As we enter Day 10 of the Lance Kiffin hostage situation. ...

Here's a roundup of sports news...

Attrition has been one of the Warriors' best pickups this offeseason. While the Warriors have taken some baby steps forward, many of the Western Conference rivals have been moving in the opposite direction.

When looking at the Warriors chances to make the playoffs this year, it runs from the bottom up....

There is no doubt that coach Don Nelson and his sidekick Chris Mullen have reshaped the Warriors, and the team now has a pretty strong pool of players from which Nellie can choose to implement his failed system of up-tempo small-ball.

The Warriors season starts up tonight and in honor of the return of basketball, SFist Chris takes a look at the Warriors. ...

The increasingly nasty little rivalry brewing between the Mavs & Dubs took on a whole new dimension as Mark Cuban sued Don Nelson for using some sort of super-double secret confidential information against the Mavs in this year's playoffs. As the old adage says, if you can't beat 'em, sue 'em. ...

" . . . and with the 18th pick, the Golden State Warriors take . . . Marco Belinelli."

Uhhh, come again?

It's been 365 days, one failed first round draft round pick, a new/old coach, a franchise-changing trade, and an improbable playoff run since last year's NBA draft, and guess what? The Warriors needs coming into today's 2007 NBA draft haven't changed one bit from last year.

They still need a big body down low that can board and command the paint, and they need a defensive stopper.

Bust out the Thin Lizzy Warrior Nation, because the boys are back in town.

Thursday night in the vaunted O-rena, the Warriors rebounded from back-to-back shoulda-coulda-wouldas in Salt Lake City to dominate the Utah Jazz, 125-105. In the must-win game 3, the Warriors not only staunched the momentum bleed of games 1 and 2, they completely reversed it. And they couldn't have done it without the uplifting energy and emotion of the hometown crowd -- and of course, Baron Davis.

Improbably, almost impossibly, the Golden State Warriors' dream season continues tonight with game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal matchup with the Utah Jazz. The Warriors are into the semis by virtue of their historic six-game stunner over the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks; the Jazz eeked out a game 7 road win over the Houston Rockets.

The Jazz are the fourth seed in the Western Conference, but in our minds, its the Dubs that enter this series as the favorites. The Jazz are undoubtedly mentally and physically drained after their game 7 thriller on Saturday, while the Warriors are riding a wave of emotion that shows no sign of dissipating.

Go ahead Bay Area, whoop it the hell up. Call in sick to work, pick up a twelver at the corner store, order some team gear online, call your boys over, and replay game 6 again and again and again on your DVR. It's time to cel-eh-brate, come on! Last night in the O-rena, before 20,677 fanatics-in-arms, your Golden State Warriors rose up and crushed the Dallas Mavericks, 111-86, to close out their first-round, best-of-seven series, four games to two.

Warrior Nation, can it get any better? Seriously. After Golden State's tenacious, gutty, and spirited come-from-behind 103-99 victory over the Dallas Mavericks Sunday night in the O-rena, the Warriors have taken a 3-1 lead in their best-of-seven series. After 13 years of waiting, nobody in the NBA is more jacked up than the Warriors and their long-suffering fans.

The season has gone from just another shit sandwich to a gravy train with biscuit wheels in little more than a month. From nine games below .500 to .500. Not just a .500 record, but playoffs. Not just playoffs, but most favorable matchup. Not just favorable matchup, but a game one victory to take home court advantage in the series and set the basketball world abuzz.

That huge farting noise you heard last night wasn't Mark Cuban sitting on a whoopee cushion, it was the sound of the air going out of the Warriors playoff fantasy balloon.

In a game that featured sloppy ballhandling, poor shooting, and bad behavior by our beloved hometown cagers, the Dallas Mavericks regained their basketball footing and reclaimed the psychological advantage in their opening-round playoff series with the Warriors.

OK, so we've gotten some flak about picking the Warriors to take down the Dallas Mavericks in six games in the opening round of the NBA's western Conference playoffs. We'll be the first to admit it's a homer pick, because, well, we do really want the Warriors to win, and we'll be the first to admit it.

But our pie in the sky has an empirical basis. Here's five reasons why the Warriors will beat the Mavs in this playoff series.

The embattled Warriors came shuffling into Monday night's game down in the dumps like a pair of sunglasses in a pit toilet.

They had a cancerous six-game losing streak.

They were winless thus far on an abysmal road trip.

They were nine games under .500, going up against the Eastern Conference-leading Detroit Pistons, on the road.

They carried the second-worst road record in the entire Association, a pitiful 6-25.

They had won only once all season in the second game of back-to-backs.

They had never, ever won in the Palace of Auburn Hills.

In lieu of the NFL trying to trademark the words "Big Game," we are going to do our best to honor them by using the phrase "Big Game" as much as possible. -The Warriors once again get blown out on the road, this time to the Chicago Bulls in their BIg Game. Even Don Nelson seems to be throwing in the towel about playing in all of those Big Games in the playoffs. ...

It's come to that point of the season -- make or break time. Backed up to the edge of seasons past, the Warriors find themselves heading off on a six-game East Coast road trip with a must-win mentality.

