much later), and the results were even more disastrous than feared. The team dropped 3-4 coin flip games that they probably win with Donte; and they’ve been struggling to stay above water since.

  Injuries happen, but I think they could easily be 18-13 or 19-12 right now (1-2 games out of first place) if not for the DDV injury.

• DFiB (8 ♡):

  Flip two of the Orlando, Charlotte, Detroit, Miami games, and the Utah game, and we’re 18-13… it’s a fine line between 3rd and 11th

• AttilaTheHun (7 ♡):

  It being the Wolves, we can give 'em JMG and a second rounder and they'll give us the key to the mint. They're generous folks up in MN. 😉

• Chasing Rings... (7 ♡):

  We also lost valuable glue guys like DLee and JTA that compounded the steep learning curve/vacuum.

• Truckeeman (7 ♡):

  Fantastic win. I feel so much better watching a real victory than one I have to draw lessons from, or find bright spots in. Spoiler alert: criticism follows:

  I am usually skeptical of opponents' fans' complaints about Warriors' "illegal" screens, but the third description of Poole's shotmaking has a fine example of Draymond moving into Siakam's path, and bumping him afterwards. It's Draymond's job to be set, but Poole's job to run Siakam into the screen.