Golden State Draft Pick Watch: February 3
What do you talk about the morning after your team’s season seemed to start falling apart before your very eyes? The NBA Draft! The lone, ironic, bittersweet silver lining of the Golden State loss is that it pushed them up to the 10th best record, increasing Utah’s chances of getting a decent pick. The Warriors now have a better record than Charlotte (who may never win another game again), Detroit, New Orleans, Washington, Toronto, Sacramento, New Jersey, New York, and Phoenix. Like last week, Golden State appears to be wholly better than the first six teams in that list and just needs to stay ahead of one of the other three.
New Jersey has been inconsistent, but a lot better than their abysmal 2-9 start. I still think that they are probably better than Golden State with Deron Williams playing well, especially when MarShon Brooks gets back from injury this week. New York is a wild card. On paper, they’re completely hopeless. They’ve stunk up an easier schedule than even the Jazz have had, they’re a few games out of the playoffs, they have no point guard (thank goodness for Jamaal Tinsley), and Amare Stoudemire is falling into the Knicks’ trademarked model of steep declines in the midst of humongous contracts. While that leaves them with a conceivably worse record than the Warriors, I still have a hard time believing that Stoudemire and Anthony will let their pride take such a monstrous beating. I know that they aren’t actually good by any means, but they might right the ship enough to be decent. As for Phoenix, if they turn out to be decent people and trade Steve Nash like they absolutely should and are perhaps even obligated to (#freeSteveNash), then they will plummet down the standings and go into unabashed rebuilding mode. As Jazz fans (as well as fans of humanity), we absolutely want Phoenix to trade Steve Nash to a contender. If that happens, then the Golden State pick is as good as ours.
The Warriors have 3 games this week: at Sacramento, at home against Oklahoma City, and at Denver. Since they are up to 10th, it would be okay if they lost all three games, but it’s a win-win situation if they beat Sacramento. The other two games are games we want them to lose.
Current draft spot: 10th
Potential draftee of the week: Jeremy Lamb
sloan v. sheed 
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