The Golden State Warriors’ disappointing start to the season has sent shockwaves around the league, with the reigning NBA champions on a five-game losing streak amid a 3-7 record through ten games.
But as successful as the Warriors have been over the last decade, they’re not entirely unfamiliar with stretches of form such as these. In fact, this span isn’t even the worst run of form Golden State has gone through this year.
The Golden State Warriors had an abhorrent 2-9 record across either side of the All-Star break in January/February.
Despite the poor phase, Golden State turned around and were ultimately crowned champions just a few short months later. Starting big man Kevon Looney was asked to reflect on that stretch, and how they can bounceback in a similar fashion this time around.
"“When we’ve got Steph [Curry] and Klay [Thompson], Draymond [Green], Jordan [Poole] and Wiggs [Andrew Wiggins], we feel like we can win every game. Even when one of them is out, or two of them out, we feel like we’ve got the talent to win every game. Even on this road trip, we didn’t play great, but we were in every game and we felt we should have won most of those games.”"
Loon reflects on how the Warriors rebounded from a 2-9 stretch last season pic.twitter.com/aXN5tAbjAD
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) November 6, 2022
While there are some contrasting issues between the Warriors slide in February/March and what they’re going through now, there’s also remnants of similarities between the two. Thompson was trying to find his feet following major injuries, and the youngsters, outside Jordan Poole, were failing to contribute in a way that adequately compensated for that.
The Warriors are third-last in defensive rating this season, having sat second-last during the 11 game stretch last season. They also ranked 24th in overall net rating, now sitting 23rd to open the rough start to this season.
In a long and arduous 82-game season, practically every team is going to go through a period where they struggle in this manner. However, for the Warriors right now, each loss is stacking up, rather than last season where they held some latitude following an impressive 18-2 start.
The facts are that this, like last season’s squad, isn’t a perfect team. Yet ultimately, riding the ups-and-downs is what makes the success so much sweeter if it does finally eventuate.