GSW Watch Thread: The race for the 2012 #8 pick

Jazzy13 · Post #1 » by **Jazzy13** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 5:34 pm

Well its that time of year and we get to have yet again another exciting draft pick watch thread.

Golden State Warriors
All five of starters return from last season’s squad.
PG Stephen Curry
SG Monta Ellis
SF Dorell Wright
PF David Lee
C Andris Biedrins

Their bench looks suspect. Golden State made moves signing veterans Kwame Brown, Dominic McGuire and Brandon Rush.

The Warriors drafted three players from the 2011 NBA draft: Klay Thompson, Jeremy Tyler and Charles Jenkins. All three rookies are locks for the opening day roster.

erudite23 · Post #2 » by **erudite23** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 6:04 pm

Best case for this pick is #10, imo. This team has a lot to work with, and I can even see a #8 seed for them if everything works out.

Worst case would be for them to come out and suck. We need this pick THIS year. And it needs to be in the lottery. The 8th pick would be unreal.

kamazilla · Post #3 » by **kamazilla** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 6:10 pm

Curry's injured, a rookie is coaching, and Monta's feeling exposed. Drama currently engulfs the franchise, and given strong incentive to tank, I'll be shocked if they finish outside the worst 5 this year. May as well start next season's thread!

sendai91 · Post #4 » by **sendai91** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 6:22 pm

Teams that I think for sure will be worse ( or at least, have less talent) than Golden State even with their recent troubles:

Charlotte
New Orleans
Phoenix
Cleveland
Toronto
Detroit
Washington

So, if that holds, Golden State could end up with the #8 pick, recognizing that it's just as likely that they'd go up in the lottery as likely as they might slip..

Ming Kong! · Post #5 » by **Ming Kong!** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 6:55 pm

kamazilla wrote:Curry's injured, a rookie is coaching, and Monta's feeling exposed. Drama currently engulfs the franchise, and given strong incentive to tank, I'll be shocked if they finish outside the worst 5 this year. May as well start next season's thread!

Well there are 4 teams nearly guaranteed to be worse than the Warriors:

Charlotte - No talent
Washington - Knuckleheads
Toronto - No talent
Detroit - Outside of Knight/Monroe, not much else going right for them

Then there are a few teams which I think will be worse

Cleveland - Depends on how fast rookies become legit, but I'm not that impressed with Irving yet
NJN - Unless they get Howard, are they really a 46% team? No way

Really there are only about 6-8 worse teams, which is a very good thing. I could even see Utah falling into this only group if Ty Corbin doesn't get his **** together and KOC doesn't make good moves from here on out. Oh and I really hate what I've seen and heard from J.Howard so far. BLACK HOLE!

carrottop12 · Post #6 » by **carrottop12** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 7:16 pm

Cleveland doesn't have any shot to be better than GSW IMO. That team has nothing going forward, and Thomspon is much farther from contributing than Kanter is which is saying something.

I really don't have much faith in GSW to compete either, as nice as it sounds to have Mark Jackson preaching defense this season, he's trying to convince Curry, Monta and David Lee to play defense for 35 minutes a night. None of those guys have ever played 35 minutes of defense in an entire season, much less 66 nights a year. Had they gotten Nene, or maybe Chandler I could see them having a decent team, but instead they added Kwame, not a lot to be optimistic about.

Also, the Curry injury isn't exactly reassuring for their fans.

Post #7 » by **StocktonShorts** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 7:20 pm

The good news is I can't imagine a first-time head coach being okay with tanking. If they finish bottom 5 it will be because they legitimately suck.

seejaydeja · Post #8 » by **seejaydeja** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 7:42 pm

HappyProle wrote:The good news is I can't imagine a first-time head coach being okay with tanking. If they finish bottom 5 it will be because they legitimately suck.

or

mct · Post #9 » by **mct** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 7:57 pm

HappyProle wrote:The good news is I can't imagine a first-time head coach being okay with tanking. If they finish bottom 5 it will be because they legitimately suck.

