On to home against the Sacto Kings:

• Jermaine O’Neal missed his first game with a foot injury. Not a good sign
• The Warriors played defense again holding the Kings to 34.5% shooting. Lowest in the young season for any team in the NBA according to Rusty Simmons.
• Klay Thompson had a great bounce back game leading all scorers. Really, the GSWs got great contributions from all of their starters.
• Mike Malone wasn’t able to “outcoach” his old team and take advantage of their known weaknesses.
• Boogie Cousins was a non-factor. A HUGE factor in the game.
• Nice to win the games at home, your supposed to win. Especially against the Kings who handed the W’s some ugly losses in the recent past.

Quick thoughts:

• I am the only person in California without an HD TV, so I kept having flashbacks every time Bogut and Lee were on the court at the same time. I caught myself thinking, “huh Biedrins is getting some early minutes.” Thank god those are just flashbacks
• Hott damn Klay Thompson. That was impressive even if against a crap Lakers team. 38 points in 3 quarters. I almost wish the game hadn’t been so close so we could have seen how hott he could get, but in the long run I’d rather take a rested Thompson for tonight’s game against the other LA team.
• Iguodala is really hard for my dyslexic brain to spell, but he looked great on defense and that fast break give and take with David Lee was pretty.
• Back to Thompson, once Barnes gets healthy, this interplay between 5th/6th man is going to be interesting. I expect them to get roughly equal minutes, even if the hot hand gets more minutes during a single game. I just cannot decide who fits the 6th man spark-plug role better, but I think it might be Thompson.
• Anytime you can win a game and Steph Curry only score 10 points is a good day.
• I’m a Bazemore fan boi heavily influenced by watching him in Santa Cruz, so it was nice to see him hit a couple of 3s.
• Which one of the Euros becomes the human victory cigar? Should be an epic battle.

Sportsbook.com has GSW total at 52 wins. So we here at W&W are all over the place on that line. Maybe that means it is in the right place?

Mike:
Warriors: 52-30
Western conference winner: Memphis
Eastern conference winner: Indiana
Champion: Indiana
MVP: Lebron

Jake:
Warriors: 50-32
Western: Spurs
Eastern: Indiana
Champs: Spurs
MVP: Durant (I think people are tired of voting for LBJ see. MJ so unless he goes whole other level nuts it is going to someone else, and I am too scared that Rose won’t be able to hold up, but he’s my second non-Lebron choice)

Christian:
I am going to go positive and say
54 wins for the beloved Copperplate Gothic
Western: Clippers
Eastern: Heat
CHAMP: Heat
MVP: ROSE

Like most Warriors fans, I’m cautiously optimistic about what this team could accomplish — yet extremely worried about injuries.

If healthy — and that’s a BIG “if” — this team will be substantially better than what we saw at the start of last season. They now have good size at every position, quality depth, and some players who can actually contribute defensively.

They key to everything is Bogut, who will make this a different team whenever he’s on the court. He in turn should make David Lee much better, as he can cover Lee’s defensive shortcomings somewhat while setting him up with passes on the offensive end. But he has to play.

Second up in terms of importance is Curry. With his new extension (which seems at first glance to make sense to both sides), it’s time for him to turn the corner and finally show the play he’s teased us with over the past three years on a consistent basis.

And what to expect from Klay Thompson? With predictions ranging from 18ppg to continued defensive liability, to me he’s the biggest wildcard outside of the injury bug.

The draft first-round draft picks should also contribute: Barnes is looking more like a potential star than a bust or even rotation filler, though of course we’ve yet to see him in a single real game; and Ezeli will be contributing major minutes throughout the season (though in some ways out of necessity). And with Rush, Landry, and Jack available off the bench, this team might avoid burning out its starters by the end of the season for the first time in recent memory.

As others have noted, the Warriors have a chance to be an above-average team playing “normal” basketball for the first time in years. Provided Jackson and Malone put quality game plans together (something they never quite proved last year), there’s only one reason this team shouldn’t contend.

So that brings us back to the injuries. In particular, how many games can we expect from Bogut and Curry? Recent news sounds promising, though Bogut’s delayed return and Curry’s recent ankle scare shows just how fine of a line this team will be walking this year.

As a result, I’ll offer two projections based on games played for these two. A bit of a cop-out I know, but they really do represent two completely different teams. So here we go:

If Bogut and Curry played more than 120 combined games: 44-38, 7th seed in the playoffs

If Bogut and Curry play fewer than 120 combined games: 36-46, at least 5 games out of the playoffs

Thanks to Kawakami for the reminder.

