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Overall
Win/Loss Record : 47-35, second place
Pacific Division
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Last Season’s Rank
5
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Projected 2013/2014
Finish
5
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Last
season’s Team Statistics and League Rank
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Returning
Individual Statistical Leaders
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Projected
Starters Based on Talent, Tenure, and Potential Impact:
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Second Unit Roster Order Ranked on Talent, Tenure, and Potential Impact:
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Analysis:
Usually for most teams, a successful run such as last season from the Golden State Warriors would give their fans a sense of optimism and hope for the future, but sad to say that has never been the case for Warriors fans. Such seasons would come very rarely and would be then followed by one dreadful season after the other as that one shining moment would be lost forever in the annals of history. Just look through the team's nearly fifty year history and one will see that it is littered with long stretches of poor seasons with one or two bright moments which gave the Warriors fan base a little something to cheer for only for the team to head back south again. It was as if Warriors fans would be forced to suffer watching their team get waxed year after year only to be blessed with one shining light to reward them for all their years of suffering. Sadly, that bliss would be short lived as that bring light would flicker off as soon as it arrived and Bay Area fans would thus return once again in darkness until another glorious time when that lucky star would pass by once again. One cannot forget such examples as the famed 1994 season when the Warriors acquired super athletic phenom Chris Webber in the 1993 NBA Draft which was supposed to usher in a new era in Golden State basketball. The Warriors had won 50 games and reached the playoffs in Webber's rookie year and although they would get swept by the +Phoenix Suns in the first round, Warriors fans saw it as the beginning of something special. That was until Webber had a hissy-fit with then head coach Don Nelson leading the team to be forced to trade him to then then +Washington Bullets for pennies to the dollar thus shattering the hopes and dreams of Warriors fans once again. After twelve straight years of floundering in futility the Warriors finally caught a break in 2007 as they not only grabbed their first playoff berth in more than a decade, but had also taken down the league's best team in the first round +Dallas Mavericks. That season the Mavs had finished with the league's best record and were favored to repeat their NBA title run from the previous season, but their championship aspirations were dashed from a underdog Warriors team who regained the heart of their fan; however, as it had been the case for so many years, the Warriors would yet again fail to rise to the occasion and drop back to the murky depths where they had once came. Fast forward to 2013 where the Warriors would undergo five straight losing seasons before coming out of nowhere and taking the league by storm as they not only finished with its best record in four years and reached the playoffs, but also shocked the world once again as they did those six long years ago. Not only did they so from perennial laughing stock and all around train wreck to being the toast of the NBA, but they exceeded expectations going as far as the second round of the NBA Playoffs giving their opponent, the +San Antonio Spurs, a run for its money before eventually falling in six games. Now usually such great news are often met with a collective "meh" as both fans and the media would expect the floor to come up out from under them once again; however, this time, it is different. Instead of the usual apathy that is met with every Golden State Warriors season, something has actually turned around and the flame that would often be blown out as soon as it had sparked has started to burning brighter than it has ever before. Now in the Bay Area, hope can be considered "a dangerous thing" because it "can drive a man insane and has no use on the inside," especially when it comes to Warriors; however, that been has completely turned on its head as there is a new attitude that has infectiously spread throughout the region's population who have been so used to be being built up only to be disappointed in the end.
Instead of simply expecting the worse as they have always had, Warriors fans now have something to look forward thanks to new management and a drastic shift in culture within the organization. What was once a franchise that basically accepted what was given and simply worked from them now has become the aggressor having unshackled themselves from the bonds of history and now look to set their own tone and make their mark. Now instead of just simply settling for being "good enough," the bar has been raised far higher than neither the fans in the Bay Area or anyone who has covered the team have ever imagined. People from both the fans and the media have started to go as far to project the Warriors, a team that has not seen a NBA title since 1975, to be not only one of the top teams of the Western Conference a potential contender for the Finals. The greatest sign of this massive paradigm shift occurred in the off season where after losing two of the key pieces that helped the team reach so far in Jarrett Jack and Carl Landry, the Warriors went about retooling the team making it even stronger than the team that stunned the world last season.
The most prized piece acquired in the off season thus far is a veteran swing man who can not only be considered as one of the league's most dynamic and versatile players, but also one of its top reputed defenders. Some may question, Andre Igoudala's bestowed status as an All Star caliber player, but there is no denying that he offers an exceptional skills set and possesses a certain aura that can bring any team to that next team turning from merely good to great. On the offensive end not only is he an excellent ball handler capable of running an offense, but he is also an excellent facilitator as he chooses to defer to his teammates rather than score which is both his greatest strength and his greatest flaw. Such a gift is an excellent asset for a team of score first players in the back court such as Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson--in fact, it can amplify Curry's game to the point of potentially finishing the season as the top scorer in the league. Add his penchant for lock down defense, Igoudala gives the Warriors a player who is more than capable of taking over a game on both ends of the floor, but chooses instead to make those around him better rather than hog the glory for himself. A player like Igoudala is a perfect sign of the Warriors true ascension among the NBA's elite as a true title contender for not just this season, but for those to come, and thus should be taken seriously as a potent force instead of the door mat in which many have grown to expect. |
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Wednesday, October 30, 2013
SDH's 2013/2014 NBA Worst to First Previews and Predictions: 5. Golden State Warriors
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