Wednesday’s come-from-behind win against the Mavericks was a boost for the Warriors, who would have fallen to within a game of .500 had they lost. Golden State instead entered tonight at 13-10 and tied with Dallas for eighth place in the Western Conference, but the Warriors didn’t envision merely scrapping for a playoff spot this season. Injuries have played a role in the slow start, but it looks like the team has at least considered shaking up the roster with a trade, as witnessed by the team’s rumored interest in Kyle Lowry. It sounds like Lowry won’t wind up in a Warriors uniform, but Golden State will nonetheless be a team to watch if its struggles continue. Here’s more on the W’s:
- Jermaine O’Neal had surgery today on a torn ligament in his right wrist, but he took to Twitter to insist that he will return at some point this season (hat tip to The Associated Press). GM Bob Myers says O’Neal will probably miss about two months, according to 95.7 The Game (Twitter link). A report yesterday indicated it was likely that O’Neal was done for the year.
- Coach Mark Jackson explained to reporters, including Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group, why the team chose to sign Hilton Armstrong this week rather than bring back Dewayne Dedmon to fill its need for a backup center. “Just overall we thought we needed a guy that was more game ready today, not to say that Dewayne isn’t, but this is no time for us to experiment. We needed a proven guy off the bench,” Jackson said.
- Amid the rumors linking Golden State to Lowry, Jackson also said the team still believes in backup point guard Toney Douglas, as Kawakami also notes in his piece.
- The best outcome for David Lee and the Warriors isn’t a trade that would ship him out of town, but a return to the All-Star form the power forward exhibited last season, opines fellow Bay Area News Group scribe Marcus Thompson.