Boy, writing a Jock Blog about the Warriors seems like entering a minefield.
These past few days have been rather dramatic in the land of a team that used to be known as “playing with joy” — remember those ancient days? Back before TikTok?
The Warriors are at that place known as the crossroads, as I was just saying to my good friends from Bone Thugs N Harmony.
On the one hand is the low-drama crowd, accepting these 20-win, 20-loss Warriors for who they are. And who they are is a flawed team still in search of itself, but featuring all-time icon Steph Curry and Warrior lifer Draymond Green and the on-again, off-again genius of Andrew Wiggins. They feature the promise of a Kuminga-drenched future. They are not imminent title contenders, but they are also very much in the race for the Western Conference top six and that makes their games worthwhile. All the while, the current state of the Dubs holds out the chance for a Mike Dunleavy trade that could jolt things.
Plus, Buddy Hield might make a couple of threes for a change and that would brighten everyone’s mood.
On the other hand is, well, for lack of a better word, the crowd of rage.
And I mean a pack of Warriors fans who are disgusted, turned off and flat-out P.O.’ed. Don’t believe me? You haven’t been on social media of late, pal.
Their belief, if I am reading them correctly, is that the Warriors ownership and front office have committed the Crime of the Century by not making a gigantic move in the past two years for: Paul George, Lauri Markkanen, Zach LaVine, Zion Williamson, Jimmy Butler or Giannis Antetokounmpo, not to mention LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Larry Joe Bird, George (The Iceman) Gervin, a 2015 Klay Thompson or a hologram of Elgin Baylor.
The pushback message from the Warriors in these dramatic past few days has been: We don’t want to trade Andrew Wiggins, Jon Kuminga and a slew of future first-rounders to create an apocalyptic post-Steph landscape in 2029. Let’s do the best we can now, and maybe get a bump at the trade deadline to make a playoff run.
The message from the Pack o’ Rage: Post-Steph Future? Who cares? Steph is the past, present and future. Bring him a title-worthy sidekick!
It’s hard to come out as “anti-title aspirations”, but I’m in Camp No Drama here.
First off, I can’t lie. Being a Warriors fan of a certain age means a lot of perspective. You remember the 1975 championship (dimly, but yes!). You remember living in the irrelevance of the Laker Shadow for the entire 1980s. You remember getting 50-win hopes with early ‘90s Nellie only to rapidly morph into the decay of— it’s hard to even type this — *the Cohan Years*.
And then you lived long enough to be born again into a miraculous 2015-2022 run that rivaled the Walsh-Montana-Rice-Lott-Young 49ers dynasty. It leaves you in a mostly blissful state.
In other words, it’s very hard to get legitimately *pissed* at the Warriors anytime soon. A listener wrote an on-point text this week, saying “They used to give away hot dogs and sell $2 tickets. I’m aggressively satisfied with the last 20 years.”
Again, that’s not to surrender. I truly do think the Warriors — if Buddy Hield can make a three — can make it to the top six of the Western Conference this year, particularly if Dunleavy gets a serviceable big at the deadline.
More important, I do think it’s wise to hang on to Kuminga and Wiggins and the draft picks. John Hollinger of The Athletic wrote a piece this week detailing the cap and draft situations of five teams — Warriors, Kings, Clippers, Lakers and Suns — and noted the Warriors are in the best long-term position regarding young talent and picks available. That’s not nothing.
Steph had some enjoyably pointed words after the win in Minnesota, saying “…all the Twitter fingers that have deals that we need to make can kind of just shut up a little bit and let us figure this thing out . . . this is a unique year where we have to be able to stay relevant and give ourselves a chance … in a playoff series, and we have a whole lot of confidence that we can beat anybody.”
The Jock Blog rides with Steph. Now go beat the Wizards.
