“It was definitely a very odd offseason, just kind of waiting and waiting and seeing what’s going to happen, seeing what’s going to take place,” Horford said. “So just my whole focus was on my training and preparing myself and making sure that I was in the best place for when the season started.”
There’s more on the Warriors:
- Kerr isn’t concerned that Kuminga might create a distraction in the locker room after having to accept a team option in his new two-year contract, per Nick Friedell of The Athletic. Kerr said he contacted Kuminga “quite a bit” during the summer, and they’ll have a conversation about how things worked out when he reports to camp. “I’ve known JK for four years now,” Kerr said. “He’s not that guy to come in and tear a team down.”
- De’Anthony Melton isn’t upset that the Warriors traded him to Brooklyn last December after he suffered an ACL tear early in the season, relays Anthony Slater of ESPN (Twitter video link). “Business is business,” he said. “I probably would have traded myself too.” Melton added that he decided to return because he enjoyed his brief experience with the team and he likes the medical staff.
- It took a long time to assemble, but general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. is gleeful about his current roster, notes Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. “We’ve got everything signed, sealed, delivered roster-wise and (we’re) pretty excited about this group, about this season,” he said. “(We) feel like we made some really good additions and obviously have some really good key returning players as well as some young guys that we think will be able to take a step. The main thing here is the team we put together, we feel like will be in the mix this season.”
OK, here we go. Let’s get everybody on the same page and focused on one more ring.
Maybe if the Warriors catch lightning in a bottle they have a chance?
Nah the west is staked. Warriors are a playin team at best
They’ll finish 5th, best the 4 seed clippers then lose in the second to the Thunder.
No problem. The 2023 Miami Heat were a playin team. They went to the Finals. Who led that team, Jimmy Butler.
Did they win?
2023 Butler is not the same with 2025..
In baseball, half the teams that have made it to World Series have been Wild Card teams. Butler 23 Miami team went to the Finals as Playin team. As long as they are healthy and functioning on all cylinders, anything can happen. How they finish will be more important then how they start.
It’s not baseball. As much as I’ve appreciated Al….get ready for missed layups and Al running around like Frankenstein. You’ve got two scapegoats now.
As usual, you get confused on the point. Have you ever read a complete sentence.
Huh? What scapegoats? What are you babbling about? Why would Al be a scapegoat? What is he a scapegoat for? Does Al miss a lot of layups? I’ve never seen him play. Don’t know how that is relevant to anything. But, I guess you have connected it to something to do with me. I am not sure what. Can you give me a clue?
Giants74: you can’t compare the 2 sports. In baseball a position player comes up every 9 spots he can only affect the game so much. In basketball it’s the opposite a player can play 40+ mins and completely dominate a game by himself.
You’ve never seen Al Horford play? One of the most known players in the league over the past 10-15 years, hell the Celtics have been to the playoffs a bunch lately. The fact that you haven’t seen Al Horford EVER play shows you probably shouldn’t be talking basketball. You’re a warriors homer nothing more.
God. Why can’t you guys learn to read? What does Knickerbocker Al have to do with this? How many NBA players play 40+ minutes a game? MLB players do frequently dominate games.
Why are you having trouble with what I wrote? It is pretty obvious. The same thing can happen to any team. Why?
WTH is Knickerbocker AL? You said you’ve never seen Al Horford play basketball. That’s the AL I’m referring too. What baseball player “dominated games”. Even the most likely mvps this year (Judge, Ohtani) sure they have great numbers but baseball is a TEAM sport. If you really think a baseball player can dominate like a basketball player could then you really show your lack of sports knowledge
Edit. You meant the knicks fan who posted below. Haha talk about living in someone’s head rent free. How often are you thinking about him? Have you told him maybe he feels the same about you. Probably not
Okay you got me on the 40+ minutes. Plenty of players average in the 30s.
link to espn.com
Basketball is team sport. MVP is just a beauty contest. Most of the writers don’t see half the players.
And players do dominate in baseball. It is pretty obvious.
In Butler we trust!!! The guy is a stud. He makes everyone on the team better. He knows how to get fouled and he know how to het points at crunch time. Everybody will get more free throws.
Any of you Warrior fans wanna bet on how far they go this year?
Razor I don’t dare to !! Too many really big variables and the biggest one is the most obvious. Age and injury.
The wrong guy or guys go down and this is going to be a long season.
