• 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.

• Offense: With no Curry, it will likely be a tall order to keep up with tonight’s visitors. Can the Warriors generate enough offense to stay in the game?
• Defense: Much more important, can Jackson get them to play smart defense against a team that might be a bit sloppy as they focus on lobs and other Sports Center catnip?
• Bench: The Warriors’ bench was pretty terrible last year. Will this year’s rookies and b-list additions represent an improvement and allow them to get Monta off the floor for at least 15 minutes every night?

Nice game all around, with Reggie Williams playing the full 48 and leading the team with an efficient 28 points. Curry continued his hot shooting with 18 points on 7-11 from the field, and Dorell Wright became the first player in league history to score more points in his 7th season than in his first 6 combined. And 8 rebounds for Udoh! (But only 3 points.)

The Warriors once again lost the rebounding battle (they finished last in the league in rebounding margin, again, and without even resorting to small-ball much), but at least they moved the ball around great — 33 assists for the team, 10.5 above the season average.

Despite the win, the real news was the hire of agent Dan Myers to be the new VP of Basketball Operations. Despite an extension for Riley, the expectation is that Myers will take over most of the day-to-day GM duties before long. More on this in the weeks to come — have to talk about something during what could be an extremely long off-season, after all — but suffice to say this is the best news I’ve heard from this team in quite some time.

So onto another playoffs without the Warriors, and the countdown to the draft lottery, and hope springing eternal, and all that jazz. I guess I’m kinda used to a postseason-less season at this point, but it still sucks.

Instead, we have a new high-paid interior player who just isn’t that good inside, an owner who appears surprisingly accepting of treading water (when he isn’t stocking the bench with inferior players), and a team that STILL CAN’T PLAY ANY FUCKING DEFENSE. Top it off with the fact that our potential-star young PG didn’t take the leap forward that most of us expected this year, and it’s hard to feel that this franchise has turned much of a corner — much less put itself on the path to the playoffs.

Really, the only things to get excited about is that the players genuinely seem to get along for once (not insignificant, considering the history of the franchise) and that their draft pick doesn’t appear to be a bust (though the smart money is on him remaining limited throughout his career).

As for tonight, I’ll kinda be rooting for a loss. I don’t feel this team deserves the AWESOME ACHIEVEMENT of a 10-win improvement over last year, and they could potentially tie Milwaukee for the 10th-worst record in the league (I think the draft position would then be decided by a coin flip?). That’s unlikely as the Bucks would have to win but are playing their final game at Oklahoma City, and considering that Portland’s playoff position is set I doubt they’ll try hard.

So if they have to win, I’d just love to see something positive from Udoh and Curry. I just don’t trust this front office to get anything done, so if the Warriors are going to be any better next year I feel like those two are going to have to be the primary drivers of improvement.

In all seriousness, this has been a tremendous 3-game stretch. These aren’t meaningless end-of-season games for the opposition; the Mavericks, Blazers, and Lakers all had a lot to play for when they faced the Warriors this past week.

The last two games in particular have been a ton of fun to watch, as the Warriors — dare I say it — dominated for most of the second half in both contests. Things got a little hairy at the end of the game last night, but the Dubs hit enough big shots to keep a healthy cushion and even avoid a foul-plagued ending.

Perhaps most impressive, the Warriors out-rebounded the Lakers 50-47. Bynum pulled down 17 boards, but they were able to hold Gasol and (especially) Odom in check. David Lee matched Bynum with 17 boards of his own, making it his second straight impressive double-double. Thanks to the rebounding and turnover (+7) margins, the Warriors ended up with 93 shots to the Lakers 77 — a big part of why they won despite shooting just 39%.

Curry and Ellis put on a nice show, as despite Curry’s cold touch early he hit some big shots at the end to preserve the win. Wright had another cold shooting night, but hit two big 3′s late to keep up the lead and break the Warriors’ single-season record for made 3-pointers. Udoh went scoreless, but pulled down 8 rebounds in 19 minutes — impressive considering the front line he was up against.

Now the Warriors get a few nights off before facing the Kings on Sunday, when they can get to the 36-win mark that they decided to shoot for after the bottom fell out after the All Star break. I know the Warriors have developed a habit of getting hot late in the season when their playoff spot is already decided, but they appear locked into the 11th draft position at this point so might as well see what they can do!

David Lee had his finest game as a Warrior, helping the team to a +7 rebounding advantage by pulling down 20 boards to go with 29 points. Monta and Steph also chimed in with 30 and 28, respectively, and as they mentioned on the postgame show this was the best game these three have played together as a trio.

Amundson gave some great second half minutes off the bench — even hitting his free throws — and while Dorell Wright couldn’t hit a shot to save his life, he didn’t screw things up too badly either as he posted a +21.

Now the Warriors head down to LA to take on the Lakers on the back end of a back-to-back. As the great Fitz just mentioned on the telecast, winning tomorrow would complete the most improbably 3-game winning streak…just about ever.

The Grizzlies ate the Warriors up inside, and didn’t even need a big rebounding advantage to do it. They scored 74 points in the paint, and only took four 3′s (the Warriors shot 21 times from behind the arc — and only made 6).

Tonight it was Curry who lost his shooting stroke, putting up a Monta-esque 2-14 from the field and a so-so 9 points and 6 turnovers — one more turnover than the entire Memphis team combined.

Thus ends the short road trip, as the Warriors get a few days off before a home date with Dallas on Saturday.

A hearbreaker of a loss, but great to see that this team still has fight left in it. Those back-to-back 3′s at the end of regulation were almost legendary, and had me scaring the hell out of my 4-month-old with my yells. Sadly, they couldn’t recreate the magic at the end of OT, but still a good showing against a playoff team on the road.

Curry brought his A offensive game — as he usually does against the Thunder — though his PG stats (5 assists/6 turnovers) were once again lacking. Monta on the other hand continued his hot streak in terms of distribution, with double-digit assists for the third straight game.

Udoh continued to make his presence felt defensively, and Lee did a good job playing big with 15 boards to go with 24 points (even with Perkins, the Warriors continue to match up inside against the Thunder better than they seemingly do anyone else).

Only Wright disappointed among the starters with a 2-13 shooting night, and he still managed to pull down 10 boards and post a team-high +10. And looking at the overall +/- stats, this game was clearly lost by the bench: all positive for the starters, all double-digit negative for the reserves — only 3 of whom played, totaling just 35 minutes.

Overall, I guess this is the sort of result you want at this point — great effort, but lottery position preserved.