The Golden State Warriors have regrouped from an awful season opener, but what have we learned from their first week with Kevin Durant? Here are the five big takeaways.
Following a disastrous season opener against the San Antonio Spurs, it took less than a week for some to start writing off the Golden State Warriors.
They were pulverized by 29 on their own floor by their biggest Western Conference rival. They were humbled despite having every motivation for revenge after losing a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals and adding Kevin Durant in free agency. They looked outmatched on both ends of the floor, leading many to question whether the greatest NBA super-team ever assembled was really going to work out.
Opening week overreactions are fun for awhile, but small sample sizes don’t last forever. The Dubs have now won three straight games, and though two of them were unconvincing wins over the lowly New Orleans Pelicans and Phoenix Suns, their third road win of the season over the Portland Trail Blazers was the kind of dominant performance people have been expecting.
There are sure to be many more highs and lows over Golden State’s remaining 78 games, so it’s too soon to draw any lasting takeaways from the first week of NBA action.
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What we can do, however, is take a look at both the good and the bad of what we’ve seen thus far, identify areas for improvement and examine where the Dubs have excelled in the most tumultuous 3-1 start to an NBA season in quite some time.
Without further ado, here are the five biggest takeaways from the Golden State Warriors’ first week of the new season.