There are those who believe the Warriors, already out of playoff contention, should trade Stephen Jackson before he does something foolish and loses most his value.
Others wonder why the club, in the wake of losing Baron Davis, sought revenge against the Clippers and offered Corey Maggette $50 million. And still others believe the club will never be a winner with a shoot-first guard like Monta Ellis playing the point.
If there's anyone out there who believes all three of those things, he/she had a field day Monday night.
With Jamal Crawford manning the point in Ellis' continued absence, Marco Belinelli getting an unusually high number of minutes with Jackson out of action and Anthony Morrow offered an opportunity to relive his early season glory days in place of the injured Maggette, the Warriors looked like a completely different team in Oklahoma City.
Considering that they'd lost their previous nine games, that's a good thing.
Struggling to find a ball-distributing answer with Davis gone and Ellis still recovering from off-season surgery, the Warriors took a new path to the hoop against the Thunder. They went through the pivot, with surprising results.
Andris Biedrins and Ronny Turiaf combined for nine assists -- one more than the rest of the team combined -- and also found time for 26 points and 26 rebounds to lead the way with arguably the club's three best little guys on the sidelines.
Is this the way of the future for the Warriors? It just might be if Ellis, who is not considered a true point guard, struggles with his new role upon returning from his ankle injury either later this month or in January.
And if Biedrins is going to respond to his additional touches with 17 points and 21 rebounds, why not?
WARRIORS 112, THUNDER 102: With Monta Ellis, Stephen Jackson and Corey Maggette out of the lineup, the Warriors needed three things Monday night in order to have an opportunity to snap their nine-game losing streak on the final night of a four-day, three-game trip. They needed to jump out early and establish the fact they could merely compete without their three big guns, and they did just that in building 11-3, 27-17 and 47-28 advantages. They needed to get contributions from everyone, and, in fact, all eight players who saw action scored at least nine points. And, most important, they needed the opponent to be the Thunder, who already had already established the fact that they could lose to good teams and bad. The trifecta produced an easy win, the club's first victory of any kind in almost three weeks.