I’ll just say I’m optimistic that everything goes well because I can’t even predict day trading the stock market let alone how well an aging NBA basketball team will finish on October 2.
If they’re all healthy they can cook. Al might be old but he can shoot open 3s all day long and he can still move his feet incredibly well on defense. Health is their biggest obstacle.
Concentrate on the playoffs first. There are no guarantees past that. Finishing top 4 in West will be an achievement. A contending Team takes time to jell.
Thunder, Nuggets, Rockets, Clippers, Twolves. 5 teams that are def better than the Warriors. They fall into tier 2 with the Lakers, Grizzlies, Mavericks, Warriors
I wouldn’t put the clippers in there. They are like the Angels picked every year to be good and fail. Nobody knows if Leonard will be injured free and play. Rockets already lost 1 starter for the year. Twolves are up and down needing some extra scoring. Mavs will go as far as AD stays healthy.
Clippers had a great offseason. The Rockets just need to stay afloat until January when they can make a move. At least you didn’t put down the Thunder :)
Clippers are better this year than last year. Only thing that matters. West is tough. Cause even Grizzlies can take a big jump this year. As can Mavs and Spurs.
How? Don’t say Beal because he did nothing with the Suns.
@Razor
Well, the Warriors beat the Rockets in the playoffs and they lost their starting PG and the 3 and D wing they traded for due to injuries, FVV for the season and DFS for at least 6 weeks.
Time will tell if they can keep the old guys’ minutes down enough to stay healthy, but if so top 4 is likely.
Warriors beat the Rockets who didn’t have Kevin Durant. Who had Jalen Green who averaged 13 points in the series taking a lot of shots. Had Dillion Brooks trying to be Superman. The FVV injury hurts a lot but this Rockets team is much better than the squad last year. Durant + DFS > Jalen Green + Dillion Brooks
You left out a hurt Butler, Podz, and Moody in that series. None were even close to be 80% ready. Moody and Podz had to have surgery after the playoffs.
You didn’t answer. Who is your pick to win it this year?
I thought I asked you before guess not. But I’m asking now who’s your pick? Also you mentioned a bunch of role players, if your season depends on them I don’t think the Warriors are going really far. Warriors season depends on their big 3 (curry butler Monkey)
@Razor
What’s the over/under on how many games will KD miss this season?
He missed 20 last year…
Despite being a GSW fan, my preseason pick is the Nuggets.
Where would you place Golden State right now in the west ?
I think 5th if healthy, 10th if not
I agree with this though I could see them 8-9 also. The West is stacked this year even more than last year. Gonna be an entertaining season
If healthy, Warriors win the championship
Right because the Warriors are stacked like the Thunder. Is today the day of bad takes? Warriors if healthy win it all, Al Horford sucks, Ohtani is better than Babe Ruth. Am I in the twilight zone or just surrounded by fans who don’t know s@it?
@RazorRamon, You must be new around here ;–) Warriors fans are always irrationally optimistic.
Keep this in mind: preseason odds of Warriors winning the Title in 2022 were +3000 just like this year.
Steph happens.
They’re +1900 this year. Sure anything can happen, 2022 we didn’t have a team dominating like the Thunder did last year. I know Warriors fans here like to live in the past, it’s pretty annoying actually it’s just like Yankee fans
Also the Thunder had the easiest playoff run in history. They didn’t run through an on-fire Steph, period.
And they still got pushed to 7 games twice vs teams with injured starters. Haliburton tearing his Achilles in game 7 won them the ‘chip.
@NBA Do remember how the Pacers season started out? The fact that made it to the playoffs is pretty amazing. Nearly winning it is quite an accomplishment…It goes back to my original point. Anything can happen when a team makes it to the playoffs.
Because Steph and crew couldn’t even get past the Twolves. Forgot that part ?
Steph played 13 minutes in the series and they won the game he got hurt in.
Then Kerr stupidly refused to start Kuminga and started/played injured Podz more minutes.
With Steph missing and Moody/Podz/Butler all hobbled with injuries cratering their scoring. Just saying that team at full health probably runs through MIN easier than the Rockets.
> They’re +1900 this year.
I haven’t seen anything as favorable as +1900, wouldn’t suprise me if you could find that somewhere, but the concensus right now is hovering around + 3000.
