<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'></p> Golden State's upset over Dallas in the first round of last year's NBA playoffs has only one significant bearing on this year's squad.</p> "Everybody is going to be gunning for us," point guard Baron Davis said. "We're going to be in a different position than last year."</p> The Warriors held their first day of training camp yesterday at the Cannon Activities Center on the BYU-Hawaii campus in Laie. They will practice every day for a week before squaring off with the Los Angeles Lakers in preseason games next Tuesday and Thursday at the Stan Sheriff Center.</p> Golden State is coming off a season in which it not only ended a 12-year playoff drought, but became just the third eighth-seed in NBA history to knock off a No. 1 seed.</p> The Warriors finished the year by winning nine of its final 10 games just to make the postseason. Once there, they became the first team in any of the three major professional sports leagues (NHL, MLB) that play over 80 games a season to defeat a team that had at least 25 more wins than them in the regular season.</p> Most of the core group is back, with the exception of guard Jason Richardson, who was traded to Charlotte on draft day.</p> They also have five rookies in camp, including forward Brandan Wright, who was acquired in the Richardson deal, and guard Marco Belinelli, whom the Warriors drafted 18th overall.</p> "It's a whole new season," Davis said. "We are a new ballclub with new people in new positions."</div></p> Source: Star Bulletin</p>
Other teams will be gunning for us? Jeez. I think the Warriors are feeling a little self important IMO. I think this will be a year where things have to be proved once again because some teams still consider us making the playoffs a fluke. The Dallas playoff win was something that people were surprised by because it was a 1 vs. 8 seed. and some people were'nt surprised by considering the Warriors regular season record against Dallas. But hey, if we faced Utah, San Antonio, Houston, Phoenix, I bet most people wouldn't give the Warriors much probability of winning because they control the rebounding and have dominant big men on their rosters and our record wasn't as good against them.</p> So, I think we're still underdogs and not quite the guys with targets on our backs, because I simply don't think we're that important yet. We've got to develop a reputation for being one of the dominant teams in the west and that takes consecutive playoff appearances. Until we replicate the success, I doubt teams will be gunning for us just because we sneaked into the playoffs (barely) and then beat a team who some anaylsts said could beat Dallas in that series if they replicated regular season performance against them. I mean nobody really thought of Clippers or Denver like we gotta gun for them. Teams want to gun for the guys that have finals appearances or have one championships. If they can beat those teams consistently, then they stand a good chance of beating them in the playoffs once they wade through all the lesser teams. In fact, we and every other lowered seeded Western Conference team should be gunning for Utah or San Antonio. The day we can beat those teams consistently, we know we've made it in the upper ranks of the Western Conference. Right now, I think we're looking to be a good regular season team, but not the type to beat the heavy hitters when it counts.</p>
What Davis said is a very tired sports cliche, but it may be true. It's important not to view the media's lack of respect towards Golden State as a lack of respect amongst players in the league... with the possible exception of Jason Terry. Wasn't he the guy who started laughing when a reporter asked if they had any concerns about us before the playoff series?</p> Anyways, I think the rest of the league will get a bit more up to play us this year, but at the same time, we're good enough now to deal with it. People try to cast aside what we did by saying the Mavs just ran into a hot team (Nowitzki's words, not mine). I'm excited for them to be proven wrong, ne?</p> </p>
I think the only team that's going to be "gunning" for us will be the Mavs. The other teams don't give a crap.</p>
I think what Baron is saying is that other teams will recognize that the Warriors were legit last year and will be gunning to "Put them in their place." The teams pushing for the playoffs will try to take their place as the Warriors of this year, and the top tier teams will try to say that they're not going to be last years Mavs. So they will have to bring it every night. Nobody will overlook the Warriors this year, that can't be said about any year in the last 12.</p>
It's not that any teams have it out for GS (other than Dallas maybe), or that GS is the team to beat (far from it as we know). Rather, I think it's just basically that teams will actually have GS in their radar now, they will possibly game plan better and will bring their A game. There will be no "easy" or "suprise" wins because teams will take GS a bit more seriously. At least that's my opinion. But I'd have to add that, as a professional, I'd expect you to take EVERY team seriously and play 100% every night. But you hear analyists and writers talk a lot about how teams didn't "get it up" on the second night of a back-2-back, or how the captain of a team says "oh, we can't take these guys lightly, we have to come out and be ready to play. Perhaps they say that because they know their guys in the locker room might be "looking past" a team like Atlanta, Memphis, or, even for a time, GS.</p>