• Kwame Brown needs surgery for a torn pectoral muscle and is out until early April.  The season ends April 26th.  First this is disappointing because I liked what Kwame was bringing to the court.  A lot more than what the starting center was bringing when he wasn’t hurt himself.  MTII suggests that Ish Smith will be cut in order to bring in another big man.  The inactive list does not open a roster position, but is there a way for the Warrior’s to declare Kwame inactive for the rest of the season and use his spot on the 15 man roster to pick up another player?  Can they cut him?  If so that is the route I would take as by the time he comes back and there is only 2 weeks left in the season, the playoffs will already be out of the question, so why tie up a valuable roster spot for two weeks of no-point basketball.  This assumes everything goes smoothly.  If he has a slight hiccup in his recovery then he won’t even be back until the playoffs and that is not happening.
• That Heat game was a lot of fun to watch.  I missed the 3rd quarter, no biggie, and caught the end.  I was thinking about going up to the game for my birthday (I guess I share it with Lacob), but figured the game would be the opposite of a good birthday present to myself.  I was wrong.
• The Warrior’s beat the Heat and the National media hardly notices, the Clippers beat the Heat and suddenly they become valid players in the NBA Champion discussion.  Pretty absurd.  Now ignoring the Warriors win was probably the right move.  Discuss it as a single game, but it probably had no larger meaning on the Warrior’s season.  It may show that it is too early to anoint the Heat Champs, but does not mean that the Warriors are “for real.”  In the same context the OT loss to the Clippers may also show that the Heat are going to have some trouble with high scoring teams on the road.  The Clippers may or may not be real, but I don’t think we will look back at one OT win over the Heat and say, “That was when we knew.”  The Heat losing to the Warriors the night before just proves that beating the Heat in your house is not a Herculean task.
• TK talks about the W’s upcoming decision on Steph Curry and offering a max contract which is about 5yr/$75M for $14.8M/yr average.  “Among Curry’s 2009 class includes Blake Griffin (max obviously), James Harden (interesting) and Tyreke Evans (interesting).” I think all three of those players are better than Curry now and are likely to be in the long-term with the possible exception of Harden.  As I have made clear I have soured a bit on Curry and do not see him as a future Super-star and a team can get into a lot of trouble giving max contracts to non-Super stars.  I think he deserves something much closer to Monta’s 6 year $66M contract (Curry on the books for 6 years with his injury history scares the hell out of me though).  It may be max or nothing, and I would lean towards max, but maybe he needs to be traded once he can show his ankle won’t fall apart every three games and sell high.
• File this in whatever … but the Raiders move to fire Hugh Jackson was probably the right call.  Just as we did not blame Lacob for wanting to start afresh and fire Keith Smart, I don’t blame McKenzie for wanting to start fresh with his own guy.  Plus Hue Jackson gambled on the Palmer trade and did not make the playoffs.  I think he needed to make the playoffs for that trade to be worth it and therefore save his job.  The Raider’s have no draft picks in the first three rounds this year, so the rebuild is going to take several years.  If I were GM I would trade anyone, including Run-DMC if I can get picks in the first two rounds and get the rebuild happening one year sooner.  Yes, the Raiders can possibly make the playoffs with the same team next year, but I don’t see them getting very far.  That being said San Diego is still a better team and they may figure out how to play 16 games at some point so it is no guarantee the Raiders are a playoff team.

1) Mike added a Twitter feed of some Warriors and NBA writers into our left side bar.  I am really digging this feature as a non-twitter user.  Now we get more Tim Kawakami complaining!

2) The three of us made some predictions before the season started and we never got them posted, so you will have to take our words for it that these first 5 games did not influence the predictions (The playoff predictions were made a few games into the season because we forgot to do it before the season started, oops)

Your 2012 Golden State Warriors Record Predictions:

Mike: 34-32  .515 winning percentage (42 wins in a normal 82 game season)

Xian: 31-35  .470 winning percentage (38.5 wins in a normal 82 game season)

Jake: 29-37  .439 winning percentage (36 wins in a normal 82 game season)

For reference: 2010-2011 36-46  .439 winning percentage (equivalent to 36 wins in this shortened 66 game season)

Some of the Pros have them at:

Bill Simmons 22-44; .333 winning percentage;  27 wins in a normal 82 game season (link to podcast)

Joe House 26-40; .394 winning percentage; 32 wins in a normal 82 game season (same podcast)

TK: 31-35; .470 winning percentage; 38.5 wins in a normal 82 game season; 10th in conference

If you can find predictions from any of the local guys put them in the comments and we can update the post.  I found nothing for Ratto, MTII, RUSTY! or any of the KNBR folks.

Your 2012 Playoff Predictions:

Mike:
WC: Lakers
EC: Miami
NBA: Miami
MVP: Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamebron

Xian:
WC – OKC
EC – MIAMI
NBA – MIAMI (UGHH)
MVP – DURANT

Jake:
WC: OKC
EC: Miami
NBA: Miami
MVP: Lebron

We did not actually make a prediction whether or not the Warriors would make the playoffs, but by record Xian and myself do not think they will and Mike may or may not think they are going to squeak in with the 8th seed two games over .500

The Warriors can certainly help with writing motivation by getting off to a decent start — and given how tough their early schedule is, a decent start would be something worth getting genuinely excited about.

I’m relatively optimistic, and despite being burned in the past for my optimism with this crew I still have a good feeling about this year. I don’t expect a Harbaugh-esque turnaround, but based on the limited evidence we’ve seen so far in the preseason it does look like Jackson is having them play a smarter brand of basketball.

With a young team in a compressed season, I think the Warriors are set up pretty well to take advantage of the lockout-fueled eccentricities of the 2011-12 season. I’m pegging them at 34 wins — not sure if that will be enough to sneak into the playoffs, but if they can beat .500 it will certainly represent a step in the right direction for the franchise.

Photo by Flickr user markybon used under a Creative Commons License.

The Warrior’s have a 0.8% chance at the number one spot thanks to their late season surge, but here’s hoping the NBA is happy to fix the lottery the Warrior’s way and they can at least move into the top 3.

Use this as a lottery open thread if you wish.