Basketball-Reference (composite) +3000
link to basketball-reference.com
ESPN (composite) +2800
link to espn.com
MGM +3000
link to nv.betmgm.com
@aristotle
I just googled it and it was the first link I found didn’t look much into it. Says they pull the numbers from draftkings
link to si.com
Hollinger and Duncan saying the roster is old, but can easily be a top 3 seed in the west as long as they just play as good as last year. For all the age decline potential of the old guys there are just as many young guys like Post/Podz/Moody/JK/TJD/Gui that should all still be improving.
Chapman, I subscribe to the Hollinger-Duncan podcast also, but didn’t quite get the same impression about GSW finishing in the Top 3. Separately, in The Athletic, Hollinger recently wrote that the Warriors are better than the current 45.5 win over-under, but 48-50 wins and bottom of playoff seeding is the target.
October is my time for intensive research, to place futures bets just before season’s start. There’s surprisingly little variance amongst pundits and bookmakers, though. I have not seen GSW picked ahead of OKC, DEN, LAC, MIN, or HOU anywhere yet. Occasionally, we’re picked ahead of the Lakers, but mostly behind. Interestingly the Van Vleet injury and threat of Kahwi suspension haven’t significantly hurt the odds for those 2 teams.
I’m sensing this season will be full of surprises. Incidentally, before the 2021-22 season, Hollinger picked Warriors for 12th place.
I personally don’t think Hollinger understands x factors like chemistry when he does his (stats based) predictions.
Everyone is counting on Luka putting up a MVP-level season and thus boosting the Lakers, but I think Lebron will have a tough time staying on the court, and until I see how Ayton looks I’ll reserve judgement.
@NBAisOK-
I think Denver is now the favorite for 2nd place with VanVleet going down. I’m expecting them to win 58-60 games. Clippers could be dangerous if Kahwi is available.
I think the investigation will end up affecting the Clippers mentally, and obviously they are likely to have health concern/missed games at least as much as the Warriors.
They owned us last season, that awful matchup might not be so bad this season(?)
All those defenders are mostly gone. I love Steph with Beal switched on him ADL.
If SGA gets hurt its the same thing for OKC as if Steph gets hurt with the GSW. GSW has a roster that could compete with DEN/OKC if healthy. Its just the if healthy part is less than certain. Its all about in Celebrini we trust.
Can I have some of what you’re smoking? Funny only warriors fans think they are on the same level as Thunder/Nuggets. So ya where can I pick up a bag of that stuff?
John Hollinger and Nate Duncan are some of the NBA analysts I trust the most. They are saying this team is far better than most of the teams your talking about.
Do they start better? No. Can they win 4 of 7 against either of those teams healthy? Sure.
Name other teams with a better big 3 than Steph/Jimmy/Dray then? You are acting like those 3 aren’t still in their primes…which they are. Literally no reason to doubt them, just their health.
OKC and DEN have stacked rosters this year, GSW is slightly behind them but not by much. If you think the Wolves are beating Steph Curry, then you are delusional. Houston has no PG at all anymore and KD is 37 and has been mostly made of glass since 2019, no shot they are better than GSW this year.
The Lakers interestingly match up pretty well against the Warriors right now, that series might be close. But everyone else? Nah. Not close to this Warriors roster. Argue with a wall. The Warriors title window is still wide open no matter what you think. They literally would have won last season had Curry not torn his hamstring.
Thunder are a one off. 2nd rd exit this year.
@ Razor
When was the last time aa team repeated? OKC will find out what it means to be the heavily favored defending champ, just like the Celtics did.
Less about the Thunder being stacked and more about the gap between them and the Warriors. I honestly think there’s a really good chance the Thunder repeat, they dominated last year and didn’t lose anybody. The most games they lost in a month last year was 4. They had the 6th best record of all time.
I just don’t get how everyone is so high on the Warriors but not the Thunder. They showed last year how good they really are. I say this as a Rockets fan. I have no dog in the fight
Everything you’re saying about the Thunder is the exact same thing everyone said about the Celtics last year…and they were a second rd exit
The Celtics who were in it until Jayson Tatum got injured?
With healthy Tatum they were about to go down 3-1….they were losing regardless
They were about to be eliminated if he played or didnt. It was already over.
They were losing that series if Tatum got hurt or didnt too. People talk about that injury like the series wasnt basically over at the point when it happened.
@RazorRamon, I absolutely agree, the Thunder are prohibitive favorites. And every one of OKC’s players, because they’re so young, should be better this year than last year…whereas all the Warriors best players should be worse because that’s what happens when you’re over 35 years old.