The right-coast swing, which includes two sets of back-to-backs and games against Indianapolis and playoff rival Minnesota, is the kind of mid-season road trip that has buried lesser Warriors teams of yesteryear. Like, say, lasteryear's team.

This year's squad hasn't fared particularly well on the road either, limping to a 4-15 record thus far. Warriors fans are a confident, if not resilient bunch though.

So imagine you have a job. And imagine you're really good at your job. You know it, your coworkers know it, and your bosses know it. Now imagine that there's a management position that opens up which would be a great promotion for you. So you apply for it. You think you would be great at the job, your coworkers think you would be great at the job and your friends think you would be great at the job. Now imagine that instead of you getting the job, the head of the company give it to some snot nosed punk straight out of school with no experience. Welcome to Rob Ryan's world...

After a weekend in which it felt like we watched about 100 hours of football, all we can say is Bill Belichick has some major cojones and one can only wonder what Marty Schottenheimer did in a past life to deserve everything that has happened to him in the playoffs. ...

-Joe Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo will start in the NHL All Star game. -The Giants already start working on their tribute to the 2002 Giants by signing Russ Ortiz. Hey, what's Shawn Estes doing these days? ...

-The Warriors beat the SuperSonics at the Oracle, 108-104 as the Warriors fended off a rampaging Ray Allen. Don Nelson really likes Kelenna Azubuike. ...

New year, same crap. Actually, it's still 2006, so maybe the Warriors are just clearing their pipes of the last dregs of bad karma before starting a new year and a new franchise era -- one that will be known to future Warriors fans as The Warriors Decade. Either way, Saturday night in Sacramento, fate and bad planning teamed up to dish the Warriors a cosmic double-tap, with the Kings throwing in an unhappy ending, for good measure.

Jason Richardson broke his hand, first round draft pick Patrick O'Bryant was optioned to the minors, and the Warriors took a 116-97 facial from the Kings.

Ho' boy. Somebody better call FEMA. Fire up the buses and make sure that the Oracle has plenty of cots and bottled water, because there could be a CAT5 disaster looming in the Warriors future.

Last night at the Oracle, the team was able to withstand the Sacramento Kings, 126-113, in a game that the hometown hoopsters controlled from the opening minutes, but there's storm clouds brewing. Ironically, last year's killer storm, Hurricane Artest, was in the house to remind the Warriors about decision making. It was ironic, because the Warriors again find themselves toying with the idea of voluntarily welcoming an NBA bad boy into the fold even as their team chemistry seems to be taking on a little water.

-Warriors beat Hornets giving Don Nelson his 1,2000th victory. Could Allen Iverson play for the Warriors? But do they really need him? -We have to give the Chron headline guy credit for this one: "Two for Cheechoo in Sharks' Win." -Scott Ostler wonders why the Giants outbid themselves for Bonds while Ray Ratto says both the Giants and A's are hampered by the lack of young prospects out there to try and wrangle up. -Cal......

Bonds signing, Day 2... While the players are psyched and according to the Chron, Giant's fans are too, Bruce Jenkins is not. He, in fact, drops in to rip the deal, calling the front office "gutless," says the season is already over, wishes the team were more like the Dodgers, and thinks the Giants are basically nothing but a freak show right now. Jenkins must have powered the energy haterade as he cranks out two columns and makes Eve's day by posting on the blog too. The Betting Fool, however, gets all misty when comparing Bonds to the late Jose Uribe and let's his readers rip the deal. Meanwhile, Tim Liotta of the Ex sees gray people. ...

Memo to David Stern: Start the playoffs right now, baby, the Warriors are ready to make a run!

What is it with this team? Just when Warrior nation was about to write them off as the latest version of Chris Cohan's spectacularly unsuccessful basketball product, they up and beat two of the best teams in the league in consecutive games.

The Warriors crazy train to fantasyland went a little off the rails last night as they dropped a heartbreaker to the Phoenix Suns, 113-110, snapping their seven-game home winning streak and five-game overall streak. It would have been nice to get the win last night, but the team is playing well and looking strong. They haven't looked this good since, uh, last November.

USC 23- Cal 9: We honestly felt Cal would have no chance with USC as we figured Cal to be merely a "Good in the Pac 10" type team, the kind of team who could beat the Beavers but not the big guys. But Cal put up a fight and held 'SC close for three quarters before finally giving way to a superior Trojan team. They did have the lead at 9-6 at halftime but between stupid mistakes, turn overs, and some bad breaks, they couldn't do much against the Trojans in the second half, leading to the playing over and over again of that damn USC fight song. We hate that song. ...

Easy, Nellie, easy baby. It's early yet. Tuesday night, the Warriors came from behind in the Oracle to beat the Portland Trailblazers relatively easily, 108-96. But in the post-game news conference coach Don Nelson was acting like the Warriors had just blown the season. Head hanging, shirt open several buttons at the collar, hair disheveled, the seemingly overly overwrought Nelson moaned that "there were so many things wrong" with the team's performance in the......

On Friday, the Warriors announced their biggest signing of the year so far, agreeing to a 10-year, $30 million naming rights agreement with free agent multinational software corporation Oracle. The new name of the erstwhile Oakland Arena? Oracle. No, not The Oracle, just Oracle. (The Oracle would actually be pretty cool, although given the team's draft history, brutally ironic.)