Why does everyone come back against the Ws? Because it is widely known that no lead is insurmountable against Golden State. Teams are WAITING for Golden State to fritter away the lead. And they are not often disappointed.
The team says they'll figure it out. I think that's entirely plausible. But until they prove otherwise, teams know that they are never out of a game against them, no matter how much of a lead they have.
These situations need preparation. Should include best defensive vs offensive lineups, and advanced scouting to KYP. Who to force the ball away from in the last 30 sec, and where does he prefer to shoot from.
There is a sense of "we all know this already" laziness about some of the stuff GS should have control over in late game situations. GS also needs a better playbook than Curry going all Harden-ISO in endgame situations. I've watched that endgame Curry on-ball play fail too many times - either a low percentage fall-away 20 footer from Steph, or a non-shooter (like Dray) here taking the open shot. I'm not really sure why Dray is even in at that point instead of another shooter if Curry is the ball-handler. But more fundamentally, Curry off-ball feels like a much stronger option.
Daniel, that was an interesting video of Gil's Arena. Some very salient points brought up and the hand writing on the wall. Klay is a player who is almost always defensive about himself. The outcome they seem to arrive at is it's time for a change. Big trades. Klay, Dray, Kuminga.
They mused about trading for Paul George but the only way I can see that is if the Clips wanted to get off PG's contract and maybe get JK and Klay. Then they could either try to get Klay to re-sign cheap or let him go and save the $. They won't want CP3 when they have Westbrook and Harden.
I don't know why Arenas thinks Steph's deal is expiring. We have him until 2026, and he won't be dealt. That would turn Chase Ctr into a mausoleum. Trading Dray is possible I suppose but not likely.
Something will probably transpire if the team continues in the direction they've been in. They don't seem to be able to propel themselves to the next level. Stiffer competition, lack of size, and no rim protection. I would think just about any team would cover these bases, but the Warriors continue to reject anything but small ball and Draymond's big mouth.
If you trade Draymond, you might as well trade Stephen and properly start the rebuild from zero. Other than that, I actually fully agree that big changes are necessary to save the short- and mid-term future of the team.
The team will never trade Curry. No matter who helped Steph in his career, it's him that innovated his offensive style and him that makes the shots he takes. Dray may have assisted on many buckets, but any passer of skill could do that. Curry is a once in a generation talent. Draymond and his mouth, can you separate them? Without Curry, you have effectively gutted the team. There is no reason he can't play for another 5 years if he chooses to.
Plenty of good players in the league. Did Denver have Draymond last season? You replace what you need. Every team does it and we will get our chance to survive the future provided the Dubs choose wisely.
For all you college football aficionados. What if Florida State beats the snot out of Georgia and lets say a 1 loss Alabama or Texas runs the table? Can the coaches
Poll make FSU the national champion and The AP obviously go with whichever 1 loss team ran the table?
And the full referee experience as well. That was a total BS ejection of greenlaw. That Philly cheese stake was the only item that should have been ejected
It seems believable that in a few years, some aspect of officiating will be turned over to machines. Do we really need a human to determine if a ball is out of bounds? They havenโt needed that in tennis in forever, although thatโs a cleaner call. Still with technological advances, we could see humans doing less and less. It would reduce the risk of bias, if it worked. To what extent would you be OK with that? What NBA calls should or should not be turned over to our AI overlords? Goaltending? Traveling? Fouls??
If you believe the games are long now, wait until the automate it so that every foul actually gets called. It'll take 2 days to play a game. . . . I deem this a BAD IDEA.
I don't see that happening anytime soon, but if it ever did, players would adjust. They would not keep fouling; in fact, they couldn't because they would quickly end up in foul trouble and have to decide if they wanted to stay in the game or just foul out in the first quarter.
I think they would try. But my sense is that the game is EXTREMELY hard to play with absolutely zero contact. So the league has basically adopted norms that allow contact that would be a foul under purist rules, but are not called. The thing about those norms is that it is extremely tough to program that into AI, because to enforce the norm referees use a lot of real-time subtlety to which the AI engine just will not have access--subtlety like the authenticity of the fouled players body response, a sense of the force of the push, the degree to which the action does or does not impede the "fouled" player. If you somehow were able to program all of that into AI to get them to call the game just like humans . . . then you will end up with the same amount of mistakes you already get with games called by humans. What would be the point?
Definitely want the robot to be able to give a tech if a player, uh, say, Graymond Dreen, tries to rip its camera out because he disagrees with the call.
I think OOB determination, goaltending and traveling could in theory be automated I think? Potentially whether a foul is a take foul. It needs to be calls that are very easy to categorize. I don't want most rules called automatically though. Most fouls are an art more than science, and I don't think AI can't do that sort of nuance at all. Even traveling I think would be sorta hard to get right.
Moving pick! Boy would it be nice to have that be standardized, by human or machine. But that would also be a drawback of AI, that it couldn't finesse a situation. For example most players carry the ball by the strict definition almost every play. A machine that is too touchy about that helps no one. I am guessing that they would start off with refs having the option to check what the computer says as advisory to them, and then as the tech gets better, the refs would do less and less.
