The Golden State Warriors have shown that they are not dead yet.
An 0-3 start began to incite panic, but the past week has righted the golden ship. Rookie forward Yaxel Lendeborg has announced himself to the NBA, Stephen Curry is putting up stat lines never before seen from a guard his age, and the team has ripped off three straight wins over expected playoff teams.
Those wins were absolutely vital, however, because sneaking into the Western Conference Playoffs will not be an easy task. The Warriors are trying to find the right balance between their aging veterans and their young up-and-comers. And breathing down their necks are a number of teams with young rising stars who are hungry and ready to reach out and grab what they want.
The Grizzlies are rolling
If Lendeborg is the favorite for Rookie of the Year, it is only by a hair over No. 3 overall pick Cam Boozer. The Duke standout and son of Carlos Boozer just racked up his first triple-double and is impacting winning at an elite level despite being the youngest player in the entire NBA.
Their team is deep at every position, including former Warriors point guard Ty Jerome, who is making a play for Most Improved Player with a dazzling array of floaters and jump shots. Their young collection of two-way players is only going to get better: Cedric Coward, Zach Edey, Jaylen Wells. The Grizzlies aren't going anywhere.
The Warriors got a taste of that medicine firsthand, when Memphis shut them down late and came back to beat them in just the second game of the season. The Warriors will need to keep their foot on the gas to keep up.
The Mavericks have a superstar
The best way for a young team to start competing early is to have a generational superstar. The Warriors tried and failed to find one of those in the draft multiple times to extend the timeline of the Steph Curry era. The Dallas Mavericks got one bite at the apple and came away with Cooper Flagg.
Flagg is already a Top-20 player in the league, and he may be Top 10. He is scoring, passing, rebounding, defending and making incredible decisions as a 19-year-old. He will make his first All-Star Game this season, and he has already gone toe-to-toe with multiple MVP candidates and gotten the better of them, taking down the Miami Heat, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Houston Rockets in his last three games.
When you add in a healthy Kyrie Irving as his wingman and real offensive wizardry from first-year head coach Dusty May, you get a team exceeding expectations.
The Trail Blazers are putting it all together
One of the teams to finish above the Warriors last season was the Portland Trail Blazers, who made it into the playoffs as the No. 7 seed. Adding Ja Morant this summer seemed like a move that could destroy what worked for them and cause them to tumble back down the standings.
Not so fast. Morant has been locked in and playing well, Damian Lillard is bombing 3-pointers, and Deni Avdija is still running enough of the show to maximize his gifts. Donovan Clingan is a skyscraper in the paint and has an improved 3-point shot. Toumani Camara has been the league's best perimeter defender through four games.
Even with Morant now missing weeks due to injury, the redundancy of this team means they have Lillard, Scoot Henderson and Jrue Holiday to fill in at guard without missing a beat. The Warriors should not expect Portland to fall off the wagon anytime this season.
The Suns and Jazz provide some breathing room
Beating out two of the three teams above to make it into the playoffs is a stiff enough test, but needing to also beat out the Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz to just make the Play-In Tournament would have been tougher still.
Thankfully, both teams are off to terrible starts. The Jazz have injuries to blame, as their healthy young players are off to a good start; Keyonte George is balling out, and Ace Bailey looks better on both ends of the court. But with their entire starting frontcourt injured, the Jazz may dig too deep a hole to climb out of.
The Phoenix Suns are similarly off to a slow start, with their only win over a short-handed Warriors squad. They can't blame injuries so much as their own poor choices this summer, trading for Miles Bridges and continuing to start Jalen Green. What propelled them into the playoffs last season was defense, energy and a lack of egos. That isn't working this year.
Golden State has a lot of work to do all season long to stay in the playoff hunt. With Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody likely to return at some point, there is real hope for a playoff run -- if they can make the playoff field. And the likes of Cooper Flagg, Deni Avdija and the Memphis ensemble are going to make that an extremely difficult task.
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