Last season, the Golden State Warriors jumped out to a 5-1 start and everyone started paying a little more attention to that inner warning signal to never rule out a champion. They then lost seven of their next eight and never seemed to fully recover over the course of a disjointed season that culminated in a loss in the Play-In Tournament.
So here we are again, with Golden State sitting at 4-1. It's tough to call this completely surprising considering the schedule strength, or lack thereof. The Warriors opened the season with wins over the Blazers and Jazz, two of the worst teams in the league.
That said, they made a statement by winning those two game by a combined 77 points -- an NBA record for the first two games of a season. After a loss to the Clippers in which Stephen Curry had to leave with what turned out to be a peroneal strain in his left ankle (which has kept him out since), the Warriors were able to knock off the Pelicans on consecutive nights at home.
The first win against New Orleans was impressive as the Warriors pulled it off after falling behind by 20 and without the services of Curry, Andrew Wiggins and De'Anthony Melton. The second win, at first glance, perhaps looked less impressive with the Pelicans being down Dejounte Murray, CJ McCollum, Trey Murphy III and Herb Jones. But Golden State was also without Curry, Wiggins and Melton again, and besides that, it's tough to beat any NBA team on back-to-back nights.
Qualify it how you will, but the Warriors have looked quite good this season. They're one of just two defenses -- with the other being the potential juggernaut Thunder -- with a defensive rating under 100.0 entering play on Friday.
Draymond Green told Tim Kawakami that he wants back in the Defensive Player of the Year conversation, and with the way he has played so far, he deserves to be. Brandin Podziemski is everywhere. Buddy Hield is scoring over 21 points per game while making 50% of his nearly 10 3-pointers per game. Jonathan Kuminga came around finally. Moses Moody and Trayce Jackson-Davis have been rock solid. Curry, Wiggins and Melton are due back soon.
The Warriors, who are back to zipping the ball around offensively, lead the league in assists and are second to the Celtics with 17.6 made 3-pointers per game, need to be at full strength when they embark upon this upcoming road trip, which features dates at Houston, Cleveland, Boston and Oklahoma City.
The last three teams listed there have a combined record of 13-1 so far, and it won't get any easier when the Warriors return home to face Dallas and Memphis. Which brings us back to the hot start last season. That proved to be a mirage as the Warriors went from 5-1 to 6-8 in two weeks. That kind of crash could absolutely be in the cards again with the opponents they're about to face.
However this stretch goes, we're going to learn something real about the Warriors over these next few weeks. Either the hot start was nothing more than a product of a friendly schedule, or Golden State is capable of playing with and even beating the best teams in the league. Let's see what happens.