That one seems like a flop to me. The one earlier in the year when they called him for landing on someone who closed out into him as he was shooting a corner three was clearly not a flop, and probably a flagrant one by the NBA's own constantly revised rulebook.
So I was bored and watched the "highlights" from that game and ... everybody that bought a ticket ought to be offered their money back as the Patriots and Chargers committed fraud by falsely representing that they were NFL teams.
I watch games recorded so I can fast-forward the commercials. And lately, I've started to get a really bad feeling when I get to the end of halftime and the recording is less than half over.
This one, there are no excuses. The reffing was fine, maybe even favorable for us overall. (There was a brief stretch during the comeback where some iffy ones didn't go our way, and a couple where I would've liked to have continuation or something in our favor, but we also had some big ones go our way like the clear path on PG13.) The team had a huge lead but it wasn't enough. We held most of the Clippers to pretty inefficient shooting. Podziemski had some trouble guarding Harden without fouling (go figure), which was a big part of their comeback, although Podz did get a sweet steal and breakaway once. Draymond was aggressive but under control and scored a lot while doing great work on defense. Overall it looked like it should've been a win, but the Clippers somehow managed to steal it, mostly through just solid play on both ends. Frustrating.
One consolation is that the Clippers are another team whose SRS is a lot better than their W/L record, and we split two close games against them.
Yeah, it's been so frustrating, and so confusing. Opening up 18+ point leads against good opponents in each of the last three games... encouraging! Losing two of those three games in gut wrenching fashion... not so good.
I think the Warriors are better than their record. They have faced I believe the hardest schedule of any team, they have had two starters start the season ice fuckin' cold, they are integrating two key pieces in CP and Saric who don't fit their typical style, CP in particular, they are integrating a rookie in playing Podz a lot now, the are trying to figure out the relative balance of using Moody and/or Kuminga vs. Klay Wiggins etc., they are dealing with the injury to CPII, and they actually look pretty damn good lately.
In each of the last few games it really looked like they were starting to click. Every player and Kerr have all shown flashes of figuring it all out.
It's not panic time. Losing in the final seconds is not some sign of the moral collapse of the Roman Empire. It's good to win, not lose (my own personal insight, you're welcome) But sometimes the points come early and not late, rather than the other way around.
Overall: It does not take all that much effort for me to imagine this team figuring it all out and beating everyone in the West and spanking Boston in the Finals 4-1. I'll see you at the parade, look for me, I'll be the one wearing the Warriors gear and waving, you'll see me, come over. and say hi.
"I think the Warriors are better than their record."
How is this possible without some kind of projection of your bias? They are exactly what their record shows. It could be argued that they will/can improve, but that would mean some kind of predictive ability that only the gypsy woman could know. I guess your post is a kind of pep talk. Very sick people often have hope if they have a good day or days amongst the many bad ones. The end of days is coming. No one can prevent this.
Respectfully, there are also some people who see every setback and bit of adversity as confirmation of their pre-existing doubts and pessimism. For example, despite Lowell's speculation, Detective John Kimball's headache didn't necessarily mean he had a tumor.
I think that overstates the meaning of the sentence. What I mean is that looking forward, we have reasons to expect that their record will improve, as I outlined. This is entirely possible without bias because an objective analysis can include trends. For example, Wiggins shot badly at the outset and better more recently. This is more in line with past years. It is reasonable to project that he will do better. That is not bias, that is analysis. I'm not saying that the Warriors' record has somehow been recorded incorrectly or that they didn't lose fair and square. I'm saying that a person looking only at their record would reasonably conclude that the team is of sub .500 caliber, and I don't see it that way moving forward. That said, yes, it is a pep talk, but I don't think I'm very sick. You would have to ask my doctor, but I feel OK. I can't speak to the end of days question. That seems like a statement one could only make with bias and magical predictive ability, and I know neither of us is claiming such.
Teams are always as good or bad as their record. You are your record. We can offer explanations for our record. We have missed players due to suspension and injury, for instance. But Dray's suspension reflects who he is and hence part of who the Dubs are, and injuries happen to every team. Bad reffing wouldn't make the difference if we could hold onto a solid lead. If we improve as the season goes on, the record will reflect that.
Borderline and weak teams can point to a strong schedule as one reason for failure because they're not expected to beat title contenders. Teams that are good enough to compete for a title should at least break even with the other strong teams. We're not quite there.
That said, we're not in such bad shape. We have played a lot of close games. We're not far from .500 in a very competitive conference. We're a losing team right now but we're showing signs of improvement. (Then again, other likely playoff teams could improve, too, especially the young teams.) But we're only a quarter of the way through the season. We could surprise a lot of people with a late surge, as in '21-'22. Whether we do or not, we'll still be as good/bad as our record.
We've played some bad basketball in stretches, but unlike the first part of last year (!!), we're starting to also play some dominant basketball at times.
