You can exhale Warriors fans, there is hope. The universe works in mysterious ways, and yesterday, it worked for the Warriors.

Just when the flagging team needed it, on a day when they could only suit up seven players in a loss to the Clippers (as predicted by our LAist comrades), the Warriors announced that they had pulled off an almost unbelievable eight-player trade with the Indiana Pacers. And there is more good news. Some how, some way, VP of Basketball Operations Chris Mullin convinced his Indiana counterpart, Larry Bird, to take Mike Dunleavy and Troy Murphy. That's right! The Warriors unloaded both baby Duns and Man-o-War in one fell swoop. And it keeps getting better. In return, Mullin snagged Al Harrington to help bolster the frontcourt lineup and guard Stephen Jackson to, uh, help with the police lineup. Both teams also threw in a couple of redshirts to level out the financials and collective bargaining requirements, but even the redshirts are looking good.

On June 28, the Warriors have the ninth pick in the 2006 NBA draft. With anxiety over their drafting position now relieved, the Warriors can get down to the business of deciding who to choose with old number nine. First though, they ought to give some long, hard thought to who is going to do the deciding.

Unfortunately,the Decider is a bit preoccupied right now with his own messes, so GState's candidates for the next round of Medal of Freedom awards -- owner Chris Cohan, VP of basketball ops Chris Mullin, and GM Rod Higgins -- are going to have to handle things on their own again this year. Y'uh-oh.

Cohan is apparently dead set on supplanting Donald Sterling as the most inept owner in recent NBA history. Since becoming majority owner of the team in 1995, the Warriors have never finished above .500, have not made the playoffs once, have burned through seven head coaches, and have done jack squat with 11 straight lottery picks.