Amidst an active offseason throughout the league, the Golden State Warriors have remained sedentary. The only moves made were shipping seldom used shooting guard Marco Belinelli to the Toronto Raptors for Devean George, and drafting highly touted guard Stephen Curry. One Warrior likely to see an increase in minutes this season is the one Warrior who couldn’t stay out of the news this summer. Surprisingly, it was all for good reasons that we heard his name over the summer.

Warriors forward Anthony Randolph has reportedly added 20 pounds to his scrawny body and grew an inch since the end of the last season. Randolph is 19 years old, and is starting to blossom as a true force at power forward. Randolph was without question the most talented and unstoppable player in this year’s NBA summer league. He put up an unreal 27 points, 8.5 boards, 3 blocks and 61% from the floor average in four games. The only blemish on his summer season was twoe nights after teammate he tied a summer-league record by scoring 42 points, teammate  Anthony Morrow rolled 47 points against New Orleans. Needless to say, it was an eye opener for a team shy of talent at the four spot.

The Warriors will look to Randolph and the wealth of other scorers on their team to improve on the paltry 29-53 campaign of last season. The team is still mourning the loss of Baron Davis to free agency, and has yet to find a leader, or anyone really, to force them to play defense. This does mesh will with the team’s philosophy of running and gunning, and with a slew of scorers, they will at the very least be able to put points on the board. Along with Morrow, Curry and Randoph, Corey Maggette, Monta Ellis, and Stephen Jackson will take a bulk, if not all, of the shots. Andris Biedrins and Ronny Turiaf will do the dirty work under the basket to get rebounds and man the post, but more importantly to get the outlet pass to start the break. The bench isn’t too awful talent wise with the acquisition of George, an improvement from Brandan Wright, and whichever combination of the above players does not start. The best case scenario for Golden State is to get hot and slide into the 8th playoff slot. A more likely scenario is a lottery pick in the 2010 draft, and that is a notion We Believe.

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