According to this hoopsworld.com post I just saw on Marcus Thompson’s blog, Corey Maggette’s going to be out for a while longer with a small hamstring tear.

After he and Baron essentially swapped uniforms, I’ve had a running bet with a friend on which one of these hired guns would get hurt first. Looks like I was wrong, and I owe him a steak dinner (Sizzler anyone?). Our 29 year-old swingman appears to have made the first pit-stop. With the Warriors looking pretty abysmal as it is, I can’t say that I’m all that upset/disappointed by this news. I really do NOT enjoy watching Corey play. His game is boring and predictable. He has no flair for the dramatic. Sure he can dunk reasonably well (though unimaginatively), and he shoots a lot of free throws, but he lacks the intangibles, that something-else-that-brings-you-to-the-arena that really captures a sports fan’s imagination.

Sports is about hope and potential. The hope of an improbable upset or a charmed playoff run. The potential of a young high-flyer leading even younger high-flyers to the promised land. That’s why we’re fans. Not to see Magettee and Jamal Crawford do all the things they’ve done throughout their long careers to get people falsely excited, only to cruelly disappoint them soon after.

No doubt the ramifications of Maggette’s new, bad contract will put our favorite Oakland team in a dangerous position. It will require both Chris Mullin’s eventual replacement and Robert Rowell’s ego to do some creative accounting and intense finger-crossing. It will be the albatross around the Warriors’ neck. It will suck.

But at least this means, for a while, we’ll be seeing a lot more of the younger guys out there.

I never wish injury upon any player, but I look forward to watching the young W’s consistently amaze and frustrate on consecutive plays as their potential manifests itself to the highest and lowest degrees.