Wilting Warriors--and the Trade Deadline

 Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr spoke little more than a week ago about having no feeling of urgency regarding the upcoming trade deadline.  He liked the players he had, felt they were the most talented group he'd coached and was looking forward to seeing them flourish. 

 If that reflected management's attitude as well, my guess is that it all changed definitively on January 7th. After the game that night is when--I would bet--the Warriors went into high gear to make a big trade, urgently.  There's no guarantee they will find one, or that it will turn out to help. In fact, it doesn't look likely.  But they may be a lot less reluctant to reach out.  

On Tuesday the 7th the Warriors were defeated at home by the Miami Heat, who were playing on the road in the second of two games in a row, after losing in double overtime, their third consecutive loss.  The Warriors were also coming off a loss, another embarrassing one, to Sacramento as well.  But the Heat brought force and the Warriors wilted.  In his postgame interview Kerr did not hide his anger at the lack of effort and competitiveness, the crisis of confidence on his team.  

That's how the Warriors were characterized in stories in both the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times on Wednesday.  Fans who didn't leave early Tuesday night booed the team, after they collapsed in the fourth quarter.

But what really made this a paradigm of the Warriors at the moment is the game that Steph Curry had: he scored game high 31 ( the Heat's top scorer had 20) with 8 threes, and a shooting percentage of 50%.  This came on the same day as a long story on the ESPN site about how other teams are devoting their main defense to stopping Steph because they don't fear any other Golden State shooters.  And still he excels.  The story focus on his legendary status but also his age and the coming end of his career. He wants another championship, and the dare was that this group could find a way to get there.

Kerr also said that Steph is having trouble coping with this stretch of mediocrity.  The Warriors are brilliant some times and awful a lot of the time, but at the moment are exactly a .500 team. Count the number of times Curry has said recently, I just want to win.  And imagine you are in the Warriors front office.  What are you thinking today? 

In the meantime Kerr's analysis is that the only thing this team can do is concentrate on defense, and even after the trade deadline that's where it needs to go.