FanHouse Corey Maggette

SACRAMENTO -- It's not so much the Warriors' 1-4 start that's the problem. It's the teams they've lost to and the manner in which they've been defeated.

Nobody expected the Warriors to be among the Western Conference elite. But they shouldn't be a team that can't compete with the L.A. Clippers and Sacramento Kings. But they can't. Not now.

What a miserable weekend it was for the Warriors. And you could tell by taking one stroll through the locker room after their 120-107 loss to the Kings on Sunday that there's more to this tough start than just a tough start.

Title Chaste is the diary of Matt Snyder in his season a virgin fantasy basketball player.

Well, that didn't take long. Thanks to Mo Williams, Danny Granger, Amare Stoudemire, Brook Lopez, Jason Terry, Andrea Bargnani and Shawn Marion, I won my first career fantasy basketball game. I should also point out I owe the scheduling for the victory as well, because my team checked in as the sixth-highest scorer out of 12. Really, it could have gone either way. This victory was a sign that being lucky is just as worthwhile as being smart in fantasy basketball, just as I already knew in fantasy baseball and fantasy football. On the other hand, skill is still paramount -- as the top scorer for the week was, not surprisingly, Tom Lorenzo.

---

---

Folks who frequent the fantasy sports version of this website are likely familiar with my work in the fantasy baseball and fantasy football sections. I have been playing both of those games since the mid-'90s. To those people, I have news for you: I have never played fantasy basketball. Until now. I'm diving right into our FanHouse fantasy basketball league on Fleaflicker.

On top of my inexperience, I haven't even watched more than a few minutes of an NBA game since May 19, 2005. That was the date of Reggie Miller's final NBA game. During that season, the Pacers -- my favorite team since the days of Wayman Tisdale, John Long and Steve Stipanovich -- had ruined my love for the NBA. Thanks a lot, Ron Artest, Jamaal Tinsley and Stephen Jackson!

OAKLAND, Calif. -- When Warriors coach Don Nelson let it be known early Thursday that he was going to start Corey Maggette at power forward instead of Anthony Randolph, you could almost hear a collective groan among fans in the Bay Area.

"Not this again," seemed to be the refrain.

Randolph is considered the Warriors' brightest young star and figured to be a shoe-in to start at at the four this season. But now that Maggette's the man -- at least for now -- it's only natural to wonder whether Randolph is back in Nellie's doghouse, a place Randolph spent a good chunk of his rookie season.

FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.

The optimists around the Bay Area like to say that the Warriors' 29-win season in 2008-09 was primarily the result of too many injuries and a very young roster.

The pessimists say that last year's significant step-back-- from 48 wins the season before -- was mostly the result of poor management decisions that yielded a mismatched roster with too much overlap on the perimeter and not enough bulk on the interior.

The goal in 2009-10 is to figure out which side was right.

---

---

SEATTLE -- Jamal Crawford may be the league's most talented player yet to play in an All-Star Game or even a playoff game. Once a skinny, inexperienced but immensely talented 20-year-old tabbed part of the Bulls' post-Jordan resurrection, Crawford is now 29, just completed his ninth year in the NBA and at a crossroads.

He has a monumental decision on his hands in the next five weeks: Opt out of the final two years of his contract and become a free agent or return to an uncertain situation in Golden State, a team rich with talent but lacking direction after the firing of GM Chris Mullin who lost a power struggle with upper management.

One question for the San Antonio Spurs: Now what?

Sure, it's possible the Spurs can put together a nice effort on their homecourt in Game 5 on Tuesday night and push their series against the Mavericks to a sixth game in Dallas.

And maybe the Spurs could even follow that up with an unlikely Game 6 win on the road and make their first-round series a seven-gamer.

---

---

As teams get eliminated from the 2009 NBA playoff picture, Fork 'Em figures out what went wrong.

Stuff definitely went wrong for the Golden State Warriors this year. The only real question is whether the trouble started when Baron Davis left or immediately afterward.

There will be an eternal debate in the Bay Area about whether or not the Warriors should have kept Davis, or at least made a better effort to keep him. Instead, Davis signed with the L.A. Clippers in July, and the Warriors' 2008-09 was irreparably altered.

Check out FanHouse's NBA Preview.

Yesterday we had the overview; today we have the predictions. The Pacific Division appears to be no better than a two-team race, with a third team potentially in the mix, and the last two teams, well, finishing in last. Let's start things off in the cellar and work our way up, shall we?

The Los Angeles Clippers (again, regal) are going to have a tough go of it due to the enormous drop off in talent they have between their starting lineup and the players coming off the bench. In fact, if you want a visual of said drop off, go watch this, and pretend the guy jumping off the building is falling in the space between the talent of the Clippers' starting players and that of their bench players. And the parachute not opening represents the gigantic FAIL that the Clippers can expect this season anytime the bench takes the floor to try and hold onto a lead. It's not going to be pretty, folks.

Up north where the Golden State Warriors play, it won't be pretty either, at least for the first few months of the season. That's because their best player (apologies, Mr. Maggette) decided to engage in low-speed moped riding during the off-season (this still amazes me ... the moped = injury part), which will lead to his absence from the lineup, and an unavoidably bad start for the Warriors.

Check out FanHouse's NBA Preview.

A season ago, the Pacific Division was able to send just two of its teams to the playoffs, but one of them went all the way to the Finals. And while that's not likely to change this season -- at least the part about the two playoff teams -- each club definitely has its share of intriguing story lines.

Let's start off in Los Angeles, where the Lakers' playoff run last season took place with one of the team's key components on the sidelines. There are always many stories in Laker-land, but a lot of the team's fans seem to be most interested in this one: With the return of Andrew Bynum, do the Lakers have a shot to win 70 games?

Despite the recent flood of positive Andrew Bynum stories hitting the L.A. papers lately (seriously, his P.R. machine is working overtime), I'm not convinced that his addition to the lineup automatically makes the Lakers unstoppable. There's the whole thing about figuring out how to co-exist with Pau Gasol, and how Lamar Odom will perform (likely) playing further away from the basket. When you add in the fact that even if the team was capable of winning 70 games, there's really no motivation to do so, unless someone else is on the same ridiculous pace and it would mean home court advantage.