I admit it. The W's have won as many games now as they have all last year. They are showing signs of better defensive effort. Most importantly, there's no more Maggette v. Ming stupid lineups (except last night's Vlad v. Jefferson). They are playing more traditional lineups and winning. I'm pleasantly surprised and maybe, just maybe, Smart is better than a retread (While I hate them, they rarely pay off, NBA retreads work better than NFL or MLB ones.) I think he's got to show more traditional lineups and try to go big (Bwright at the 3!). Will Lacob make a splash on 2/24? Probably not and that's probably best for the long term. Frankly the W's are not that close so better to be patient than antsy.
Definitely, the Warriors are doing better than I expected. I expected them to be better than last year because the injury situation should be much different (better than last year where the team did not even have PFs on its roster who were healthy), and plus the David Lee deal was good for the short run, i.e. this season. I also liked the starting lineup, I was just not so sure how the other pieces would fall and mix with these starters and without having a proven, such bench unit. The players in particular, though, that shine out at me are Dorell Wright and Udoh who are doing much better than what I had expected. I thought Wright could be good, but I did not expect him to produce like this. Anything out of Udoh was just going to be gravy. But he's been very strong so far. Ellis has been very impressive as well. He is playing at an all-star level. Let's see what this team can achieve for this season. It's getting interesting with the recent moves in the West.
I actually wasn't that down on them to start the season but I've been disappointed....yet they're right about where they I thought they'd be- marginally below .500. I'm disappointed because we had that long stretch where we were just horrid. Part of that was injuries and we also had the toughest schedule in the league but we were still losing to teams we should have beat. I don't want to get my hopes up too much either because after the insane home stretch we're back to long roadies in post-ASG run. They need to win on the road and the win in Utah last game was a pretty good sign. Its really mostly mixed feelings with this team. Overall they were disappointing but they've just started turning it around and I believe that the starting 5 has actually been excellent. Lee isn't as good as I thought he'd be yet his impact is tremendous. Curry is starting to be more aggressive and hes toning down the TOs. Bench is coming around. Udoh is also making a big impact and the team is usually in the positive when hes in there, hes done well bodying up on some good bigs lately too. With Sloan and Melo out we've got a shot here. Even adding some small upgrades would help a lot but I'm still all about going for that big piece if at all possible. To be honest if no moves are made I still don't think we'll make the playoffs. The recent surge has been very nice but the upcoming schedule is very rough and this has been a team of streaks as opposed to consistency. I'll be pleasantly surprised if the defense keeps up and they win the games they have to on the road.
How fast things change. Yesterday's loss was particularly disheartening. To the 'Wolves? Really? Sending Love to the line 21 times? Really? That's lazy and awful. I bet he's never made more than 12 FGs in a game. Why foul him 10 times? Ridiculous. Somebody learn to play defense and swiping at the ball is not playing defense. We need to find someone like the Bulls coach, someone new who can sell tough defense. Noah is a pretty good defender, but Rose, Korver and Boozer and certainly not yet they are a very good defensive team.
