Despite the loss of Klay Thompson, the Golden State Warriors are off to a sizzling start in the early weeks of this 2024-25 NBA season, winning 10 of their first 13 games.
Their only losses thus far have come to the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los Angeles Clippers, the latter of whom have taken the Dubs down twice.
Otherwise, Steve Kerr's new-look squad has been fantastic. While the early portion of Golden State's schedule wasn't overly difficult, the Warriors have notched several notable victories in this early stretch of the campaign.
They've beaten both participants from last year's NBA Finals in the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks and are also responsible for one of the few losses taken by the Oklahoma City Thunder, who currently own the best record in the Western Conference at 11-3.
What's been so great about this early-season run from Golden State is how balanced it's been.
Offensively, the Warriors are putting up 119.6 points per game, the fourth-most in the league. And that offense is coming from both the starting five and the reserves. Led, of course, by Steph Curry, who leads the team in scoring at 23.0 points per game, the Golden State starters — whomever they may be, as Kerr has used several different lineups thus far for various reasons — are averaging 63.2 points per game.
But the bench isn't far behind. Led by Buddy Hield, who ranks second behind Curry at 16.9 points per game, and Jonathan Kuminga, who's absolutely thrived since being taken out of the starting lineup, the Warriors' reserves are averaging a league-best 56.4 points per game.
But it's not all offense with this team, as they've been getting it done on the defensive end as well, allowing just 110.1 points per game, tied for the sixth-fewest in the NBA.
Given the all-around efforts from this team through the first sixth of the season, it's not surprising to see the Warriors getting a lot of love from various NBA Power Rankings.
Subscribe to The Whiteboard, FanSided’s daily email newsletter on everything basketball. If you like The Whiteboard, share it with a friend! If you don’t like The Whiteboard, share it with an enemy.
The Warriors rank among the top four in all the major NBA Power Rankings
Before we get to our roundup, it should be noted that some of these NBA Power Rankings were released prior to the Warriors' three-point loss to the Clippers on Monday night.
Nevertheless, as they've still got the second-best record in the league and the fourth-best mark in the entire league, one wouldn't think they'd shift that much.
NBA.com: 2
John Schuhmann of NBA.com has the Warriors ranked second in his latest rankings, trailing only the Cavs. Just to get this out of the way, Cleveland is obviously No. 1 in every one of these, so that'll be the last you hear of that.
Schuhmann takes a unique approach in his analysis, taking plenty of time to highlight how dominant Golden State has been in the third quarter of games.
The Warriors have outscored opponents by 25.3 points per 100 possessions coming out of the locker room, the most of any team in any quarter this season. But with 138 points in those same 100 possessions, that shouldn't be a surprise.
ESPN: 4
ln their most recent rankings, ESPN has Golden State in the No. 4 position.
As they typically go with some sort of theme for their NBA Power Rankings, this week's was centered around every team's most important role player.
But they couldn't stick with just one given this deep Warriors roster, highlighting both Buddy Hield and Jonathan Kuminga. As stated in our intro, Hield ranks second on the team in scoring, largely thanks to shooting 46.2% from the three-point line. Kuminga currently ranks fourth in scoring, putting up 14.0 points per game.
CBS Sports: 2
Colin Ward-Henninger of CBS Sports has the Warriors ranked second in his latest edition and highlights the pair of franchise cornerstones who still call the Bay Area home.
He specifically mentions Steph Curry's incredible performance against Klay Thompson and the Mavs, one in which he scored a dozen points down the stretch to lead the Dubs to victory, which was just absurd.
But he also points out the underrated defense being played this season by Draymond Green, which was a respectful touch because it's absolutely true.
Yahoo! Sports: 2
Yahoo! Sports also has Golden State in the second spot, highlighting some of the convincing wins Kerr & Co. have taken thus far.
This one also has maybe the best sentence we came across in all of these, saying, "Stephen Curry continues to break the game of basketball with a stellar campaign."
We'll just go ahead and end things with that.
