Was Philly too harsh on Ben Simmons or is he "soft"? Either way... he hasn't recovered from it and it's severely damaged his game. Is he just mentally weak? Legendary HOF talk but mediocre player work ethic? I just can't wrap my head around a player with that talent being borderline useless when it comes to putting the ball in the basket outside of the paint.
I'm not going to accuse him of being soft but I will emphatically restate that there is no way Ben Simmons would be able to fill the role of a Draymond on this Warriors team as some have claimed he could over the years. He's obviously got the talent but has never demonstrated that "dog" mentality that is required from guys who traditionally have the same bball responsibilities Ben seems to have these days, aka being a defense and pass-first ultra glue guy.
Sometimes I wish Joe would SFUp as the team is trying to find its way to the playoffs after a season of injuries and trials and tribulations to correct off-season faux des pas....
Is it too early to think about this? The Dubs are currently slated to play the Suns in a first round, whether we catch them or not. With Durant coming back soon, is that really that friendly a matchup? Wouldn't we, all things being equal, rather be the 6th and play a 3rd place Kings who are playoff newbies and did not pick Durant up at the deadline?
The way things are going, the standings are going to be shuffling right up until the last day, so even if you wanted to target a team, I don't see how you could.
It would be kind of a dream scenario for the Lakers to be in eighth place with one game to play, and drop to 11th on the last day of the season.
Give me the 3 seed and a first round match up against the Mavs, a second round matchup against the Grizz, a WCF matchup against the Nuggets, and a Warriors Invitational Rematch against the Celtics... and then let me hear Grant Williams go on TV again talking about how they were the better, more talented team, but lost to the Warriors because they just didn't quite play to the level they should have. To echo Sleepy below, #justwinbaby
I’d want to see that team(Suns) defend before handing the laurels of especially dangerous. And while they’ll probably be excellent on offense, the Warriors at least have a quiver of guys that can and/or have given Durant some tougher looks. Dray, Wiggins, Kuminga, Andre(?!)
Way too early to think about it. Life comes at you fast this late in the season, with teams this bunched up. A week ago, people were worried the Warriors might not even make the play in; now after two stirring comebacks and with Steph scrimmaging we’re debating whether we’d prefer 5th or 6th. A week from now, let alone a month … who the heck knows.
And: the same goes for the Suns, Kings, and all the other teams #3-14. (I draw a line between Memphis and Sac, cos Memphis is both the significantly better team and has the easiest remaining schedule in the league, while Sac has one of the toughest). Any tweak or sprain by any big name could reshuffle the presumed order completely (viz. LeBron).
TLDR: just win baby, and let the seeds fall where they may. The hoops gods do not look kindly on trying to game the system.
MEM is also 6 games ahead which was something we could reasonably make up when he still had 40 games left to play... but with only 20 games, even if we go 15-5, they'd have to go sub-.500 the rest of the way.
I'd say at this point, SAC will be hard to catch as well.
Yea I pretty much agree with Attila that predicting who the Dubs will play in the first round of the playoffs is going to be hard until we are done with the season. Assuming the Dubs get to the playoffs (fingers and toes crossed ofc). But once we are there, we are going to have to run the gauntlet of good west coast teams, which means (probably???) having to play at least a couple of Denver, Memphis and Phoenix. Ofc they could get knocked off in upsets by the likes of the Mavs, Clips, Jazz, etc., but all three of them? Doubtful. So I'm in the "I don't care what order we get them" camp - we're going to have to beat them all.
Yes, it will probably be too early the rest of the season. It's still possible for the Suns to catch the Kings, for one thing. But that aside, we are holding onto 5th by our fingernails, and the teams are so closely packed in the standings that we have to try to win every game. It's not like we can rest the starters to tank a game or so in order to move down for a better matchup. We could fall right out of the playoffs doing that. So the question is moot.
So looong, Lolakers, Helooo Warriors, and welcome to 5th place in the West. lollol....never thought they would have won all 3 of the last 3 games....Tip of the hat to Luna, et al....
This comment sent me to the team stats, where I saw that the two highest 3P%s on the team are technically ... Wiseman and Iggy. Thank you for the chuckle I got out of that.
