Golden State Warriors Tank Watch: Dubs Back to Losing Ways, Fall to Hornets

Only the Golden State Warriors could put themselves in position to potentially lose their draft pick by beating the Minnesota Timberwolves on the third game of a back-to-back-to-back road trip. Only the Warriors could return home two days later and lose to the second-worst team in the NBA—the New Orleans Hornets.

And only the Warriors would lose the latter contest on a goaltending call with 0.7 seconds left remaining.

Such is the redirected twist of fate of Golden State over the past week or so. After winning a game they should have had no interest in winning, given their possible lottery status in this June’s NBA draft, the Warriors lost a game they easily should and could have against a team going through just as much deadening defeatism than they are.

Hopefully for the Dubs’ sake, the flip-flopping of losses will abet them in their quest to retain their first-round draft pick. Though the Warriors will not admit tanking games on purpose, it appears that the team found their way back to their losing ways in near-deliberate fashion.

How else does one explain head coach Mark Jackson’s desire to give career-high minutes to rookies Jeremy Tyler (40), Mickell Gladness (30), while giving veterans Brandon Rush (17) and Richard Jefferson (21) seemingly limited action?

Jackson avows that the team is trying to win ball games, which is what he should be saying. But with nothing left to play for other than lottery status, Jackson decided to give his youngsters more playing time—all but assuring a defeat at the hands of New Orleans.

If he really wanted to win, Rush, Jefferson and Dominic McGuire would have played more minutes. Yet Golden State still had a chance to win the game, as rookie point guard Charles Jenkins drove the lane with under five seconds remaining, only to put up a terrible shot in traffic, leading to a fast-break opportunity by the Hornets’ Marco Belinelli—a goaltended layup.

It’s almost as if the Dubs wanted to go back to tank mode, seeing if in fact they could fall into the NBA’s bottom seven, which would allow them to retain their lottery pick. However, with their victory against the T'Wolves derailing tank mode, the Warriors’ loss against the Hornets provides a classic case of too little, too late.

Currently, Golden State sits in the eighth spot (in reverse order) in the NBA draft lottery standings, a game behind both the New Jersey Nets and the Toronto Raptors—who happen to play each other on Thursday.

If the Warriors had lost to the Timberwolves on Sunday, they would presently be situated in a three-way tie against with the Nets and Raptors. The Warriors would be almost assured a bottom-seven record, since one of those two teams would end up with a win in their head-to-head contest.

But noooooooo, the Warriors had to do what they always do: the opposite of what fans want them to do. And by winning last Sunday, the team veered off course from their needed tank mode, halting the momentum of an eight-game losing streak just so that they could taste the flavor of victory one more time in their pathetic season.

What about the good of the organization as a whole, huh? What about the future of the team?

How deplorably selfish of them to win last Sunday. And then to decide to jump back on tank mode for the final two games (their season finale is against the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday) is downright rude.

The tank match is not governed by a light switch that flips on and off. Tanking is just tanking—there’s nothing else to it. Everything is turned off. The team’s energy, the team’s electricity, the team’s desire and interest.

Now that the Warriors are on the outside looking in at the NBA lottery, Warriors fans will be up in arms about what could have been. All Golden State had to do was lose all of their remaining games. Now, Tuesday’s defeat to the Hornets only makes fans ask, What if? more loudly and more often.

All the Warriors can hope for now, in their lottery ambitions, is a loss against the Spurs on Thursday, which would give them 43 losses. Obviously, since the Raptors and Nets play each other that same night, one of them will walk away with the same number of defeats, tying them with Golden State for the league’s seventh-worst record.

A tie-breaker drawing would determine which team would escape with the lottery pick.

It all comes down to Thursday. The Spurs have trounced the Dubs often and recently. But having already wrapped up the No. 1 seed in the West, the season finale will probably be a matchup of junior varsity lineups, with no starters likely seeing action.

Here’s hoping San Antonio’s bench beats the Warriors rookies.

We’ll have to wait and see.

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