If, in the last week of the season, the difference between keeping the 7th pick and losing the 8th pick is only a couple games, I could see Golden State resting some minor injuries. That's why I think it will land somewhere in the 10-14 range or we won't get it at all.

kamazilla · Post #10 » by **kamazilla** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 8:07 pm

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds, but all things considered, my take is that for a bad team whose best chance to get better is through the draft this year, its a hell of a lot more likely to underachieve than to overachieve.

We could easily be left with no first round picks this year, which wouldn't be such a bad thing given the current make-up of the team.

MeestR · Post #11 » by **MeestR** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:55 pm

wow. a draft watch thread where we might actually cheer another team to win? this is a really weird pick.

i hope this team is terrible, but not as terrible as....(only 7 other teams)

UTJazzFan_Echo1 · Post #12 » by **UTJazzFan_Echo1** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 11:37 pm

I think that you guys are underestimating the Raptors and the Hornets. I honestly believe that Toronto could make a run at the playoffs this year and the Hornets have a pretty solid team despite losing CP3. Big question is if they can put things together enough without a training camp together...

Catchall · Post #13 » by **Catchall** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 12:45 am

Whether the Warriors end up in the bottom 7 teams in the league this year depends quite a bit on the Eastern Conference teams.

Projecting the bottom teams:

CHA Bobcats
CLE Cavaliers
TOR Raptors
DET Pistons
WAS Wizards
NJ Nets

These teams should each realistically end up with a worse record than the Warriors. They were all at least 8 - 10 games behind GSW last year and didn't make substantial improvements.

At least a couple of teams in the west made improvements and should leap-frog GSW this year, including the LA Clippers and Minnesota T'wolves. The teams in the West that *might* be worse than GSW include:

NOR Hornets
SAC Kings
PHX Suns
and (possibly) our own UTA Jazz.

This being the case, GSW should probably drop 1 or 2 spots lower in the overall standings. Last year, GSW drafted 11th. This year, they ought to be projected to draft in the 9th or 10th spot, but they are in range to tank into the 7th or 8th spot.

schneiderjazz · Post #14 » by **schneiderjazz** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 6:37 pm

UTJazzFan_Echo1 wrote:I think that you guys are underestimating the Raptors and the Hornets. I honestly believe that Toronto could make a run at the playoffs this year and the Hornets have a pretty solid team despite losing CP3. Big question is if they can put things together enough without a training camp together...

I agree that the Hornets might actually be a good team, but the Raps? Unless everything absolutely clicks for them, they will definitely be worse than the Warriors.

erudite23 · Post #15 » by **erudite23** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 9:23 pm

Raptors, Bobcats, Wizards, Cavs, Toronto and Pistons will all certainly be worse than the Warriors (excluding the impact of potential injuries, of course, which is the wild card). Then you have a glut of teams: NO, Sac, Utah, Minny, NJ, GS, Hou, etc who all could go up or down. That leaves GS's range from 7-14.

Jazzfan12 · Post #16 » by **Jazzfan12** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 10:15 pm

I think the Kings are going to be really really bad. Not seeing them finishing out of the top 5.

eLo · Post #17 » by **eLo** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 11:14 pm

Jazzfan12 wrote:I think the Kings are going to be really really bad. Not seeing them finishing out of the top 5.

they got lot of talent out there so i wouldnt be so sure about that.

carrottop12 · Post #18 » by **carrottop12** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 1:07 pm

I don't really like any of the Kings talent, all of their players are seriously flawed.

Cousins is horribly inefficient, tyreke appeared to regress his second year which is almost unheard of, and Jimmer only plays one side of the floor.

But, back to the important news, GSW is now 0-1 on the season, Mqrk Jackson looks incompetent, and this team might be worse than we thought.

Yes it's only one game, and of all years this is not the one to be making assumptions after opening night, but we better hope the team plays well enough to get at least 26-29 wins if we want to get the pick.

Jazzfan12 · Post #19 » by **Jazzfan12** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 3:28 pm

Why does Mark Jackson look incompetent? Monta and Biedrins are playing harder than they did previously. Also, the Kings have JJ Hickson and Travis Outlaw which basically guarantees a top 5 pick at the very least.

seejaydeja · Post #20 » by **seejaydeja** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 5:33 pm

The whole hack jordan thing in the 3rd quarter was a bit emberassing.