It’s the moment all Golden State and Australian basketball fans have been waiting for.

Andrew Bogut has finally returned for the Golden State Warriors today against the Toronto Raptors, after being on the sidelines for 82 days!

Rumours had been circulating last week that Bogut was still a month away from making his long awaited return but much to the delight of his team mates and fans alike, he returned much earlier than expected.

Bogut came back straight into the starting line up and made an immediate impact, scoring the first basket of the game with a nice post move finished off with a left hook shot. He also pulled down the first rebound of the game.

Possibly the most pleasing thing for Warrior fans was Bogut’s much loved shot blocking made a return.

Bogut finished with an impressive 4 blocks. Including what I like to call a BLOCK PARTY in the second quarter.

The player most excited about Bogut’s return would have to David Lee, when Bogut was on the court you could just see how much more room Lee had to operate in. Bogut played the first 6 minutes of the game, which led to Lee having a hot hand, putting in 9 points.

Bogut was back to old self as a great rebounder pulling down 8 rebounds, including 1 on the offensive end. This is a welcome addition for David Lee once again, taking the pressure off him to to do the bulk of the rebounding along with Carl landy.

Bogut was doing his fair share of scoring for the team too.

He was a great inside force, with all of his 12 points coming from inside the paint. Bogut was an excellent 6/8 from the field.

Bogut finished with the very encouraging all round stat line of 12 points, 8 rebounds, 4 blocks, 2 assists, 1 steal and the win in 23.36 minutes of game time.

Not bad for a bloke playing his first game in over two and half months!

The final score: Warriors: 114 – Raptors:102

Who else is happy for Bogut’s return?

Do you think his return now makes Golden State a Western Conference Finals contender?

Photo Credit: Reuters