SAN FRANCISCO -- As the losses continue to mount and with their All-Star core sidelined, the Warriors are battling the chatter of tanking, eliciting a familiar reaction among players.
"I laugh at that stuff," Warriors forward Glenn Robinson admitted Friday morning. "A lot of people think we're just coming out here tanking and not playing hard and not trying to win. But we come into work every day, we're working hard, we're competing."
Despite the effort, Golden State continues to struggle. In the last month, seven players have gone down with injuries, including superstar guard Steph Curry, who is expected to be sidelined until February with a broken hand. Of the nine players who suited up in Wednesday's loss to the Lakers, none were on the team last year.
As a result, the Warriors have lost 10 of their first 12 games, including their last two by an average margin of 20 points. The output is a far cry from Golden State's performance in recent seasons. Over the last five years, the Warriors won 78 percent of their games -- marking the best run in NBA history over the stretch. Still, Robinson remains upbeat.
"The best times come after you've been humbled," he said. "I think that's something we're all going through, that's something the organization's going through. A lot of teams got our mark. The Warriors have been kicking people's a--es for the last five, six years and so everybody wants to come in and come hard against us."
Robinson, who signed a one-year, $1.8 million deal with a player option last summer, has a similar story as the rest of Golden State's battered roster. The onset of his career has been defined by movement, as he played for three teams in his first three NBA seasons. He seemed to gain traction in Indiana, where he became a solid rotation player for the Pacers behind star forward Paul George.
In 2016-17, Robinson shot 39 percent from 3-point range. However, after signing a two-year deal with the Detroit Pistons last season, he struggled, averaging just 4.2 points and 1.5 rebounds while shooting 42 percent from the field. In Golden State, he hopes to find success despite a depleted roster.
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"The goal for myself and the goal for everybody should be playing as well as we can, competing, playing hard and try to stay here," Robinson said. "Because I've been on teams where this could be a stop where guys could play for points and guys could play for whatever just to go their separate ways but I think staying together is the biggest thing because we got to continue to see the big picture both this year and next year when guys get healthy."
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Hope may be on the way for the Warriors to balance scales going forward. Curry, Green and Thompson all are expected to be healthy by the start of next season, bringing back the core formidable enough to compete in the Western Conference, a plan Robinson hopes to be a part of.
"That's why I came here, he said. "It's a place where I really want to make my stamp in the league."