2. We have a stretch 5 that actually punishes defenses, unlike JMG last year.
3. I think we're pretty legitimately 12 deep (depending on how you feel about Cojo).
4. If Wiggs really was just out of shape, that problem is fixing itself. Just stay away from piranha car doors.
5. Klay's been OK. Not great, but OK. That's probably all we need.
6. JK's regression is a little confounding, but I believe it's temporary.
7. Moods has made the leap. Anybody think he's not a legitimate rotation player now? His defense is far better than it was two years ago.
8. We have 'Flock of Hairdos' Podziemski, who seems to do a little bit of everything. DDV on steroids, basically.
It could go either way, still, but focusing on the negativity is as biased as only seeing the positives. I'd rather focus on what we can be, not what we are during this rough stretch.
Still, I do think point #3 offers a case for seeking out some sort of 2-for-1 trade. Consolidate some talent, maybe something like the Bogdanoviฤ idea floated in the previous thread, I don't know. Personally, I don't think that would necessarily constitute a panic.
(Portland also ended up with our top-4 protected pick this yearโI wonder to what extent they would value the removal of that protection as part of a larger deal. Now-ish would be the time to explore that, while they might view us as lottery-bound.)
The only trade the Dubs might contemplate is Paul/Kuminga for ? I can't see them letting Moody or Podz go, and I don't think our other prospects are such great ones that a team would target them.
I'm opposed to trading Kuminga until there is more data (and hopefully not then).
There isn't any real rush on deciding what to do with Kuminga, either. I don't think Kuminga is going to land a needle-moving talent (with Paul as the salary ballast to make it happen).
And, I think him requesting a trade is not terribly likely. He's here for this season and next, if the Dubs don't want to trade him. And probably at least one more year beyond that (assuming he signs a short deal to get out from under RFA).
Paul + Kuminga for the right player probably makes a lot of sense for the Dubs. I think we have a fair amount of data on Kuminga, enough to know that he's a decent rotation piece at the present, probably going to continue to improve, and not a great fit for the Dubs in terms of playing time or skill set. I'm not eager to trade him, but I also think that he's the most obvious guy to trade if the right deal rolls around.
I don't think MJD is gonna trade JK. At this point, with Kerr unsigned, it doesn't make a lot of sense to trade a player because some think he doesn't fit. If Steve Kerr rides off into the sunset after this season, there's no telling what the system is gonna be next year. Another coach might keep the motion offense but install the tweaks tons of us have been begging for that will take advantage of the skills of young new talent. And if that were to happen, Steph could pretty much count on at least 1 or 2 new rings.
Of course I just read an article that the guy picked just after Kuminga, Franz Wagner, Is a borderline all-star. Different teams, different situations, yadda, yadda...what are you going to do.
Portland would have to believe the Dubs are a bottom 5 team in the league to put much value in removing the protection. Perhaps more importantly, anything they do to make the Warriors better worsens the value of the pick.
They are willing to give up quality players for a boatload of picks, however. But that just means that OKC can get in ahead of anyone else if they want.
A question. Are "we" saying it in the sense that you agree with the claims, or are you saying that the claims are not accurate? Meant as a conversational inquiry, not a fight.
Appreciate your hard work in posting these rankings. Just a general comment about my general disdain for using rankings to make judgments about a team, even after 20 games:
First, the actual difference in the raw numbers used to determine rank may be insignificant. For example, the difference between the "defensive efficiency" of the Warriors - at #17 - and the Suns at #16, might be a tenth of a point per 100 possessions. That's not a meaningful difference. There might even be an insignificant difference between teams ranked 5 or more places apart. Strength of schedule, injuries or other factors can easily explain those differences in raw numbers.
That said, I'd rather see the Dubs in the top five in the positive areas than middle of the pack.
-The Warriors are still bottom in the league in points in paint. It feels like they take too many jump shots. I don't understand why they don't try and drive inside the paint to draw fouls and free throws; the Warriors are #9 in the league in FTAs this season (24.6).
-They're still bottom 10 in shooting %age, mainly due to their two point %age. They struggle to score inside the paint, and their mid-range jump shots aren't any better.
-Their off. rebounding %age has dropped a little, but their def. rebounding %age has gotten better.
-The Warriors are now #10 in opponent shooting %age, mainly thanks to their opponents unable to hit three pointers in the past several games.
-However, the Warriors turnovers per game has gone up in the past several games while their opponent turnovers per game has also gone down.
That's a concern. We can't just rely mostly on jump shots to win games. Eventually, players will start missing them, especially with what happened with Curry in the 2nd half of yesterday's game.
That looks like fatigue effects. A smart coach would cut Steph's minutes to 28 and learn how to win on that diet so the man has 1)something left at the end of games and 2)something left come playoff time.
I think to some degree, there is "why go get clobbered going to the paint if the refs are not going to give us a consistent whistle" part to this conversation.
