The first thought, of course, is that these are imposters, fakers who've stolen the uniforms of the Golden State Warriors. Because these Warriors appear to give a damn. They fight for rebounds and dive on the floor and they aren't pretty to watch by a long shot, but they've won more games in three weeks than they won the last three months of last season.

	Fortson has been a rebounding machine and has stayed healthy.

That was 2-32 after the All-Star break, if you were paying attention. And if you were, congratulations. Almost nobody else was.

"We were bad," Larry Hughes says.

"Couldn't really turn on the games," Danny Fortson says. "And I didn't really want to go to the home games."

Let's reintroduce you to the new Warriors, who are and aren't the same as the old Warriors. There's Erick Dampier, who missed 38 games with a knee injury last season, and Hughes, who missed 32 games last season with a bum left shoulder and a sprained right thumb, and Chris Mills, who missed 64 games last season with a bad ankle that required surgery, and Bob Sura, who missed 26 games with a strained lower back, and Fortson, who was averaging 16.7 points and 16.3 rebounds at this same time last season when he broke the fifth metatarsal bone in his left foot -- an injury that shelved him for the last 76 games.

Plus, there are the Triplets, Golden State's three rookies -- Jason Richardson, Troy Murphy and Gilbert Arenas -- who all came from college programs that won big. Richardson has big ups and a bigger upside. Murphy plays like he's been in the league 10 years, scoring inside with either hand and hitting clutch jumpers. Does the name DeBusschere ring a bell?

"We've got an old crew and a young crew now," coach Dave Cowens says.

Two weeks into this season, the Warriors already have four road wins -- two-thirds of last season's total. Mills is leading the league in three-point percentage (10 of 12, .833) and overall field goal percentage (.643). Adonal Foyle, who's better than anybody the Knicks currently have in the paint, is 10th in the league in blocked shots. Hughes is making a game go of it at point guard. The team is fourth in the league in field goal percentage allowed (.407).

But the Warriors are winning because they're pounding teams on the glass. They're first in the league in boards per night -- 50.3 per game. They're led by Fortson, who's picked up right where he left off last season. After Hoovering 22 boards Monday night in Memphis, Fortson -- who gave up red meat this summer and dropped 10 pounds -- leads the league at 14.1 boards per night.

	ALDRIDGE'S RANKINGS
	THE TOP 10 1. L.A. Lakers 2. San Antonio 3. Sacramento 4. Minnesota 5. Milwaukee 6. Dallas 7. New Jersey 8. Indiana 9. Houston 10. Detroit THE BOTTOM FIVE 25. Washington 26. Atlanta 27. Cleveland 28. Memphis 29. Chicago

"Everybody came in this summer," Fortson says. "I couldn't run until August or September, but guys were coming in and working hard. Guys were lifting weights, shooting the ball. I think that may have helped a lot coming into this season...the attitude change."

Hughes isn't a classic point by any stretch. He's only averaging 4.9 dimes a game. I still wonder if his shoot-first mentality won't ultimately take over. But he's trying. When the Warriors fell in love with Richardson before the draft, and told Hughes what they were going to do, he knew he had to re-learn a different position -- the one Larry Brown unsuccessfully tried to get Hughes to feel comfortable with in Philly.

"If I had stayed around a little longer, I probably would have played that position there," Hughes said. "They were teaching me. I was out there with Mo (Cheeks) all the time. He was letting me know where guys should be. A lot of it was learning. I was young, so I was just taking everything in. Now I know how to watch game film, figure out where guys want the ball, and figure out things I should and shouldn't do. I learned out there."

There could be a problem, though. The Warriors have to eventually do something with Marc Jackson, who came back unhappily after Golden State matched his $24 million offer sheet from Houston. Even though Cowens says Jackson's attitude has been fine since his return, and despite the fact he's getting garbage minutes while recovering from a calf injury, Golden State will have to revisit that eventually. Plus, I hear Antawn Jamison isn't thrilled that Cowens seems to forget about him for six- and seven-minute stretches at a time.

"I think we can get above .500," Hughes said. "That's within our reach. And we'll sort it out from there. We've got teams on the west coast that are up and coming also. We feel like if we steal a couple of games here and there we can just slide in there. Whether it's eight, seven or whatever, as long as we get in there, we feel like we can make things happen."

He didn't just hint at the playoffs, did he? Where the Warriors haven't been in seven years? It's the longest of long shots, to be sure. But the Nuggets don't have Antonio McDyess until January and the Rockets did lose Maurice Taylor for the season and the Clippers can't keep Lamar Odom sober for long enough and the Grizzle, though more interesting this season, is still the Grizzle and it's just November, and November is the month of Big Dreams in the NBA, so why can't Golden State fantasize?

Well, because they've only beaten a bunch of slugs so far. But it's still been a nice November.

Dougie's Dilemma
Doug Collins is trying so hard not to go medieval on his young Wizards, who seem so unwilling to defend or rebound. And he has the impossible task of coaching his boss. It is impossible. He can't jump Jordan the way he'd like, his protestations to the contrary. And he's coaching two distinctly different teams. There's the halfcourt team of Jordan and Christian Laettner and Chris Whitney and Popeye Jones, the one that knows what it's doing on the floor. And there's the transition-favoring young group of Courtney Alexander and Tyronn Lue and Kwame Brown and Etan Thomas, which is basically clueless at the moment.

And there's Richard Hamilton, who seems to go back and forth between the two.

"When Michael's on the floor, we're sort of a half-court, post it up, execute" team, Collins said. "Now we've got to be able to get something easy. We don't get anything easy. Everything is like pulling teeth to try to get something. So a team will break out and get seven quick points on us, and we have to grind it out to get three baskets. And I'd like at some point to get some easy ones, but at the same time, if we get too much tempo, we can't cover back."

He can't mix the two groups, because he runs the risk of having players who don't know the plays messing up. But he can't leave the intelligent players out on the floor all the time, because he'll burn them out. He had to depend so much on Jordan for everything -- points, rebounds, assists, defense -- that when Jordan doesn't have it all on a given night, the Wizards don't have a prayer.

You learn about people when they face adversity. With all the attention and unrealistic expectations on the Wiz this season, the spotlight is hot and harsh on Collins' bean. And you know what? I really respect what the guy is trying to do, and the way he's trying to do it.

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