Tag: Golden State Warriors
Editorial

A Study In Glorious Failure Part 1: Don Nelson

- by Fox Doucette

There have, in the annals of NBA history, been great players who never won a title. The mere mention of the concept immediately brings to mind a slew of guys who, because they came through the league during the reign of a team they weren’t on, retired without that elusive ring. Like “every star in the league who wasn’t on the Celtics in the 1960s.” Or “Every star in the league who was in his prime between 1991 and 1998 and wasn’t on the Bulls or Rockets.” Or the stars of the Dark Ages who weren’t on the Lakers or …

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Is He Any Good

Mitch Richmond: Was He Any Good?

- by Fox Doucette

The early-90s “Run TMC” combination of Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin was supposed to be the Next Big Thing in the NBA as the sun set on the era of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Isiah Thomas. Michael Jordan inherited the mantle of Eastern Conference dominance that Boston and Detroit vacated, while the new power in the West was supposed to include the Warriors alongside the Gary Payton/Shawn Kemp Sonics, the John Stockton/Karl Malone Jazz, Hakeem Olajuwon‘s Rockets, and the Charles Barkley Show in Phoenix once the 76ers finally got rid of the disgruntled Round Mound of Rebound. …

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Analysis

Achtung Panzer! #1: The Tanking Golden State Warriors

- by Fox Doucette

Welcome to Achtung Panzer, a series that will take a look at the teams buying a few extra tickets for the 2020 NBA Draft lottery. We begin with an unlikely entrant, the Golden State Warriors. For each of the past five seasons, the Golden State Warriors have represented the Western Conference in the NBA Finals, the longest streak for one franchise in either half of the NBA since the Boston Celtics went to eight straight championship rounds between 1957 and 1966 (winning seven!) This year, the Warriors, down Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson to extended injuries and down Kevin Durant …

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2020 Preview

Are the 2019-20 Golden State Warriors Good?

- by Fox Doucette

The Golden State Warriors fell short of winning their fourth title in five years in June, with injuries to Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson acting as a decisive Gotterdammerung at the hands of the Toronto Raptors. This year…hoo boy. Some prognosticators have suggested they won’t even make the playoffs, as Durant is gone to Brooklyn, Thompson will miss a substantial portion of the 2019-20 season, and Stephen Curry isn’t getting any younger and has had his own battles with injuries throughout his career since getting hurt in the 2016 playoffs. Vegas, for its part, remains optimistic, pegging Golden State for …

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Analysis

NBA Best And Worst Contracts Part VI: Pacific Division

- by Fox Doucette

As we wrap up our look at NBA contracts, a few things—good and bad—about Wiggins Factor as a stat start to come through in the analysis. In one case, it’s a sins-of-the-father argument… This really should say ‘the Wolves HAD one of the worst front offices in the league’. None of those bad contracts were signed by the current regime. — Jake Paynting (@jakepaynting) August 23, 2019 It’s going to take the new front office awhile to take out the trash. And in another case, it’s an example of Stewart’s Maxim: “It’s not funny anymore when it’s your guy.” @RealFoxD …

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Analysis

Golden State Warriors Headed for a Fan-Friendly Decline

- by Fox Doucette

The Golden State Warriors, mere weeks removed from their fifth straight trip to the NBA Finals, are a moribund franchise about to embark on a collapse that will give them some boffo odds in the draft lottery in 2022. Sure, they’ll hang on in the short-term, maybe even make one more deep playoff run on fumes and Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson shooting 30 threes a game between them and seeing enough of them go in to get past a not-quite-there-yet Nuggets or Jazz team in the first two rounds before the Clippers put up a Kawhilight reel in the …

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Highlights

Breakfast Special: Golden State Bluesmobile

- by Fox Doucette

The Golden State Warriors always prided themselves on “strength in numbers”, but the only numbers anyone’s counting in Oakland as the team prepares to depart across the Bay next season are the ones on the potential lost free agent contracts for Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson. Durant suffered what history says will be a career-ending injury to his Achilles in Game 5, while Thompson, after scoring 30 points, collapsed in a literal sense down the stretch when his ACL finally said “no mas” in his left knee. Although, to Klay’s credit, holy crap: Klay walking back onto the court WITH …

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Analysis

Kevin Durant’s Career Is Over

- by Fox Doucette - 1 Comment

Sometimes, a player can get injured, even catastrophically, sit out a season, come back, and return to the form they enjoyed before they got hurt, noticing no dropoff in performance that anyone is able to measure statistically. An Achilles tendon rupture, which Kevin Durant suffered during Game 5 of the NBA Finals, is not one of those injuries that players typically come back from. Here’s a list of the All-Stars besides Durant who have torn Achilles tendons, according to collected sources from a Google search that all seemed to be working from the same data set: Elton Brand, Dominique Wilkins, …

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Highlights

Breakfast Special: 12 Minutes of Kevin Durant

- by Fox Doucette

I am, in my heart of hearts, a deeply religious man. I believe in the gods, and I believe that the gods are the arbiters of probability, the referees who decide whether Schrodinger’s Cat lives or dies, and in their various guises made manifest at sporting events. And not in the performative Christianity “thank God for this championship” sort of way. Just once I’d like to hear a player on the losing side say “well, we’d have won, but you heard the other team. God wanted them to win, clearly.” No, I’m talking about the kind of divine intervention that …

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Highlights

Breakfast Special: Will the Raptors Blow a 3-1 Lead?

- by Fox Doucette

The Golden State Warriors finally failed to hit 109 points in a Finals game, a score they’d posted like clockwork in each of the first three games of this championship series despite losing two of them. Too bad for them, because 109 would’ve been enough to win this one. As it stands they lost 105-92 to the Toronto Raptors and look an awful lot like a team that’s going to be forced to surrender when the battle shifts back to Canada for Game 5. In some small way, this is validation for Kevin Durant. Stephen Curry looked completely spent in …

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