If we're top 10 in FTA, then we're driving enough. We don't get a lot of points in the paint because we're not athletic or tall enough to make that the focus of the offense imo
Well kerr wont play the one guy who can - JK - even after he had his best game of the season. Just donโt understand his coaching choices any more other then consistently screwing around the young guys
Steve Kerr was the 50th pick in the 1988 draft. His own history makes him have a warm spot in his heart for the scrappy late-round pick, and similar players (like 2-way Lamb--slightly different meaning of the term 2-way). He sees all their potential and is willing to give them reps to solidify. He has no such warm spot for highly-touted draftees. He may even have a subconscious hostility toward them. In his view, if they're so highly touted, how come they aren't perfect? The only lottery picks he has worked well with are ones who established their NBA relevance before he took over coaching them.
If you just remember those points above, you won't be surprised at his repeated failure to use (much less hone) the amazing talent the GMS acquire, his deference to established players or low-talent 2-ways over lottery picks no matter what performances each provides, his mismanaged rotations as he subconsciously tries to bury high-upside lottery picks on his bench even if every single other person at the game can see that the lineup is a disaster and the answer is growing mold on the bench, and the failure of failure to snap Kerr out his pattern and get him to consistently put the team first.
In mine: Kerr has not consistently used the lottery picks the GM gets.
In yours: Moody is playing 30 minutes a night and has been since Feb 2023.
In mine: Kerr routinely lets low-talent 2ways and OGs close games when they are playing poorly while lottery picks languish on the bench.
In yours: Kerr subs out Klay with 6 minutes left in favor of Moody, and the fans are winning so much they are getting tired of winning.
In mine: Kerr sends out old, short, slow lineups against long, hyper-athletic teams, even when he has players who could help counter that, like JK and TJD
In yours: Steph, Klay, and Dray are still playing like its 2015 with the same level of success despite their lack of height owing to their amazing speed and how the rest of the league has no counter.
In mine: Kerr is stubborn past the point of usefulness, such that he has patterned and systematic difficulty using failure to correct line-ups, strategy, or pretty much anything. That's why his half-time adjustments are pretty much nonexistent and his ATO plays are usually underwhelming.
In yours: Kerr is a paragon of adjustment, routinely tweaking gameplans to get the most out of every player on the team!
Wish I lived in your universe. But I and I think pretty much everyone else here is living in the other one. Oh well.
Well, none of those points were in your post (they are not correct anyway, but they are also not what i was responding to). Your post was a speculative fantasy about Kerr's preferences and motivations (you also did that to me by putting a bunch of made up things in my world that are actually in your fantasy world of what Kerr should have done). However, in that fantasy world, you have no proof that outcomes would have been any better.
Thing is, if they know this already, it doesn't;t look like they have developed an effective counter, and it has cost them games.
Why does everyone come back against the Ws? Because it is widely known that no lead is insurmountable against Golden State. Teams are WAITING for Golden State to fritter away the lead. And they are not often disappointed.
The team says they'll figure it out. I think that's entirely plausible. But until they prove otherwise, teams know that they are never out of a game against them, no matter how much of a lead they have.
...๐๐คฎ๐๐๐ค๐ ๐พ๐ ๐พ๐๐ฅด๐คท๐พ...
Sums it up!
(2016 also being the year when a certain fascist, white nationalist criminal rose to power in Americaโฆ)
These situations need preparation. Should include best defensive vs offensive lineups, and advanced scouting to KYP. Who to force the ball away from in the last 30 sec, and where does he prefer to shoot from.
There is a sense of "we all know this already" laziness about some of the stuff GS should have control over in late game situations. GS also needs a better playbook than Curry going all Harden-ISO in endgame situations. I've watched that endgame Curry on-ball play fail too many times - either a low percentage fall-away 20 footer from Steph, or a non-shooter (like Dray) here taking the open shot. I'm not really sure why Dray is even in at that point instead of another shooter if Curry is the ball-handler. But more fundamentally, Curry off-ball feels like a much stronger option.
Daniel, that was an interesting video of Gil's Arena. Some very salient points brought up and the hand writing on the wall. Klay is a player who is almost always defensive about himself. The outcome they seem to arrive at is it's time for a change. Big trades. Klay, Dray, Kuminga.
They mused about trading for Paul George but the only way I can see that is if the Clips wanted to get off PG's contract and maybe get JK and Klay. Then they could either try to get Klay to re-sign cheap or let him go and save the $. They won't want CP3 when they have Westbrook and Harden.
I don't know why Arenas thinks Steph's deal is expiring. We have him until 2026, and he won't be dealt. That would turn Chase Ctr into a mausoleum. Trading Dray is possible I suppose but not likely.
Something will probably transpire if the team continues in the direction they've been in. They don't seem to be able to propel themselves to the next level. Stiffer competition, lack of size, and no rim protection. I would think just about any team would cover these bases, but the Warriors continue to reject anything but small ball and Draymond's big mouth.
If you trade Draymond, you might as well trade Stephen and properly start the rebuild from zero. Other than that, I actually fully agree that big changes are necessary to save the short- and mid-term future of the team.