I just can't stop looking at the standings after tonight. WHODDATHUNKIT!!?? At this point in this season of mediocrity & after that gawdawful first half ,,, to be tied for 5th with all the teams that needed to lose doing just that. The time to rise above the rest of the logjam is now.
We are not really tied for 5th. Our winning pct is .5161 and the Clips are at .5156. Rounding it up it appears to be a tie but technically it's not. Of course that's just because they've played two more games than we have.
No doubt, we have a lot of ''friends'' in the West, who simply find any playoffs and Western conference Final without the Warriors, are simply, worthless.....
Sign Donte using what mechanism / exception? Even if we dumped Jordan for nothing or picks, we'd still be way over the cap. Early Bird rights are not available until after the second season.
Dray opts out and gets a bigger deal somewhere. Trade Poole. Gets us under the lux tax line. Then go nuts. Hmm no I don’t think this will work. Still not below the cap line. Grrrr.
Yes, the Warriors are over the cap with just 10 signed players, even without Dray, and would have to trade JP without taking much salary back AND without wasting Curry's prime.
I think even if we dumped the entire second timeline without taking any salary back , we're still capped out.
Oh great point! I know the new CBA is being negotiated now, but didn't realize that it will change next season's cap math. All bets are off??! Could the owners really agree to a new structure that would benefit the Warriors? I really doubt it.
Most of the owners hate/are jealous of the Warriors ownership's ability to spend so wildly, but even more they love splitting the lux tax $$. Free money! Whee! The free wheelers are massively outnumbered by the minimum spenders.
i don’t care that there’s a logjam at DDVs position or we can’t afford him next year. he must be a warrior for life. id hate to see him waste his talents anywhere else.
Maybe we could convince DDV that his goal in life shouldn't be short-term, tawdry dirty dollars, but maximum possible appearances in E1Ps! All that video content would cement his long term value/career in media after his balling days are over. Just think how many E1Ps he'd get featured in if he stayed here a few years and helped the Dubs win ever more games??!?
Not a cap nerd at all, but I gather it looks somewhat like this: if he doesn't opt in, the most we can offer him is the full taxpayer MLE, just over 5.3M. We could sign only minimum FA other than him if we did that. If he does opt in, I think his salary still comes out of next year's MLE, but it wouldn't be all of it.
What I don't know is whether there could be a deal in place according to which we could extend him for another year using Early Bird rights immediately after he opts in to second year or gets the full MLE. This would give him up to 175% of his opted-in salary next year for year 3, so around 7M-9M maybe. Then we would have his Bird rights thereafter.
I suspect he could get significantly more than the sum of year 2 and 3 from a team with cap room in FA.
Was Philly too harsh on Ben Simmons or is he "soft"? Either way... he hasn't recovered from it and it's severely damaged his game. Is he just mentally weak? Legendary HOF talk but mediocre player work ethic? I just can't wrap my head around a player with that talent being borderline useless when it comes to putting the ball in the basket outside of the paint.
I'm not going to accuse him of being soft but I will emphatically restate that there is no way Ben Simmons would be able to fill the role of a Draymond on this Warriors team as some have claimed he could over the years. He's obviously got the talent but has never demonstrated that "dog" mentality that is required from guys who traditionally have the same bball responsibilities Ben seems to have these days, aka being a defense and pass-first ultra glue guy.
Subriel Matias? Real Deal Or gets hit too easy?
Agree. We don't need to assign blame to observe that Simmons is nowhere near Draymond Green and could NEVER fill his role.
Sometimes I wish Joe would SFUp as the team is trying to find its way to the playoffs after a season of injuries and trials and tribulations to correct off-season faux des pas....
What did he do?
Contract talk/speculation about Dray, Klay, etc. Not the time for it...
Is it too early to think about this? The Dubs are currently slated to play the Suns in a first round, whether we catch them or not. With Durant coming back soon, is that really that friendly a matchup? Wouldn't we, all things being equal, rather be the 6th and play a 3rd place Kings who are playoff newbies and did not pick Durant up at the deadline?
The way things are going, the standings are going to be shuffling right up until the last day, so even if you wanted to target a team, I don't see how you could.
It would be kind of a dream scenario for the Lakers to be in eighth place with one game to play, and drop to 11th on the last day of the season.
The Lebron pity party would be ambrosia.
