by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–Its not a coincidence that a lot of this improvement and of greater consistency came number one after Jermaine O’Neal really came back healthy and number two after the Warriors traded for Steve Blake. The Warriors had that great road trip in January where they went 6-1 and they won in all manner of ways.

The Warriors on that trip beat some good teams and they came back from that road trip just like they were right in the running not only for the division but for the championship. They were a team to contend with and then they laid an egg on that homestand in late January early February. It’s especially tough because the Warriors have a such a tough homecourt advantage.

The fans who support the Warriors are so fantastic that you wonder and start scratching your head whats going on with this team? Their good but their losing to bottom feeders and they was no rhyme or reason to it. If there was part of the reason was it was the help. They’ve been suffering through a series injuries, it wasn’t any big injuries but it was guys getting hurt.

Players were getting hurt, dinged up, banged up and missing games and missing a couple of weeks, so it was tough on the rotation set and number two they didn’t have a good rotation. You think back at the beginning of the season their back court was not what it was. I’m not talking about Stephen Curry and Clay Thompson because they’ve been here all season.

We’re talking about the back ups, the bench behind Curry and Thomposon the Warriors didn’t have anybody who could fill in for Curry or Thompson. They had Tony Douglas a player they thought would fill in at point guard for Curry when Curry needed a rest and Douglas just didn’t cut it and he got traded for Jordan Crawford from Boston whose really not a bad player but he’s not really a point guard.

If you watch Crawford play he’s a guy whose a gunner, whose best off the bench as a two guard, and the Warriors were running him out there as a one also. So expecting Crawford to come in and run the offense just wasn’t going to work because that’s not what he does. He’s just not very good at it.

When the Warriors traded for Blake a few weeks ago, what it did is completely set that second unit, Blake is a true point guard. He’s a guy who distributes, he has his spurts, he’s a guy who sets the offense he can score that’s for sure but he’s a true point guard. Crawford was never a point guard, he’s always been a two.

David Zizmor covers the NBA for Sportstalk Radio