The Golden State Warriors' four-point loss to the Los Clippers Saturday was quite telling of the false-consciousness we may have over the four-game winning streak. Perhaps it's just the ghost of Kobe Bryant haunting the Warriors at Oracle, but the Warriors dropped another game in Los Angeles against La-La Land’s JV-squad and have only won six games on the road. The best of those six wins coming off a struggling New Orleans Hornets squad.
But the Warriors inability to gain ground on the road, especially against a similarly talented and unfocused squad, is telling. Mark Purdy, contributor to the San Jose Mercury, told Warrior fans, last week, to halt the celebrations, particularly after narrowly beating the league’s worst team:
For no sensible reason, the in-house confetti guns at Oracle Arena were shot off Monday after the Warriors beat New Jersey.
Please. There should be a strict no-confetti rule following victories over the Nets. They are the NBA’s version of paramecium, simple organisms swimming through scummy water with no hope of evolving into something grander.
Agreed. Purdy’s premonitions amidst the celebrations on MLK day oddly rang true throughout the week and, especially against that last minute meltdown in Los Angeles. Over the last week, the Warriors beat teams they should be beating, but couldn’t beat a team worse than them on the road. Here’s what else Purdy had to say:
The catch: The bulk of that success has come against bad opposition. Only four of the Warriors’ victories — and just two since the dynamic dribbling duo’s official takeover — have been over teams that currently have winning records.
All of this explains why the Golden Staters are 12th in the Western Conference. Last season, they finished 13th. Confetti! Confetti!
Yikes, the Warriors are playing better basketball and clearly have a better winning percentage than last season. But the fact they’ve only improved by one position in the standings (as of last week), doesn’t do much for them in the long-run.
The season is halfway over and the Warriors are a completely revamped squad from last season with a new coach instilling and installing a new philosophy. With that said, as fans, what should we settle for? Do we assume this is just a trial season, a throw away until Lacob and Guber finally get to construct this team from the down up? Are Coach Keith Smart and GM Larry Riley just interim? Or should we expect this team to be much better and more prepared than it is?