Give me the 3 seed and a first round match up against the Mavs, a second round matchup against the Grizz, a WCF matchup against the Nuggets, and a Warriors Invitational Rematch against the Celtics... and then let me hear Grant Williams go on TV again talking about how they were the better, more talented team, but lost to the Warriors because they just didn't quite play to the level they should have. To echo Sleepy below, #justwinbaby
I’d want to see that team(Suns) defend before handing the laurels of especially dangerous. And while they’ll probably be excellent on offense, the Warriors at least have a quiver of guys that can and/or have given Durant some tougher looks. Dray, Wiggins, Kuminga, Andre(?!)
Way too early to think about it. Life comes at you fast this late in the season, with teams this bunched up. A week ago, people were worried the Warriors might not even make the play in; now after two stirring comebacks and with Steph scrimmaging we’re debating whether we’d prefer 5th or 6th. A week from now, let alone a month … who the heck knows.
And: the same goes for the Suns, Kings, and all the other teams #3-14. (I draw a line between Memphis and Sac, cos Memphis is both the significantly better team and has the easiest remaining schedule in the league, while Sac has one of the toughest). Any tweak or sprain by any big name could reshuffle the presumed order completely (viz. LeBron).
TLDR: just win baby, and let the seeds fall where they may. The hoops gods do not look kindly on trying to game the system.
MEM is also 6 games ahead which was something we could reasonably make up when he still had 40 games left to play... but with only 20 games, even if we go 15-5, they'd have to go sub-.500 the rest of the way.
I'd say at this point, SAC will be hard to catch as well.
Yea I pretty much agree with Attila that predicting who the Dubs will play in the first round of the playoffs is going to be hard until we are done with the season. Assuming the Dubs get to the playoffs (fingers and toes crossed ofc). But once we are there, we are going to have to run the gauntlet of good west coast teams, which means (probably???) having to play at least a couple of Denver, Memphis and Phoenix. Ofc they could get knocked off in upsets by the likes of the Mavs, Clips, Jazz, etc., but all three of them? Doubtful. So I'm in the "I don't care what order we get them" camp - we're going to have to beat them all.
Yes, it will probably be too early the rest of the season. It's still possible for the Suns to catch the Kings, for one thing. But that aside, we are holding onto 5th by our fingernails, and the teams are so closely packed in the standings that we have to try to win every game. It's not like we can rest the starters to tank a game or so in order to move down for a better matchup. We could fall right out of the playoffs doing that. So the question is moot.
Ding ding ding.
And this doesn’t even mention how the basketball gods feel about doing something like that.
Alright... so now they gotta go 0-5 so they can be ok in EA's book before Steph comes back on 3/11.
Wait, what? Steph scrimmaged today? EA's predictions SUUUUUUUUCK... (i kid, i kid)
That was a guide to stay afloat for a playin seed, lol. Now we can target a playoff seed!
So looong, Lolakers, Helooo Warriors, and welcome to 5th place in the West. lollol....never thought they would have won all 3 of the last 3 games....Tip of the hat to Luna, et al....
Predictions That Nobody Made: 62 games into the season, Draymond and Poole have the same 3P%
This comment sent me to the team stats, where I saw that the two highest 3P%s on the team are technically ... Wiseman and Iggy. Thank you for the chuckle I got out of that.
Pretty sure that Asher made it...
I just can't stop looking at the standings after tonight. WHODDATHUNKIT!!?? At this point in this season of mediocrity & after that gawdawful first half ,,, to be tied for 5th with all the teams that needed to lose doing just that. The time to rise above the rest of the logjam is now.
We are not really tied for 5th. Our winning pct is .5161 and the Clips are at .5156. Rounding it up it appears to be a tie but technically it's not. Of course that's just because they've played two more games than we have.
No doubt, we have a lot of ''friends'' in the West, who simply find any playoffs and Western conference Final without the Warriors, are simply, worthless.....
Beat the Clippers on Thursday, get Steph & Andre back Friday and beat the Pels, then stomp the Lakers on Sunday.
Andre? What for?
So he can justify his salary.
That’s right LeBron is out
... and so is Andre, I'll bet.
Ice cream of [extreme] Joy tasted so good!! Almost 2am in my world. Time to call it a night so 3 kittens will calm down & come to bed.