The team will never trade Curry. No matter who helped Steph in his career, it's him that innovated his offensive style and him that makes the shots he takes. Dray may have assisted on many buckets, but any passer of skill could do that. Curry is a once in a generation talent. Draymond and his mouth, can you separate them? Without Curry, you have effectively gutted the team. There is no reason he can't play for another 5 years if he chooses to.
Why would the dubs trade their best defender and point forward? Who in the world would you replace him with? This is just nonsense
Plenty of good players in the league. Did Denver have Draymond last season? You replace what you need. Every team does it and we will get our chance to survive the future provided the Dubs choose wisely.
For all you college football aficionados. What if Florida State beats the snot out of Georgia and lets say a 1 loss Alabama or Texas runs the table? Can the coaches
Poll make FSU the national champion and The AP obviously go with whichever 1 loss team ran the table?
FSU with their backup QB probably wonโt light up the scoreboard. But if they beat Georgia it would be great to see them rewarded!
OT: Whoo hoo! Niners destroyed the Eagles in Philly!
Draymond Greenlaw and Fat Dom Gobert
And the full referee experience as well. That was a total BS ejection of greenlaw. That Philly cheese stake was the only item that should have been ejected
Theyโre pretty by the book in the NFL, he extended his fist and made contact with the guyโฆ
Pointing his index finger...not a fist.
No - he was ejected after some non-player dude from the side line pushed him and he responded with a nose tap
This game took be back to when Steph destroyed the Celtics in game 4 - what a beat down
It seems believable that in a few years, some aspect of officiating will be turned over to machines. Do we really need a human to determine if a ball is out of bounds? They havenโt needed that in tennis in forever, although thatโs a cleaner call. Still with technological advances, we could see humans doing less and less. It would reduce the risk of bias, if it worked. To what extent would you be OK with that? What NBA calls should or should not be turned over to our AI overlords? Goaltending? Traveling? Fouls??
Clock stuff
If you believe the games are long now, wait until the automate it so that every foul actually gets called. It'll take 2 days to play a game. . . . I deem this a BAD IDEA.
I don't see that happening anytime soon, but if it ever did, players would adjust. They would not keep fouling; in fact, they couldn't because they would quickly end up in foul trouble and have to decide if they wanted to stay in the game or just foul out in the first quarter.
I think they would try. But my sense is that the game is EXTREMELY hard to play with absolutely zero contact. So the league has basically adopted norms that allow contact that would be a foul under purist rules, but are not called. The thing about those norms is that it is extremely tough to program that into AI, because to enforce the norm referees use a lot of real-time subtlety to which the AI engine just will not have access--subtlety like the authenticity of the fouled players body response, a sense of the force of the push, the degree to which the action does or does not impede the "fouled" player. If you somehow were able to program all of that into AI to get them to call the game just like humans . . . then you will end up with the same amount of mistakes you already get with games called by humans. What would be the point?
I'm still dreaming about instituting the electronic strike zone in baseball. Is there a more pressing need in any sport than this?
Yuck, talk about turning me and a lot of fans off for good.
What exactly turns you off?
There is not. And the technology is obviously there.
Definitely want the robot to be able to give a tech if a player, uh, say, Graymond Dreen, tries to rip its camera out because he disagrees with the call.
I think OOB determination, goaltending and traveling could in theory be automated I think? Potentially whether a foul is a take foul. It needs to be calls that are very easy to categorize. I don't want most rules called automatically though. Most fouls are an art more than science, and I don't think AI can't do that sort of nuance at all. Even traveling I think would be sorta hard to get right.
Moving pick! Boy would it be nice to have that be standardized, by human or machine. But that would also be a drawback of AI, that it couldn't finesse a situation. For example most players carry the ball by the strict definition almost every play. A machine that is too touchy about that helps no one. I am guessing that they would start off with refs having the option to check what the computer says as advisory to them, and then as the tech gets better, the refs would do less and less.
Well, during that period where Harden took over the game he carried the ball, egregiously, quite a few times. Maybe if there had been just one call...
Well Instaboner can be pretty much replicated by chatbots so why not ai refs?
Presented without comment: https://sports.yahoo.com/nba-fines-moses-moody-2k-223821425.html
That one seems like a flop to me. The one earlier in the year when they called him for landing on someone who closed out into him as he was shooting a corner three was clearly not a flop, and probably a flagrant one by the NBA's own constantly revised rulebook.
Well, at least it's the NBA so we have another game coming up soon to wash this one away. What's that? Next game is Wed??? Rats.
Well there is the NFL to pass time ๐ฌ
While I am no longer a Charger fan (they moved to LA), I take joy in the fact that they beat the Patriots 6-0 today.
That is not a typo. Two field goals won the game.
So I was bored and watched the "highlights" from that game and ... everybody that bought a ticket ought to be offered their money back as the Patriots and Chargers committed fraud by falsely representing that they were NFL teams.
I watch games recorded so I can fast-forward the commercials. And lately, I've started to get a really bad feeling when I get to the end of halftime and the recording is less than half over.