But you have to accept there a lot of Warriors fans here.
And what is wrong with Warriors fans wanting their team to win? I don’t understand why you get your panties in a bunch over that?
Panties in a bunch? You know you lost the argument when all you got is insults. Thanks for playing the game take a seat. That’s all warriors fans can do now “we’re the best blah blah blah you suck for disagreeing”. Funny I asked who wanted to bet about the Warriors season and not one of you “fans” said a word. Just jump back on the bandwagon until the Thunder repeat then you can join their bandwagon.
@Easy doesn’t matter how many Warrior fans are here they are all delusional. They think they get healthy and better and nobody else does. Warriors at best are in the 5-9 range to start the season and that’s being nice. Most of the Warrior fans are bandwagon fans who will be rooting for another team by this time next year.
@RazorRamon, I get your perspective. I’m also on other hoops boards not dominated by W’s fans. I know we are crazy.
But it’s not cool to call all the Warriors fans here bandwagon fans because we have been here for decades. We just have a lot of fans that don’t know much about hoops. They are here to worship their heroes. Nothing wrong with that.
I didn’t say you were but every team with championships has bandwagon fans. That’s like saying the mlb section doesn’t have any bandwagon Yankee or Dodger fans. We know that isn’t true. When someone can’t argue with facts and all they have to resort to is “why are your panties in a bunch” pretty obvious they lack knowledge of the game.
@Razor
OKC went 16-7 in the playoffs having to go 7 games twice. That’s a long way from dominant. And almost every west team from 3-10 got better (we’ll see if the Rockets can make the triple towers frontcourt (Sengun, Jabari, KD) actually work out as starters because if not, they could easily end up below last year’s 2 seed.
And Pacers shouldn’t have made it to the Finals.
The Old man team aint winning anything. They will be lucky to get past the 1st round. That is if they can stay healthy, which wont happen. Thunder, Rockets, Mavericks are going to take them apart.
Thunder is going to find out this year being champ is 10x tougher the next year with every team playing extra hard against you. Last year they were injured free most of the year can they stay healthy again?
Every other team has the same odds to suffer a major injury.
Curious who is your favorite to win this year? I hope you don’t say the Warriors after you just mentioned health
Right now OKC like every champion is picked to be the favorite. They will have a much harder time repeating because every team they face will try 110% to beat them. Look at every team in teh last 5 years that won teams came out harder against them.
Fair enough but my question when’s the last time a team was as dominate as the Thunder were last year? Gotta go back to the Warriors Dynasty. 6th best record EVER isn’t a fluke. Losing 4 times at most per month is insane. Sure everyone will gun for them but they all get another year of experience. SGA gets better Chet gets better Jalen gets better. We play the games because anything can happen but right now the Thunder are the overwhelming favorite in the West.
Can we all agree the top 3 teams today are the Thunder, Cavs and Knicks?
You don’t forget the Cavs were better most of the year last year and then injuries faded them down the stretch and into the playoffs? Knicks and Cavs have a huge amount easier this year than any team in teh west. There is only 3 top teams in the east teh rest are .500 teams.
@Razor
I’ll never put the Cavs in a top 3, because of their too short backcourt.
Knicks will need time to adjust to their new coach and system. It’s a huge advantage playing in the weakest east in years’ but without seeing any games my top three in order are Nuggets, Thunder, and Knicks
You have the Nuggets over the Thunder? Care to explain that one?
Nuggets match up well – they almost beat OKC despite multiple starters and their 6th man playing hurt.
The Celtics the year before lols….
GSW play the Thunder tough too since the motion offense screws up the OKC defensive machine. I would say a healthy GSW team is the last team OKC wants to see in a playoff series.
I agree. OKC doesn’t want to see Dubs in playoffs.
Lots of teams saying they are loading up on bigs because it’s OKC kryptonite. Denver did pretty good in playoffs.
arc89, OKC also has a distinct advantage over past Champions: they are the youngest Championship team ever.
The younger a player is, the greater his expected improvement over the previous season. Virtually every OKC player (other than Caruso) has yet to reach their prime. Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren won a Chip in only their 3rd NBA season.
It took the young core of Steph, Klay, Draymond, and Barnes 4 years together to win their first Chip, but their biggest individual improvement year-to- year happened before age 28.
OKC is much younger than those young Warriors teams — all the way to the end of the bench. They should be MUCH better this year than last year.