Sometimes the answers are staring you in the face but you just won’t open your eyes:
Dump Poole. Sign Donte.
One’s a starting guard. The other might be - maybe - one day.
Krimineeeee.
Sign Donte using what mechanism / exception? Even if we dumped Jordan for nothing or picks, we'd still be way over the cap. Early Bird rights are not available until after the second season.
Wink wink dream with Donte to opt in, then get his Bird rights?
Dray opts out and gets a bigger deal somewhere. Trade Poole. Gets us under the lux tax line. Then go nuts. Hmm no I don’t think this will work. Still not below the cap line. Grrrr.
It also won't work because we aren't' winning without Dray, anyway.
Like any fan who's been paying the least bit of attention, I want to keep DDV next year because he helps winning. Dray helps more over the short term.
Yes, the Warriors are over the cap with just 10 signed players, even without Dray, and would have to trade JP without taking much salary back AND without wasting Curry's prime.
I think even if we dumped the entire second timeline without taking any salary back , we're still capped out.
Oh great point! I know the new CBA is being negotiated now, but didn't realize that it will change next season's cap math. All bets are off??! Could the owners really agree to a new structure that would benefit the Warriors? I really doubt it.
Most of the owners hate/are jealous of the Warriors ownership's ability to spend so wildly, but even more they love splitting the lux tax $$. Free money! Whee! The free wheelers are massively outnumbered by the minimum spenders.
Supposedly the new CBA will go easier on teams that are slightly over the cap but tougher on teams that are way over ... i.e., us.
Sure but that doesn't necessarily solve our issues. We're not just a little bit over the cap, we're way, way over.
Numbers here: https://www.spotrac.com/nba/golden-state-warriors/cap/2023/
Obvious: crush on the boards, own the paint. Classic Warriors win.
Now how on earth did the Jazz lose to the 16 game losing streak Spurs???
Something wrong with ESPN.com. The standings has the Warriors listed as 5th in the West.
Pretty sure we're in like tenth or somewhere around there... aren't we?
73-9, baby
I'll take 68-30. Heck, 68-34 is fine too.
"only the warriors can do shit like this" https://twitter.com/splashdubs/status/1630809016300638209
Damn so the dubs closed the game 83-42?!?!
In appreciation of Anthony Lamb. https://twitter.com/warriors/status/1629662784735830016
Nice video.
(Looks at comments) Nope.
i don’t care that there’s a logjam at DDVs position or we can’t afford him next year. he must be a warrior for life. id hate to see him waste his talents anywhere else.
Maybe we could convince DDV that his goal in life shouldn't be short-term, tawdry dirty dollars, but maximum possible appearances in E1Ps! All that video content would cement his long term value/career in media after his balling days are over. Just think how many E1Ps he'd get featured in if he stayed here a few years and helped the Dubs win ever more games??!?
Not a cap nerd at all, but I gather it looks somewhat like this: if he doesn't opt in, the most we can offer him is the full taxpayer MLE, just over 5.3M. We could sign only minimum FA other than him if we did that. If he does opt in, I think his salary still comes out of next year's MLE, but it wouldn't be all of it.
What I don't know is whether there could be a deal in place according to which we could extend him for another year using Early Bird rights immediately after he opts in to second year or gets the full MLE. This would give him up to 175% of his opted-in salary next year for year 3, so around 7M-9M maybe. Then we would have his Bird rights thereafter.
I suspect he could get significantly more than the sum of year 2 and 3 from a team with cap room in FA.
Thanks, I just don’t pay attention to this level of cap detail normally. But DDV makes it necessary.
So we could offer him more if we got under the lux tax line?
No
Sad.
He gone… the reason he gone is because he’s playing so well that we love him so much…
THIS!!
JK isn’t shooting a lot of midrange jumpers… but they look good and they are going in relatively well.
I think people are completely just giving him that shot…
Yeah he shot a few in garbage time and defense was a bit lax at that point but they looked buttery smooth
His three hasn't looked bad lately, either. I wonder if he's just generally getting better at shooting.
It could just also be the random ups and downs of a young player, but I'm hopeful.
Kerith: "LESS of Bonta's tweets." Yes, this why I like me some Kerith Burke.