54/82 W Oklahoma City Thunder 141-114
55/82 L Portland Trailblazers 122-125
56/82 L Los Angeles Lakers 103-109
57/82 W Washington Wizards 135-126
58/82 L Los Angeles Clippers 124-134
Record 29-29
It’s the end of the All Star Break and oh my have the Warriors needed a break. All the teams, all the players need a break, but the Warriors.how many different ways are there to say that they are firmly mired in .500? They get better, they get worse. Their problems remain the same - defensive intensity and the proclivity the starting five have for offensive droughts. It’s uncanny how every upward trend and every downward trend revert to the mean. Here they sit. With a record that is much less than the sum of its parts. Last year they exceeded expectations, this year they are under expectations. As for me, I’m not discouraged or encouraged. Or rather, I am both encouraged and then discouraged every 2-3 games, following the flow of the season.
They are much improved from the start of the season but all the other teams in the West are also much improved. And some drastically improved—they are Kevin Durant improved. Nearly every team in the Western Conference is harder to beat than they were two weeks ago.
Which brings me to something I have never previously noticed, followed or cared about. The trade deadline. If you follow it, then you already know all you want to know about it. And if you don’t follow it, then good for you. One of the central questions for myself in watching 82 games this year is “What is the difference between healthy fandom and unhealthy fandom and where do I fall on that line?” Somewhere around the trade deadline, I crossed it. On a random Tuesday, I saw James Wiseman was trending on Twitter, which alerted me to the fact that it was 15 minutes from the trade deadline. I thought “Well, it’s just 15 minutes, I can watch on Twitter and see what happens.” (To be clear, there is nothing to actually watch and it simply means refreshing my feed). Still, I was genuinely joyful to see that Gary Payton II was coming back to the Warriors and a little sad (but happy for him) that James Wiseman was going to the Pistons.
After the deadline passed, did I go on about my day? No, I did not. I searched for news about the trade, reactions about the trade, probably texted my dad about the trade. In short, I went too far. Did I stop there? No, I did not. As the week unfolded and there was drama around the trade and Payton failing his physical, and the trade might be off or might be on–I followed ALL OF IT. It was so easy to do and it was pointless. In the future I hope I wait until all the deadlines are over and see the results rather than follow each and every shift. Basketball is what I like to watch and somehow I spent my time watching, essentially, HR moves. Silly me. Lesson (possibly) learned.
But the trade deadline is weird right? I mean, trades in the middle of the season–I get that that’s part of professional sports. But it’s strange to be on one team and then that night have to get on a plane and go play for another team, and find a new apartment (or not).
As usual, Klay says it best:
It’s clear why the Warriors wanted Payton back–they never really wanted him to leave last year. Payton is an amazing role player, the definition of a person who comes off the bench and stirs shit up - aggressive on defense, explosive on offense. Check out the first minute of this:
When he’s on the floor everyone gets better. He plays equally well with the starters and the reserves. He is a bridge between the older and younger players and not only because his age (30) puts him there. He’s an older player who has been a journeyman. He understands what it is to go back and forth to the G League, to be on a 10 day contract, to be on a 2 way contract, to have to prove yourself in the few minutes you are on the court. His is a more typical NBA career than Steph, Draymond and Klay’s paths of getting drafted and staying on one team.
He is clearly a good vibes guy in the locker room. The Warriors have been missing a portion of their joy this year and not only because they are winning less. Gary Payton II brings joy.
Welcome back GPII-get well soon. Really soon.
And we say goodbye to James Wiseman, the #2 pick who was the right pick at the wrong time. Wiseman has not had an easy road. He left college after only 3 games playing at Memphis, while he was suspended for 12 games and fined by the NCAA. What did he do wrong? See if you can follow this…while he was in high school, he accepted $11,500 in moving expenses from his high school coach Penny Hardaway to move from Nashville to his new high school in Memphis. Flash forward to two years later, Penny Hardaway is the coach at Memphis with James Wiseman on his team. The NCAA rules that back in 2017, Hardaway was recruiting Wiseman illegally, even though if he was recruiting, it was for Wiseman to go to his high school. This is one of the many reasons why the NCAA rules are bananas.
Wiseman left for the draft with no college experience. From there, he played a little in the 20-21 season, was injured and then out basically until this past summer, a much longer recovery than anyone anticipated.
When he was finally able to play this year, he was on a different Warriors team. When he came in, the Warriors had the worst record in the league with no promise of what Klay’s return might look like. This year, the Warriors are defending a title and more importantly, they aren’t good enough for him to get playing time. There haven’t been blowout games like last year, where he could play most of the 4th quarter. And they didn’t jump off to an 18-2 start like last year, leaving too many must win games. Detroit is a great team for him with all their young players with tons of talent, just like him.
Wiseman has had to deal with a lot, including the Warriors fan base being mostly negative. I’ve been impressed with his fortitude. Really early on, he was talking about how during his injury he started meditating and seeing a therapist. I’m sure lots of players do this, but not as many players talk about it publicly, especially at the front end of their career.
James Wiseman Feels Like Himself Again
He’s going to be a good player in the NBA, maybe even a great player. It’s a bummer that he couldn’t do it here. He is a good egg.
The rest of the season is upon us starting today. I’m a little stressed out as my mind is slowly adjusting to the fact that this is not last year and the Warriors are indeed in trouble. That might mean that there really are only 24 games left of the year, instead of playing until June. What’s the word for when you are preemptively sad about the thing that hasn’t happened yet? That’s me (a little). I’m (whatever that word is) about the season ending in April.
But I only stay there a moment, because most of me is believing that even though the Western Conference teams all got better and even though Steph is still out and Wiggins is out and Payton is out and Iguodala is still recovering from the games he played in January, that somehow this scrappy band of millionaires might find a way to dig deep and play hard for the next month and reignite their fire to win decisively, relentlessly, burying teams in the 3rd quarter. Go Dubs!
Finally, to put my quest of watching all 82 games in perspective, here’s a guy who has seen all 330 Division 1 men’s basketball teams play (no worries, I do not aspire to this).
The Timeout Books:
Yes, this is not a book, but the reason I don’t have another Timeout Book is because I obsessively listened to this during the timeouts of all the college games, especially from 2:19 on.