This one, there are no excuses. The reffing was fine, maybe even favorable for us overall. (There was a brief stretch during the comeback where some iffy ones didn't go our way, and a couple where I would've liked to have continuation or something in our favor, but we also had some big ones go our way like the clear path on PG13.) The team had a huge lead but it wasn't enough. We held most of the Clippers to pretty inefficient shooting. Podziemski had some trouble guarding Harden without fouling (go figure), which was a big part of their comeback, although Podz did get a sweet steal and breakaway once. Draymond was aggressive but under control and scored a lot while doing great work on defense. Overall it looked like it should've been a win, but the Clippers somehow managed to steal it, mostly through just solid play on both ends. Frustrating.
One consolation is that the Clippers are another team whose SRS is a lot better than their W/L record, and we split two close games against them.
Yeah, it's been so frustrating, and so confusing. Opening up 18+ point leads against good opponents in each of the last three games... encouraging! Losing two of those three games in gut wrenching fashion... not so good.
According to this:
http://powerrankingsguru.com/nba/strength-of-schedule.php
We're STILL #1 in strength of schedule played. #2 is the Spurs, which are 0.7 above us in average opponent rank.
I think the Warriors are better than their record. They have faced I believe the hardest schedule of any team, they have had two starters start the season ice fuckin' cold, they are integrating two key pieces in CP and Saric who don't fit their typical style, CP in particular, they are integrating a rookie in playing Podz a lot now, the are trying to figure out the relative balance of using Moody and/or Kuminga vs. Klay Wiggins etc., they are dealing with the injury to CPII, and they actually look pretty damn good lately.
In each of the last few games it really looked like they were starting to click. Every player and Kerr have all shown flashes of figuring it all out.
It's not panic time. Losing in the final seconds is not some sign of the moral collapse of the Roman Empire. It's good to win, not lose (my own personal insight, you're welcome) But sometimes the points come early and not late, rather than the other way around.
Overall: It does not take all that much effort for me to imagine this team figuring it all out and beating everyone in the West and spanking Boston in the Finals 4-1. I'll see you at the parade, look for me, I'll be the one wearing the Warriors gear and waving, you'll see me, come over. and say hi.
"I think the Warriors are better than their record."
How is this possible without some kind of projection of your bias? They are exactly what their record shows. It could be argued that they will/can improve, but that would mean some kind of predictive ability that only the gypsy woman could know. I guess your post is a kind of pep talk. Very sick people often have hope if they have a good day or days amongst the many bad ones. The end of days is coming. No one can prevent this.
Respectfully, there are also some people who see every setback and bit of adversity as confirmation of their pre-existing doubts and pessimism. For example, despite Lowell's speculation, Detective John Kimball's headache didn't necessarily mean he had a tumor.
Very true. But being bound to the present, what we have is what is.
I think that overstates the meaning of the sentence. What I mean is that looking forward, we have reasons to expect that their record will improve, as I outlined. This is entirely possible without bias because an objective analysis can include trends. For example, Wiggins shot badly at the outset and better more recently. This is more in line with past years. It is reasonable to project that he will do better. That is not bias, that is analysis. I'm not saying that the Warriors' record has somehow been recorded incorrectly or that they didn't lose fair and square. I'm saying that a person looking only at their record would reasonably conclude that the team is of sub .500 caliber, and I don't see it that way moving forward. That said, yes, it is a pep talk, but I don't think I'm very sick. You would have to ask my doctor, but I feel OK. I can't speak to the end of days question. That seems like a statement one could only make with bias and magical predictive ability, and I know neither of us is claiming such.
Oh, great. Now I'm going to be swarmed at the parade by people thinking I'm you. Sheesh, man.
The worst.
Teams are always as good or bad as their record. You are your record. We can offer explanations for our record. We have missed players due to suspension and injury, for instance. But Dray's suspension reflects who he is and hence part of who the Dubs are, and injuries happen to every team. Bad reffing wouldn't make the difference if we could hold onto a solid lead. If we improve as the season goes on, the record will reflect that.
Borderline and weak teams can point to a strong schedule as one reason for failure because they're not expected to beat title contenders. Teams that are good enough to compete for a title should at least break even with the other strong teams. We're not quite there.
That said, we're not in such bad shape. We have played a lot of close games. We're not far from .500 in a very competitive conference. We're a losing team right now but we're showing signs of improvement. (Then again, other likely playoff teams could improve, too, especially the young teams.) But we're only a quarter of the way through the season. We could surprise a lot of people with a late surge, as in '21-'22. Whether we do or not, we'll still be as good/bad as our record.
Agreed.
We've played some bad basketball in stretches, but unlike the first part of last year (!!), we're starting to also play some dominant basketball at times.
1. Draymond's shooting seems better (small sample size, though).
2. We have a stretch 5 that actually punishes defenses, unlike JMG last year.
3. I think we're pretty legitimately 12 deep (depending on how you feel about Cojo).
4. If Wiggs really was just out of shape, that problem is fixing itself. Just stay away from piranha car doors.
5. Klay's been OK. Not great, but OK. That's probably all we need.
6. JK's regression is a little confounding, but I believe it's temporary.
7. Moods has made the leap. Anybody think he's not a legitimate rotation player now? His defense is far better than it was two years ago.
