Now we get to the point in this exercise when it’s obvious I did not think out this whole season preview thing. For the final two teams it’s very difficult to separate the players into the three categories I have been putting them into. These two teams have so many players I’m excited to watched, and almost no one who I would be mad at watching. So for the next two previews it’s more like the great, the pretty good, and just okay. Deal with it.
The Good:
Steph Curry. Did you know Steph Curry’s name is Wardell Curry Jr.? Neither did I. Did you know he shot exactly 600 3’s last year? Do you think he went into the last game thinking, “As soon as I take my 600th, I’m not taking another three until the playoffs?” I hope he did. I would have. He also shot 45 percent from three point land, which is just utterly ridiculous. Steph Curry is the best shooter in the world. Watching him launch from somewhere between 23 and 30 feet is like watching 1995 Ken Griffey turn on an inside pitch, just gorgeous. Now he has to prove that he can be the full time point guard without his Jarret Jack blankie, and he still has a bunch of work to do on that whole defense thing (it’s ok cause it’s only half the game).
Klay Thompson. Curry might be the best shooter in the league, but Klay Thompson’s jumper is legitimately taken from basketball books on how you’re supposed to shoot a basketball. If Thompson wasn’t playing with Curry people would be talking a lot louder about how great a three point shooter Thompson is. Last year he shot 40 percent from 3pt range after taking more than 500 three’s, Reggie Miller did that exactly ONE time during his career and Ray Allen did it twice, but I mean they’re only the two best 3 point shooters in the history of the NBA.
David Lee. I remember being the only person excited when the Warriors signed David Lee to his huge 80 million dollar deal over 6 years, but David Lee has done nothing but live up to the contract (when healthy, he did get that weird hole in elbow in his first year) averaging 18.3 points and 10.2 rebounds per game and a PER right around 19 in his three years with the warriors. Dig deeper into last year when he had an effective field goal percentage inside 5 feet of 63%, drew fouls at a decent rate (11.6%) and was quite adept at finding the open three point shooter (127 3pt assists which is more than any current Toronto Raptor) Now of course, he is a literal human turnstyle on defense, but if there’s one thing you have to accept on the Warriors is that almost no one plays D.
The Bad:
Draymond Green. This is more of a “I love him, but God is it ugly to watch him play” kind of person much like Tyler Hansbrough. He has a grotesque 27% effective field goal percentage on jumpers which he takes 69 percent of his scoring attempts. He also owns a 7.1 PER and a .404 true shooting percentage from last year. BUT, he plays really hard, bangs bodies, and throws himself around the court with reckless abandon. He’s a less effective, less energetic Kenneth Faried, which is great to have on a team, and even better when he doesn’t have to be one of the top 5 players on the team.
Andrew Bogut. The big Aussie is only a little low on my list, because I’m just scared he’s never going to be healthy again. No one should ever forget the original “Fear the Deer” season when the Bucks were legitimately a number 7 or 8 seed that no one wanted to play. When Andrew Bogut was the backbone of a formidable defense and also produced as a first or second option on offense for the only time in his career with a 20.7 PER and a true shooting percentage of .521. That season ended for Bogut when during a freak play he dropped from the rim and destroyed his right elbow gruesomely. That’s the guy the Warriors wished they could have, and it’s the guy I wish I could see.
The Ugly:
Festus Ezeli. Stone Hands McManus is now, since the Andris Biedrins-Richard Jefferson salary dump, the only true ugly player to watch on the Golden State Warriors, but instead of talking about how he doesn’t know how to catch a basketball, a TANGENT. In the chain community bar/restaurant I work at in suburban Philadelphia, a teenage boy came in wearing an Andris Biedrins jersey. This initially made me smile, because I mean really how many Andris Biedrins jerseys are you going to see ever in your life? But what ended up blowing my mind cap is that it was an Andris Biedrins Shirt-Jersey from the 2012-2013 season. These jerseys have barely been around, and Andris Biedrins hasn’t been a relative Warrior to be a highly sold jersey since he was drafted. Furthermore in the 3 games the Warriors wore the shirt jerseys February 22nd, March 8th, March 15th Biedrins played a grand total of 18 minutes and pulled down a cumulative 3 rebounds. This kid came in after he was traded (dumped) to the Jazz. I feel like so many variables had to happen for this chance encounter with an Andris Biedrins Shirt-zee, that I just need to tell everyone about it.
Andrew Iguodala. Most of my beef about Andre Iguodala can be found in my preview for this entire 5 teams idea. I personally can’t stand watching Andre Iguodala play basketball anymore. Too many jacked threes, terrible moves, and bad passes have polluted my brain towards all of the great things Iguodala does on a basketball court. Iggy is a legitimate 2 way player, and probably the closest comparision to Scottie Pippen as anyone else in the NBA, the problem is that Iguodala has always expected to be Jordan. He was the face of the Sixers after the departure of Allen Iverson, and it was probably the worse thing that could have happened. Then he got traded to the Nuggets last year (curse you ANDREW BYNUM), where he had to play defense for essentially the whole team, but since they were a band of nobodies he was also the nominal face of the team. The only time before now that Iguodala could play an amazing second violinist was his time on the US Olympics team. My mom was a second violinist in the orchestra and she always told me that a second violinist is very important, though not as talented as the first chair, the second chair had to keep the rest of the row in line and on track. This is what Iguodala can do on the Warriors. As I wrote before, almost nobody on this Golden State team plays much D, but Iguodala most certainly can, and with the help of Andrew Bogut, can clog a lot of the holes in this leaky defense. As you can probably tell, my fan relationship with Andre Iguodala is very complicated and should only continue that way through the season.
You might as well noticed that my writing is getting a bit further away from stats, and also has a bit of a run-on a problem. That’s just the way it’s going to be. Coming Soon: DA BULLS!
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