The Golden State Warriors are not the same team they were years ago.
After several seasons of greatness and dominance, the Warriors fell on hard times in 2019, losing Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant to injury in the playoffs.
Eventually, the team would start shedding important contributors in the offseason, including Durant, Shaun Livingston, and league veteran Andre Iguodala.
In the two years since their losses, the Warriors have been a shell of themselves, failing to make the playoff bracket in a crowded and competitive Western Conference.
But now, with Andre re-joining the team, there is hope that Dub Nation will return to their former ways.
(via Blake Schuster of Bleacher Report)
“I think when we lost him, we lost a piece of our soul. And we knew that when we lost him. But for the long-term health of the franchise, we made the decision to create an asset that would not have been there for us otherwise. The only way to do it was to trade him (to get under the hard cap to make the acquisition of D’Angelo Russell possible). And obviously Andre became ultimately Andrew Wiggins and Jonathan Kuminga. So if you just look at it from a basketball standpoint, it turned into a helluva deal.”
According to Kerr, Iguodala will make a big difference.
“But there’s also no getting around the fact that for the last two years we’ve been wayward in many ways. And so Andre’s return, I think, is huge in a lot of different ways.”
It remains to be seen how Iguodala’s presence will impact the squad, and if they’re even still capable of being contenders again after a few years in the bunker.
But with the return of Iggy comes renewed hope for the franchise. And, no matter what questions anyone may have, the team continues to look for ways to maximize their chances to win:
“Absolutely. No question. Why wouldn’t we? Otherwise, we wouldn’t be doing our job,” Lacob told NBC Sports. “We call about things the general public does not know about, like rumors we are hearing, sometimes it is true and sometimes it is not.”
The Warriors are looking pretty good out of the gate, but will it be enough to win?
We’ll just have to wait and see.