8. We have 'Flock of Hairdos' Podziemski, who seems to do a little bit of everything. DDV on steroids, basically.
It could go either way, still, but focusing on the negativity is as biased as only seeing the positives. I'd rather focus on what we can be, not what we are during this rough stretch.
I'll have what both of you are having.
Still, I do think point #3 offers a case for seeking out some sort of 2-for-1 trade. Consolidate some talent, maybe something like the Bogdanoviฤ idea floated in the previous thread, I don't know. Personally, I don't think that would necessarily constitute a panic.
(Portland also ended up with our top-4 protected pick this yearโI wonder to what extent they would value the removal of that protection as part of a larger deal. Now-ish would be the time to explore that, while they might view us as lottery-bound.)
The only trade the Dubs might contemplate is Paul/Kuminga for ? I can't see them letting Moody or Podz go, and I don't think our other prospects are such great ones that a team would target them.
I'm opposed to trading Kuminga until there is more data (and hopefully not then).
There isn't any real rush on deciding what to do with Kuminga, either. I don't think Kuminga is going to land a needle-moving talent (with Paul as the salary ballast to make it happen).
And, I think him requesting a trade is not terribly likely. He's here for this season and next, if the Dubs don't want to trade him. And probably at least one more year beyond that (assuming he signs a short deal to get out from under RFA).
Paul + Kuminga for the right player probably makes a lot of sense for the Dubs. I think we have a fair amount of data on Kuminga, enough to know that he's a decent rotation piece at the present, probably going to continue to improve, and not a great fit for the Dubs in terms of playing time or skill set. I'm not eager to trade him, but I also think that he's the most obvious guy to trade if the right deal rolls around.
I don't think MJD is gonna trade JK. At this point, with Kerr unsigned, it doesn't make a lot of sense to trade a player because some think he doesn't fit. If Steve Kerr rides off into the sunset after this season, there's no telling what the system is gonna be next year. Another coach might keep the motion offense but install the tweaks tons of us have been begging for that will take advantage of the skills of young new talent. And if that were to happen, Steph could pretty much count on at least 1 or 2 new rings.
Of course I just read an article that the guy picked just after Kuminga, Franz Wagner, Is a borderline all-star. Different teams, different situations, yadda, yadda...what are you going to do.
Portland would have to believe the Dubs are a bottom 5 team in the league to put much value in removing the protection. Perhaps more importantly, anything they do to make the Warriors better worsens the value of the pick.
Yeah, that's a good point I had somehow failed to consider. So the value to them would probably be greater than zero, but not a lot greater...
The NBA is a superstar league. 2 for 1 is what every team dreams of doing, but most teams donโt want to give up quality players for medium talent.
They are willing to give up quality players for a boatload of picks, however. But that just means that OKC can get in ahead of anyone else if they want.
We are going to say this all the way till the end of the season because if we keep losing, the opponent is always going to get tougher ๐ฌ
A question. Are "we" saying it in the sense that you agree with the claims, or are you saying that the claims are not accurate? Meant as a conversational inquiry, not a fight.
If we keep losing it just becomes tougher - thats all i am saying. โnothing easy โ- Zaza
Defensive efficiency:
1. Wolves
2. Celtics
3. Magic
4. Knicks
5. Rockets
6. Thunder
7. Clippers
8. Grizzlies
9. Cavaliers
10. Lakers
...
16. Suns
17. Warriors
18. Heat
19. Kings
...
26. Hawks
27. Spurs
28. Pacers
29. Wizards
30. Hornets
Appreciate your hard work in posting these rankings. Just a general comment about my general disdain for using rankings to make judgments about a team, even after 20 games:
First, the actual difference in the raw numbers used to determine rank may be insignificant. For example, the difference between the "defensive efficiency" of the Warriors - at #17 - and the Suns at #16, might be a tenth of a point per 100 possessions. That's not a meaningful difference. There might even be an insignificant difference between teams ranked 5 or more places apart. Strength of schedule, injuries or other factors can easily explain those differences in raw numbers.
That said, I'd rather see the Dubs in the top five in the positive areas than middle of the pack.
Did you listen to the Gilbert Arenas youtube that Daniel posted in his Thread Header?
Offensive efficiency:
1. Pacers
2. 76ers
3. Hawks
4. Bucks
5. Thunder
6. Nets (wait, what?!)
7. Celtics
8. Mavericks (they've regressed in the past few games)
9. Nuggets
10. Suns
...
13. Kings
14. Warriors
15. Pelicans
16. Clippers
...
