Last season serves as cautionary tale ahead of Warriors' five-game road-trip

The Golden State Warriors have been electric since the start of training camp, having won 10 of their 11 games dating back to the preseason opener against the L.A Clippers in Hawaii.

Aside from one exception against the Clippers in their home opener last Sunday, the Warriors have been dominant in winning all four of their games by double-digits, including their opening two on the road against the Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz by a record-setting 77 points combined.

Playing without Stephen Curry, Andrew Wiggins and De'Anthony Melton, the Warriors comfortably took care of the New Orleans Pelicans in back-to-back games on Tuesday and Wednesday. After falling behind by 20 early in the first meeting, Golden State outscored the visitors by 53 points over the final seven periods across the two games.

The Warriors found themselves in a similar position last season

There's plenty of positivity surrounding the Warriors right now, including a potential return as early as Monday for Curry against the Washington Wizards. But as optimistic as things seem right now, it's easy to forget that the franchise found themselves in a similar spot through the early portion of last season.

Golden State were 5-1 through six games -- four wins of which came against teams that ultimately finished above them in the Western Conference, including the first-seed Oklahoma City Thunder. A fifth win came against the Houston Rockets who finished the season with a respectable 41-41 record.

Things were looking up at that point. The decision to trade Jordan Poole for Chris Paul looked like an excellent one, with the former struggling in Washington and the veteran point-guard leading the Warriors in plus-minus and averaging nine assists to just one turnover per game.

Then the downfall. Shortly after Golden State had a six-game losing-streak, and within that Draymond Green's first suspension for placing Rudy Gobert in a chokehold. They went from 6-2 to 6-8, then eventually 19-24 just after the halfway point. They recovered fell to finish 10 games above .500 by season's end, but it wasn't enough as they were badly beaten by the Sacramento Kings in the Play-In Tournament.

This provides a cautionary tale of how an impressive start can quickly go pear-shaped, particularly in an unforgiving conference. This isn't to say that history will repeat, but it does go to show how important this upcoming five-game road-trip will be starting against the Rockets on Saturday.

Given the final three games are at Boston, at Cleveland, and at Oklahoma City, no one is expecting Golden State to sweep the five games. However, they can ill-afford to go on a five or six-game losing streak akin last season, otherwise the positive start will again be quickly forgotten.