Warriors had an easier run because the west was weaker during their run. OKC is going against a stacked western division. 1 injury can down OKC. Warriors had the luxury during their run for players to step up when their best players went down. Don’t forget Boston fans thought they had the makings of a dynasty last year.
Other than JW/Chet I dont think most of the roster is still improving though. They are susceptible to injuries to JW/SGA like any other team. Even young guys get punished by the short offseason, and the tendency to come out flat to start the next year for most champs.
@chap, I don’t know about the individual players, But a lot has been written about player age in pro sports, and the data shows that players’ biggest improvement year-over-year happens before 27 years old, and then tails off until 29. It’s the same in MLB, NFL, & NHL.
Looking at OKC, the youngest champion ever, the average age of all minutes played by an OKC player 2023-24 was a mind-blowing 23.9 years old. There is no championship team in any of the 4 major sports that has ever been this much younger than their league’s median team age. For perspective, the average player minute for the 2015-16 Warriors was 27.1 years (3.2 years older than OKC).
OKC ages for this coming, 2025-26 (1 year > than 2024-25):
20 (1): Nikola Topic
21 (1): Cason Wallace
23 (4): Holmgren, Jaylin Williams, Ajay Mitchell
24 (1): Jalen Williams
25-26 (4): Dort, Isiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins
27: (2): Gilgeous, Hartenstein
31: (1): Caruso.
2015-15 Warriors:
———————-
Stephen Curry: 26
Klay Thompson: 24
Draymond Green: 24
Andre Iguodala: 31
Andrew Bogut: 30
Harrison Barnes: 23
Shaun Livingston: 29
David Lee: 31
Leandro Barbosa: 32
Marreese Speights: 27
Festus Ezeli: 25
Brandon Rush: 29
Presti is a master of the tank to team building strategy. It’s hard to believe they were 22-50 in 2021 and 24-58 in 2022, finishing 14th both seasons
Hard to believe given their current success, but following the announced rebuild template to a “T”.
He also had the luxury of an owner that was 100% bought-in to the 4 year-plan. Ironically, being in a small market made it all possible.
And he switched from Donovan to Daigneault, who has maximized the “constantly foul because they won’t call them all” strategy on defense, at a level not seen since the bad boys Pistons.
I’ll be interested in seeing if they continue to get the kind of ref help we saw last year again this season.
They already lost twi pkayers lol ……. keep up
The Rockets have no ball handlers on the roster, or flexibility to add them. The Mavs are also completely bereft of ball handlers, and will be lucky to not be a straight lottery team. Do you think both Cooper will be awesome, and AD will be healthier than usual? On top of that it would be stupid to rush KI back.
The west is OKC/DEN and then a big group the GSW are in a little behind them. Nobody but those two teams starts above them. GSW are mostly healthy while a lot of the teams making a push in the west arent. LBJ, Fox, JJJ… Lots of teams missing key players to start the season while GSW wait for Melton and thats it. Gotta keep them healthy from here, but one of the best things for an old team is banking early wins so you can rest your guys without as much stress.
Rockets have zero PGs and KD is 37 and been made of glass since 2019 lmao cope
This is the year we can finally use the Butler-Green-Kuminga-Horford forming a ring around Steph as Steph shoots open shots all year!
Kuminga’s contract is really a win win contract for both Kuminga and Warriors. Lacob is giving both Kuminga and Kerr another opportunity to work it out this season. The team option is not really that big of a deal. Warriors are not going to opt out, but should still push Kuminga to work the hardest. Kuminga was able to relay all his feelings during offseason to Warriors especially about his future so it was a huge success from his perspective. Finally, he gets another shot of playing with the Superstars. Hope he embraces it and learn as much as possible. Learn defense instincts from Butler. Learn the art of gettng fouls from Butler. Get 10 points a game from ft line. Let’s go Warriors!!! Let’s go Kuminga! Thank you Lacob !!!!!!!!!
^ I agree with 100% of this!!! Great take!
I’ll ask again which Warrior fan wants to put money on this? No odds since you’re so confident in your team. I’ll take Thunder you get Warriors everything else is a wash. How much ?
No sports betting in CA sorry…
I wish I could put $20 each on GSW to win the title and Curry to win FMVP. Do those for me and then when you win give me a cut lmao
Who says the Warriors will beat OKC? It seems like you’re looking for a fight but nobody’s biting.
You need a shot blocking C the age of 22-23.
Waive Rowe