25. Lakers
26. Bulls
27. Pistons
28. Spurs
29. Grizzlies
30. Blazers
Warriors stats after 20 games:
Offense:
12 in points scored (114.8)
30 in points in paint (39.7)
29 in fastbreak points (11.0)
14 in offensive efficiency
25 in shooting % (45.3%)
13 in three point % (36.9%)
25 in two point % (52.0%)
7 in off. rebound % !!!!!!! (27.3%)
14 in def. rebound % (75.5%)
8 in total rebound % !!!!! (51.3%)
4 in opponent blocks!!!!!!!!!!!!! (4.1)
19 in opponent steals (7.8)
5 in assists!!!!!!!!!!! (28.1)
25 in turnovers (15.2)
Defense:
20 in points allowed (114.5)
14 in opponent points in paint (49.3)
9 in opponent fastbreak points!!!! (13.3)
17 in defensive efficiency
10 in opponent shooting % !! (46.2%)
7 in opponent three point % !!!!!!!! (34.9%)
13 in opponent two point % (53.3%)
28 in blocks (3.6)
20 in steals (7.2)
14 in opponent assists (25.3)
21 in opponent turnovers (13.3)
-The Warriors are still bottom in the league in points in paint. It feels like they take too many jump shots. I don't understand why they don't try and drive inside the paint to draw fouls and free throws; the Warriors are #9 in the league in FTAs this season (24.6).
-They're still bottom 10 in shooting %age, mainly due to their two point %age. They struggle to score inside the paint, and their mid-range jump shots aren't any better.
-Their off. rebounding %age has dropped a little, but their def. rebounding %age has gotten better.
-The Warriors are now #10 in opponent shooting %age, mainly thanks to their opponents unable to hit three pointers in the past several games.
-However, the Warriors turnovers per game has gone up in the past several games while their opponent turnovers per game has also gone down.
The Warriors play 2 non-shooters, Dray-Loon-JK together a whole lot.
There's simply not a ton of space to drive inside.
In the past they got their points in the paint off stops and in transition, but they are just middle of the pack defensively and in pace
One of multiple reasons why trading Kuminga makes sense to me. Draymond and Looney aren't going anywhere and Kuminga isn't a 3 so where is the fit?
That's a concern. We can't just rely mostly on jump shots to win games. Eventually, players will start missing them, especially with what happened with Curry in the 2nd half of yesterday's game.
That looks like fatigue effects. A smart coach would cut Steph's minutes to 28 and learn how to win on that diet so the man has 1)something left at the end of games and 2)something left come playoff time.
I think to some degree, there is "why go get clobbered going to the paint if the refs are not going to give us a consistent whistle" part to this conversation.
If we're top 10 in FTA, then we're driving enough. We don't get a lot of points in the paint because we're not athletic or tall enough to make that the focus of the offense imo
Well kerr wont play the one guy who can - JK - even after he had his best game of the season. Just donโt understand his coaching choices any more other then consistently screwing around the young guys
It all makes sense if you just remember this:
Steve Kerr was the 50th pick in the 1988 draft. His own history makes him have a warm spot in his heart for the scrappy late-round pick, and similar players (like 2-way Lamb--slightly different meaning of the term 2-way). He sees all their potential and is willing to give them reps to solidify. He has no such warm spot for highly-touted draftees. He may even have a subconscious hostility toward them. In his view, if they're so highly touted, how come they aren't perfect? The only lottery picks he has worked well with are ones who established their NBA relevance before he took over coaching them.
If you just remember those points above, you won't be surprised at his repeated failure to use (much less hone) the amazing talent the GMS acquire, his deference to established players or low-talent 2-ways over lottery picks no matter what performances each provides, his mismanaged rotations as he subconsciously tries to bury high-upside lottery picks on his bench even if every single other person at the game can see that the lineup is a disaster and the answer is growing mold on the bench, and the failure of failure to snap Kerr out his pattern and get him to consistently put the team first.
The only fact in that post was Kerr's draft spot. The rest is speculation/projection/personal opinion/bias.
Hmm. We must be living in different universes.
In mine: Kerr has not consistently used the lottery picks the GM gets.
In yours: Moody is playing 30 minutes a night and has been since Feb 2023.
In mine: Kerr routinely lets low-talent 2ways and OGs close games when they are playing poorly while lottery picks languish on the bench.
In yours: Kerr subs out Klay with 6 minutes left in favor of Moody, and the fans are winning so much they are getting tired of winning.
In mine: Kerr sends out old, short, slow lineups against long, hyper-athletic teams, even when he has players who could help counter that, like JK and TJD
In yours: Steph, Klay, and Dray are still playing like its 2015 with the same level of success despite their lack of height owing to their amazing speed and how the rest of the league has no counter.
In mine: Kerr is stubborn past the point of usefulness, such that he has patterned and systematic difficulty using failure to correct line-ups, strategy, or pretty much anything. That's why his half-time adjustments are pretty much nonexistent and his ATO plays are usually underwhelming.
In yours: Kerr is a paragon of adjustment, routinely tweaking gameplans to get the most out of every player on the team!
Wish I lived in your universe. But I and I think pretty much everyone else here is living in the other one. Oh well.
Well, none of those points were in your post (they are not correct anyway, but they are also not what i was responding to). Your post was a speculative fantasy about Kerr's preferences and motivations (you also did that to me by putting a bunch of made up things in my world that are actually in your fantasy world of what Kerr should have done). However, in that fantasy world, you have no proof that outcomes would have been any better.